[Bigred0942]

I bought a green brain coral from the LPS and i put him in the sand in my reef tank. He opened up one night, then since then he has not. Now he is turning white. I do not know what to do, can someone help me????
My calcium is 320, a little low, but ive been trying to bring it up.
Phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, and amonia are all Zero.
KH is 8.5, and PH is 8.8.
The coral is about 40 inches from 15k lights.
Any suggestions please let me know, I dont want to lose him.

[scubadude]

What are your water parameters? What type of lighting do you have (wattage), and what type of lighting was the coral in from the LFS? Is the tissue white or do you see white skeleton? Sounds to me like you have an acclimation issue.

[Bigred0942]

My lights are 250 watt 150k halides, and 175 watt blue actinic. It is white skeleton, and the LFS had them under just compact florecents. When I aclimated it I went through the usual acclimation I do for fish. I put the bag floating in the tank for about an hour, then take some tank water in a bucket then put the coral/fish in the bucket for about 2 hours. While I did this I only had my actinics on.
Do you recommend a better way to acclimate coral???
And do you think I can save the coral since it looks like white skelleton???

Thank you for responding

[art_of_war]

Man,

this is a TOUGH thread to answer. I too had a "green brain coral" that didn't last that long. To this day, I still don't know why either. I doubt it's your water parameters or lighting but the lighting may be a little too strong for them (cutting back on the photoperiod until it adjusts could help). However, I did have a theory a long time ago about hitch-hiking coral predators that had the tendency of stressing out certain corals that are not equipped to defend themselves like most; brain coral being one of them. And being on the substrate makes them more susceptible. Unfortunately, brain coral has to be place on the substrate. Another theory I had was the water movement/flow was either too strong or too light.

Your acclimation method isn't bad. These are one of those "I have no idea" answers.

[Bigred0942]

Thank You very much. I think next time I will lower the photoperiod next time