Color morphing with lighting--wow

[watchguy123]

I have two tupperware sand boxes in my bare bottom frag tank. On one side, I have had a thick batch of chaeto sitting on top of one of the tupperware boxes. I had a rock with two shrooms in it and it has been covered up by the chaeto for some weeks now. Decided to take a look today and move my couple shrooms over to the lit tupperware box.

I also had kept one shroom of the same color in the normally lit tupperware box.

So, I moved the rock over and couple surprises. First of all, three babies. And then I placed the normally lit shroom on top of the rock and wow, check out the color differences. I found it pretty striking.

First pic, chaeto covering one of the two tupperware san boxes.


Next is the tupperware sand box that gets light. You can see the junk i keep in there plus the lit shroom and the two big "unlit" shrooms



Close up of normally lighted shroom, and of the two morphs which had been in the dark covered with chaeto are now yellow-green




This is where all mushrooms originally came from in my display, lower right hand corner, should be able to see mushrooms on rock




I expect the morphed shrooms to return to their original orange color now that they are once again receiving light. Thought this was pretty interesting change nonetheless, even if temporary.

 

[reefsponge]

I have had a similar occurrence. I purchased a frag of yellow yuma that was as yellow as the members yellow tang in the pictures. Recieved it and after a few weeks it was bright orange in my display. It's still nice, just would have rather had yellow. I think true yellow in any coral is the hardest and rarest morph to find in the majority of coral species.