Incredible Chlorophyll/Zooxanthellae Content in an Acropora

[Dana Riddle]

I have a chlorophyll meter than can measure the content in corals. I measured chlorophyll in shaded portions of corals in Hawaiian tide pools and found it to be around 200-250 milligrams/per square meter. In a recent visit I found chlorophyll to be around 800 mg/m2... 800! The Acro in the photo had a little less than that. Lighting is provided by Radions and PPFD was around 400 micromol/m2/sec. It would take a full scale investigation to even begin to figure out why chlorophyll is so high. But the point at present is that the nutrient/element demand would be high. Flow would be very important as well. More later.

 

[Dana Riddle]

That should have read" "In a recent visit to see a fellow hobbyist's aquarium..."

 

[Flippers4pups]

I have a chlorophyll meter than can measure the content in corals. I measured chlorophyll in shaded portions of corals in Hawaiian tide pools and found it to be around 200-250 milligrams/per square meter. In a recent visit I found chlorophyll to be around 800 mg/m2... 800! The Acro in the photo had a little less than that. Lighting is provided by Radions and PPFD was around 400 micromol/m2/sec. It would take a full scale investigation to even begin to figure out why chlorophyll is so high. But the point at present is that the nutrient/element demand would be high. Flow would be very important as well. More later.

Very cool!

 

[PSXerholic]

I have a chlorophyll meter than can measure the content in corals. I measured chlorophyll in shaded portions of corals in Hawaiian tide pools and found it to be around 200-250 milligrams/per square meter. In a recent visit I found chlorophyll to be around 800 mg/m2... 800! The Acro in the photo had a little less than that. Lighting is provided by Radions and PPFD was around 400 micromol/m2/sec. It would take a full scale investigation to even begin to figure out why chlorophyll is so high. But the point at present is that the nutrient/element demand would be high. Flow would be very important as well. More later.

So for the reefing community, what does drive the higher amount of chlorophyll in the coral?
Is it limitations that prevents increased chlorophyll, and what in your opinion is supporting increase of chlorophyll .....

I know these are powerful questions, that could turn into a book to answer, however how would you try to explain this in a relative short answer?

Very nice picture btw.

-Andre

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

Following along

 

[oreo54]

more chlorophyll in algae or more algae w/ chlorophyll..

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps2009/384/m384p107.pdf

Anyways just for fun..

This positive effect concurs both with previousfield studies (Fagoonee et al. 1999) and laboratory-based nitrogen enrichments (Marubini & Davies 1996),further suggesting that growth of zooxanthellae in shallow waters is nitrogen-limited.

Frontiers | Long term photoacclimation responses of the coral Stylophora pistillata to reciprocal deep to shallow transplantation: photosynthesis and calcification

Reciprocal transplantation of Stylophora pistillata coral fragments between deep (30m) and shallow sites (3m) was conducted gradually and resulted with 100% ...

www.frontiersin.org

 

[taricha]

I'll just point out that hobby conventional wisdom might expect high chlorophyll content should mean browned out corals, but as the picture attests, that is clearly not the case.

Dana, I think you've slapped down that myth before, but fascinating to see this case demonstration.