New Growth or Something Else?

[nickkohrn]

I picked up a frag of PC Rainbow Acropora a couple of weeks ago at the Buckeye Reef Marine Expo. The seller said that it was in high light, above 400 PAR, which is why it has a red/pink coloration rather than the rainbow coloration that the coral is known for. I moved it downward, lower into the tank, to give it less light so that the rainbow coloration can begin to show.

Today, I noticed that the tips are much lighter than the rest of the tissue. Does it appear to be new growth, or could it be something else?

Some of my parameters are higher than I want, but I am switching salts to see if that helps. The current measurements are:

• Alkalinity - 8 dKH
• Calcium - 540 ppm
• Magnesium - 1,500+ ppm
• Nitrates - 0 ppm (began dosing Brightwell Aquatics' NĒONITRO)
• Phosphates - 0.05-0.10 ppm

 

[kdino]

Your calcium and your mag are slightly elevated, but to me t looks like it could be the start of new growth. Tt looks relatively happy to me.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

How's your polyp extension? Looks like new growth to me but a good sign is always PE!

 

[nickkohrn]

How's your polyp extension? Looks like new growth to me but a good sign is always PE!

Its polyp extension is always as seen in the attached photo of the original post, which isn’t great, but the polyps do seem to be quite small. However, all of my other SPS have great polyp extension.

 

[SeaDweller]

It’s possibly new growth. I have two “variants” of this. I say this cuz I have two frags from different colonies, so probably not “variants” but I like to think of them that way. They both came from T5 lit tanks and one was getting hit with so much light that the whole piece I have is red. The other has it’s rainbow colors, despite it being higher in my LED tank than the other mini colony I have.

The all red mini colony I have, I moved to the sand-bed area and when all blue LEDs are on, I’m seeing yellows and oranges in the inner portions of it. Obviously most of us prefer this.

I wish you luck coloring up that piece you have, it’s one of my favorites.

 

[nickkohrn]

It’s possibly new growth. I have two “variants” of this. I say this cuz I have two frags from different colonies, so probably not “variants” but I like to think of them that way. They both came from T5 lit tanks and one was getting hit with so much light that the whole piece I have is red. The other has it’s rainbow colors, despite it being higher in my LED tank than the other mini colony I have.

The all red mini colony I have, I moved to the sand-bed area and when all blue LEDs are on, I’m seeing yellows and oranges in the inner portions of it. Obviously most of us prefer this.

I wish you luck coloring up that piece you have, it’s one of my favorites.

Thanks! I do see a corallites that has a noticeable yellow/green coloration under blues, so I’m hoping that it will spread throughout the rest of the colony.