smooth skin developing discoloration

[coralbeauties]

I have a neon green smooth skin acro that is an amazing green. I have had it for years but it has slowly been having some of its tips loose their green and turn what appears to be somewhat purple. It isnt stn or tip burn. There is clearly skin covering it. Ive attached a pic of it. Any ideas as to what is going one with this piece?
thanks
Jeff

 

[Rukk]

I am really no help but I am curious if you changed your lighting recently?

 

[coralbeauties]

The coral has been slowly doing this so not sure what might be doing this.
Jeff

 

[BranchingHammer]

Could be grafting with a pigment from another coral in the tank...

 

[coralbeauties]

Could be grafting with a pigment from another coral in the tank...

would a coral need to be touching another coral to pick up a pigment? This piece is quite a bit of distance from another coral.
Jeff

 

[SeaDweller]

Are you positive the purple is tissue and not skeleton reflecting some lights? Some tips look like tissue recession, and i say that because the appearance of the green looks like it’s peeling and you can see where tissue begins and ends.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

It does really look like grafting or a pigment infection which is normally green though. If it is defiantly flesh covered I would cut a few frags from the branch tips and see if they grow out with more pink in them!

 

[CuzzA]

If you're using leds they could be hot spots due to lack of spectrum blending and the coral is just adapting to the light.

Another theory could be coral maturing. It's pretty rare to see true colonies in an aquarium. Most tanks have a bunch of frags packed in that resemble nothing of coral colonies in the wild. Perhaps as some of these species of corals are left to mature they develop their true colors.

 

[coralbeauties]

The tissue is still there. It does appear to be not as thick as the green tissue though. If it were receded it would have grown algae over it by now. The coral is av99’s glow stick and he doesn’t experience any of that coral morph. He does run 400 watt halides vs my LED’s. I think I will try and cut a piece of the solid green and one of the affected branches and put them into my grow out tank and see what happens. Av99 suggested some sort of bacterial infection, but I haven’t done much reading on that subject to really know what it does to corals.
Thanks
Jeff

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Bacterial infections normally are not so defined when they show funny colored patches like that so I would count that out. I would like to see some closer shots if you have the ability to take some.

 

[SeaDweller]

The tissue is still there. It does appear to be not as thick as the green tissue though. If it were receded it would have grown algae over it by now. The coral is av99’s glow stick and he doesn’t experience any of that coral morph. He does run 400 watt halides vs my LED’s. I think I will try and cut a piece of the solid green and one of the affected branches and put them into my grow out tank and see what happens. Av99 suggested some sort of bacterial infection, but I haven’t done much reading on that subject to really know what it does to corals.
Thanks
Jeff

Interesting. Please share pics.

 

[coralbeauties]

I cut two pieces tonight one fully green in color and the other is an effected branch.
jeff

 

[Dugless]

I had a tabling acro years ago do this, it never went away and it bugged me enough that I removed it. It grew fine and was otherwise healthy. These ‘infections’ don’t seem to harm any other corals as far as I know. Some might even find this aberrant desirable.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yea send me a frag it looks really cool! Update us with the results it should look great if it stays even.