Strange SPS growth - Any ideas?

[jd-woodlands]

I have a couple of pieces of SPS that have started showing strange growth, was wondering if anyone might know why?

both are high in the tank and get lots of flow and light.

they are no longer branching, they are kind of balling up?

 

[X-37B]

Interesting! I have a slimeball that is doing something similar. Hard to tell by the pics. But it has not grown up much but is getting much thicker.
This is 3 months growth in my 6 month old 120.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Hyperplasia is what it probably is. No one has pin pointed what causes it though. Mild cases normally go away in time but some have had issues with it. How many acros have it?

 

[jd-woodlands]

Looks like just two for now... a wwc yellow tip and a no name blue/green tenius.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Interesting for sure

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Personally I cut the pieces that were affected off and they eventually grew correctly. The only thing I was doing wrong was dosing unequal two part for a while. The tenuis looks rough and I would definitely try and cut some of it off and open up the colony to see if it will start with normal new growth. Seems like the coral has a hard time growing where the hyperplasia is. The skeleton turns kinda soft and the flesh is very thin in those spots ime. I haven’t seen it for years since it stopped.

 

[Brew12]

High flow tends to cause acro's to grow thicker and more tightly bunched. Lower flow results in thinner branches with wider spacing. Did you recently get higher flow in that location?

 

[jd-woodlands]

No changes since the tank was setup.. it gets blasted with flow and light. I'll do some pruning tests and see what happens.


My uneducated guess is that they are getting too much PAR and then trying to grow down? I don't think the flesh would be soft or anything. I'll take the cutters to the tenius tonight and do some exploring.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

A lot of people think flow causes this but ime I have never seen flow make acros grow like this at all. The flow will either peel the flesh or it will make the acros grow in much tighter clusters with thicker branches.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Kind of strange but my guess is some of them are looking for the best path to grow out from. They also may be too much flow above them aswell as high light. IME alot of time my acros tend to encrust more when they have too much light and flow up top while the onces below spread out and grow better. They can sense surrounding competition. I would only make modification to flow as this is one thing we can always improve on.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Did you make any changes to flow and lighting recently? Is the pumps in your tank hitting the corals path?

 

[jd-woodlands]

Flow is everywhere and strong, two icecap 3ks at opposing ends ramping up to +100% and -100% at offset times which creates a turbulent flow.

85gal DT + 20-30 in sump.

tenius is upper right middle on overflow, wwc yellow tips at left side middle-top.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Growth is very symmetrical in the lower parts of your system. If its just the ones up top I wouldnt worry about it aslong as majority of your tank is growing well, which by the picture you looks like you know what your doing..