Thin branches

[alten78]

I always thought that thin branches were a result of low flow but maybe this is getting too much? This is a Wishin2Boutside Raspberry Cheesecake Acro I picked up from JF back in March. Poor pictures but it certainly did not turn out remotely close to the reference pic...for me at least!

Sitting about mid tank under T5's with a bunch of random flow (rw25 and gyre 150 in 75g.)



Shortly after I got it



Today

 

[erk]

Just based off the image, it looks like the coral is near the backwall/overflow. The flow could be hitting the wall at a perpendicular angle or close to it and slowing down, resulting in a low flow situation in that region.
There is also the possibility of not getting enough light. You appear to have good SPS growth in the area around this coral, but do you know the PAR for this area? Maybe this coral prefers something higher? It definitely seems to lack the purple shown in the reference photo and when you first received it.

 

[alten78]

Here it is from another angle

 

[Bpb]

Awesome! Someone else with this acro. I’ve had this one in my system for about 5 years and it’s always had super skinny wavy branches for me. I just don’t think it’s a densely growing acro. It’s a little on the delicate side. I sold my colony when it got to be about softball sized but got a tiny pea sized piece back a few months ago.

 

[alten78]

Awesome! Someone else with this acro. I’ve had this one in my system for about 5 years and it’s always had super skinny wavy branches for me. I just don’t think it’s a densely growing acro. It’s a little on the delicate side. I sold my colony when it got to be about softball sized but got a tiny pea sized piece back a few months ago.

Nice! Yours certainly has more PE than mine. I ended up moving it down further in the tank and into more random flow that's not so direct along with fragging several of the branches for a swap coming up next month. According to JF site, it says medium-high light so maybe i'll get more purple being lower. I thought it was odd the way the branches shot up around the base but the main piece never did anything.

 

[Bpb]

If you can believe it it’s only just recently started looking decent. It grew well years ago but was always almost bleach white with horrible PE. still managed to grow ok.

This time around it grew so slow and had no PE until I discovered it was infested with red bugs. Once I took care of that it basically exploded with growth and PE. Not suggesting yours has red bugs. But that this kind of PE on this particular acro is a new phenomenon for me. I’m loving it. No purple tips yet though. I don’t know if it’s getting too much or too little light.

 

[burninreefer]

I don't think there is such a thing as too much flow with sps. I have a 120 and im moving over 12000gph. more flow equals more extension in my book. it looks you have a light issue. could be spectrum or intensity. what lights are you using?

 

[alten78]

I don't think there is such a thing as too much flow with sps. I have a 120 and im moving over 12000gph. more flow equals more extension in my book. it looks you have a light issue. could be spectrum or intensity. what lights are you using?

Definitely not a light or spectrum issue, everything else in the tank has good colors (6x54 T5's - 3 x blue +, 3 x coral +). Too much direct focused flow can be a bad thing which is what I think the issue is with this, I will find out in the coming weeks/month!

 

[alten78]

If you can believe it it’s only just recently started looking decent. It grew well years ago but was always almost bleach white with horrible PE. still managed to grow ok.

This time around it grew so slow and had no PE until I discovered it was infested with red bugs. Once I took care of that it basically exploded with growth and PE. Not suggesting yours has red bugs. But that this kind of PE on this particular acro is a new phenomenon for me. I’m loving it. No purple tips yet though. I don’t know if it’s getting too much or too little light.

Nice, keep me posted!

 

[OnPointCorals Verified Sponsor]

I find with pieces like this to get the darker colors I typically need to give it less light. I vote it’s been getting too much light and lowering it might help greatly.

 

[recess62]

This question is a little off topic and may be a little dumb but how do you move or remove large encrusted colonies? Do you just break them off as gently as possible? People talk about giving colonies away or moving them. Just wonder how this is done without risking killing the colony

 

[alten78]

This question is a little off topic and may be a little dumb but how do you move or remove large encrusted colonies? Do you just break them off as gently as possible? People talk about giving colonies away or moving them. Just wonder how this is done without risking killing the colony

When I got this piece from JF the plug was pretty encrusted so I just epoxied the plug to a hole in the rocks so it was easy to move and it wasn't one that did a lot of encrusting otherwise. Other colonies that heavily encrust I wouldn't be able to move so im not sure what others do there.