Help with ID of coral health

LaneBrain

Well-Known Member
BRS Member
Currently on my first reef tank, so I need some help.
ive been monitoring my coral and I (think) all is going well, except for the candy cane. I feel like the brown sides aren’t normal, but I really have no idea. Can anyone help with this? (I have CC about 2/3 the way up my tank lit by 2 AI prime 16HDs on the saxby schedule)
(Sorry the pic sucks, haven’t got my lens kit from brs yet)

thanks in advance!
 

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Sometimes they look like that if it’s to clean in your tank. They actually do well in high light. If you want go to the drugstore and dip it in iodine for 20 minutes. It will help it if it’s a bacterial issue. I bet it’s a nutrient issue though
 
There is certainly some tissue recession there.

Can you provide some water chemistry details? Have you made any changes recently? Are you running carbon or gfo? If so, have you changes them recently? What is your water change schedule?

How high are your light turned up? How long have you had the coral? If it's new, any idea what the lighting was like before?
 
It is getting the highest light of all my coral. I got the coral 2 weeks ago and did an iodine coral dip at that time. Since then, I have done a 15% water change.
The coral has looked like this for a while, it wasn’t an overnight thing. It looked like it was in the “bargain bin” at the LFS.
Parameters have been stable, but have high phosphate. No gfo running.
I’m currently in the midst of a diatom bloom so my thought was that it was just on that as well.
 
Sometimes they look like that if it’s to clean in your tank. They actually do well in high light. If you want go to the drugstore and dip it in iodine for 20 minutes. It will help it if it’s a bacterial issue. I bet it’s a nutrient issue though
Nutrient issue, as in bad water chemistry, or nutrient deficiency?
 
How high of phosphate and nitrate?

Did it look like this at the lfs?

I suggest lowering it in your tank. This is a coral that can tolerate some pretty high light if acclimated, but it was likely not being blasted at the lfs.

Can you get a pic under whites?
 
Hi, you can try to feed it pellets if you haven’t done so. The pellets should sink right in the oral disc using a pipette. I think you will see improvement in a couple weeks. It looks a bit mal-nutritious. The tissue recession will gradually improve. Good luck!
 
Nitrate was around 10 ppm and Phosphate level was at .5 ppm last test. I do not run gfo, but I am giving it some serious thought. I did buy brightwell phosphate remover and plan to use that for a bit to keep in in check (I have read reviews, I will not dose all at once).
Under white light, I can definitely tell there is tissue recession. I moved it to my sand bed and turned down the intensity of my light. I didn’t realize (idk why, it makes tons of sense now that I think about it) that coral needs to be acclimated to lights. I’ll be looking into that more now.
Thanks for the help and I’ll keep everyone updated.
 
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