birdsnest dying

bonomo53 · Jun 7, 2011

i woke up today and noticed that the back half of my neon green birdsnest colony is dying. i dont know why alll my other pieces of sps are doing great i moved this colony from one side of my tank to the other about 5 days ago. should i try to frag the pieces that still have flesh or just leave it? heres a pic i took real quick with my phone

swannyson7 · Jun 7, 2011

It may have just been the change in lighting/flow that triggered the problem. I'd frag off the dead portion

Viva'sReef · Jun 7, 2011

Is there anything that could possibly be stinging it in the new location?

Also birdsnest are notorious for being very sensitive to Alk swings....have you adjusted your Alk lately?

engineeronh2o · Jun 7, 2011

I am not sure how it is placed in your tank, but the bottoms and backsides of birdsnest always die once the colony gets larger, simply because the upper part shades the back and bottom of the necessary light for that area to thrive. The top seems very healthy. I have encountered this twice before in two tanks with two different colonies both grown from frags.

bonomo53 · Jun 7, 2011

no alk swings.. al my params are normal and nothing is really close to it
iam gonna dip it frag off the dead parts an see how it does thanks for the help

Greg'n-Reef · Jun 7, 2011

Frag it! RTN happens for no apparent reason sometimes and it really sucks. I had a 6" Red Planet recently go through RTN and the only way to stop it is to cut the bad pieces out.

Troylee · Jun 7, 2011

looks more like flow and lighting issues to me.... i wouldn't be concerned and do anything drastic like mentioned it was prolly shaded by the top and caused it i would just trim the dead off it and call it a day.... hth..

Greg'n-Reef · Jun 7, 2011

If you look at the pic close you can actually see the tissue slough off. I don't think coral moved in 5 days would have this kind of issue, if it were lighting or flow progression would happen a lot slower IMO.

bonomo53 · Jun 9, 2011

so dipping and fraging the good pieces didn't help at all ended up losing the whole colony.. weird thing is i have frags of it that ive fraged about 3 months ago doing perfectly fine in the same spot where the colony died

swannyson7 · Jun 9, 2011

Sorry to hear, but at least you've got a few frags to start growing out again. Luckily birdsnest is a quick grower, so you'll have some mini colonies before you know it.

toyencounters · Jun 9, 2011

Algae growning at the botton of the birdsnest and spreading up will kill it!

Greg'n-Reef · Jun 9, 2011

That's RTN for ya. I've had 3 colonies go through this over the years. The best option is to frag as many pieces as you can and still the frags may go through the same process.