How to tell if a coral is dyed a different color?

lynn.reef.nerd

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I also bought one recently and had the same blueish stain after fragging. They come super healthy but start to deteriorate after a week or two. Also have signs of filaments. Currently, mine no longer open for me.

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After handling the coral:
1594249529106.png
 
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Tennyson

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Supporters of the blue sun coral are saying that black sun coral stain too. This is true, you can rub a black sun coral and it will come off.

But after doing this myself, it appears that black sun coral pigment is actually just concentrated yellow/ brown pigment.
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noahreefer

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So are these dyed as well?

The first one is mine. I assure you its not dyed lol
 

ReefdUp

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I'm guessing this was probably done with methylene blue? Any thoughts? (Trying to figure out how to help the affected corals.)

Interesting (yet sad) article on dyed anemones:
"Methylene blue changed the color of the anemones to a brilliant blue (Fig 2B). The majority of the stain was observed bound to endodermal cells and additionally bound to cells surrounding the mouth and cinclides (i.e., blister-like openings to the coelenteron on the column) where anemones ejected coelenteric fluid during the injection process. Marked individuals were recognizable for six weeks, although acontia (i.e., defensive filaments in the coelenteron) kept a blue hue during the full length of the field experiment."
 
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Tennyson

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I'm guessing this was probably done with methylene blue? Any thoughts? (Trying to figure out how to help the affected corals.)

Interesting (yet sad) article on dyed anemones:
"Methylene blue changed the color of the anemones to a brilliant blue (Fig 2B). The majority of the stain was observed bound to endodermal cells and additionally bound to cells surrounding the mouth and cinclides (i.e., blister-like openings to the coelenteron on the column) where anemones ejected coelenteric fluid during the injection process. Marked individuals were recognizable for six weeks, although acontia (i.e., defensive filaments in the coelenteron) kept a blue hue during the full length of the field experiment."

I felt like it was methylene blue or malachite green as well. I actually tried this on one of my yellow sun coral by dipping them in concentrated malachite green for 25 minutes. The staining pattern matched the blue suns being sold today, but peeled off after a day. This could be because I dipped them, you usually hear of dye being injected but I'm not sure how to do this.

Edit: the malachite green I used is also 20 years old, so its possible fresher dye might work better. For now I'd like to prove my point without investing money into this.
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ReefdUp

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I felt like it was methylene blue or malachite green as well. I actually tried this on one of my yellow sun coral by dipping them in concentrated malachite green for 25 minutes. The staining pattern matched the blue suns being sold today, but peeled off after a day. This could be because I dipped them, you usually hear of dye being injected but I'm not sure how to do this.

Edit: the malachite green I used is also 20 years old, so its possible fresher dye might work better. For now I'd like to prove my point without investing money into this.
20200706_202910.jpg
20200706_205533.jpg

Thanks for sharing that, and how tragic it is (I imagine malachite green is much more toxic). Yes, I would guess it would require multiple injections for a sun coral colony. I was doing some more research, and some *old* texts (circa 1905) referenced feeding anemones food soaked with methylene blue as another mode of dye.

My only thought against methylene blue is that the skeletons weren't shown as dyed. Considering how staining that stuff is, I'd expect the skeletons to have permanently taken it up as well. Is there any chance the ICP tests would even pick up methylene blue? I'm guessing it would take a redox test of some sort? And if the coral was dying, wouldn't the methylene blue lose color?
 
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@ReefdUp It does not seem like the dye stains rock or carbonate skeleton. I can't say for methylene blue as I don't have any to test.
 

esther

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Here’s a pic of ours before feeding time and the second one I just took with my iPhone. Definitely not dyed. Love this coral.

I can’t believe there are people that would actually do that to corals.

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image.jpg
 

EMeyer

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It seems cutting a frag and viewing internal tissue is the only way to know.

Strongly suspect these are all dyed.
 

esther

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I wouldn’t say they’re all dyed. I’ve actually seen these in the wild diving in Indonesia and Fiji.
 

tehmadreefer

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They're refunding me today so I'm satisfied, they are a great store and I dont want to drag them.

Still denying that they're dyed, which is why I created this post to get answers and support. We may know that they're dyed as a hobbyist, but businesses, suppliers and customers dont want to hear that their investment is fake. How do we get this out there as public knowledge?

Also they said their supplier denies them being fake but is talking to the diver

lol a great store that sells fake stuff???

Literally can’t make this up!!

Easy to see how ya got duped...
 
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Tennyson

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The purpose of this thread was to find a definitive way to identify a dyed LPS coral and warn hobbyists of counterfeit goods. I think pink skeleton and failure to thrive are good indicators, but apparently not enough to convince suppliers. By all means, if there is proof that these are not dyed I would love to be proven wrong.

The most common counterargument I've seen that these are not dyed is that Black sun coral stain when you touch them too. So I've taken the time to extract pigment from the "blue sun coral", my black sun coral, and yellow sun coral and put them through chromatography. This tests how soluble their pigment is in water.

Screenshot_20200708-230519_Gallery.jpg

IMG_20200708_232212_735.jpg


As you can see, all sun coral have yellow pigment that is pretty soluble in spring water. The key difference lies in the green and black pigments. The average RF value (reference value) of the Blue sun coral is 0.27, black is 0.11, and yellow is 0.03. The blue sun coral has pigment that traveled almost 3x as much as the black pigment during chromatogrpahy. This very simple experiment demonstrates that the green pigment is being dissolved by spring water and traveling up the paper towel much more than black pigment. So much so that it suggests the pigment fades over time just by being exposed to water.

Screenshot_20200709-003937_Gallery.jpg
I invite you to see my story where I summarize the evidence that these are dyed and show how I collected tissue for chromatography.
 

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