Whisker Coral Excreting Red Goo

[norite]

I got a whisker (euphyllia) coral over the weekend, it's been doing great, after being in my tank for 24 hours, it expanded to over twice what it was in the lfs, and it's been like that ever since. However tonight, I checked the tank to see one set of polyps shrunk up tightly, and what seemed to be red filamentous cyano like stuff trailing out of it. Then I noticed the other part of the coral was doing it too...please tell me this is normal, and the coral is just taking it's weekly dump or something....

 

[SkiFletch]

Not to worry, this freaked me out too the first time I saw it... The coral is expelling zooxanthellae algae from its flesh in an effort to get used to your lighting. Usually in the LFS, the light level the coral is kept at is pretty low, and the coral will grow extra zooxanthellae algae within its flesh to compensate for the lack of photosynthesis. Once it makes it home to an aquarists tank, typically if the aquarist is doing things properly, the light level is higher, thus requiring less zooxanthellae. Therefore the coral expels the zooxanthellae in the manner you are seeing. Within an hour it should be back to normal or on its way back. Nothing to worry about at all. It may do this periodically for a couple weeks but eventually it'll get used to your light schedule and stop.

 

[norite]

Ah, OK, thanks for that. The coral has 'recovered' and is fully expanded again...it's looking really good! I'm glad I got it!

here's a pic of said coral: