HELP! Beginner needs help with first coral

[Nroddot]

Hi,


Beginner reefer here. Tank has been running for about 50 days now. I only have two clowns and a lavender mushroom coral in the tank. I wanted to start with a relatively cheap and hardy coral to see how it does before I even consider adding additional coral. A portion of the coral looks "bleached" and dead. The coral has been in the tank for a little over a week now. I do not know how long it has been like this because I just repositioned it today and the bleached portion of the coral was not viewable prior in its old position.

I'm using the REEF LED 90 lights with Red Sea coral pro salt. Salinity is at 1.025 and temperature is 77-79 degrees F

Any ideas why this happened and can it recover? This is the first coral I've ever cared for.

My camera isn't the best quality, but you should easily still be able to see the bleached portion of coral.

 

[DaveK]

If the "bleached area" is decay, it's likely your coral is done. You can give it the smell test to be sure. A decayed area will smell really foul and bad. If that's the case, discard the coral.

It is not unusual for corals to be unhappy and stay retracted for a week or two after moving them. If that is the case, often the best thing to do is leave it alone.

Often people put new corals in too much light. To start of put it in s dim area, or cut the lighting way back. This will give it some time to recover. Then you can slowly increase the light.