Sick Goniopora Stokesi- Algae or too much light?

[dbc1717]

I have a sick Goniopora Stokesi that appears to have some sort of algae growing on its lower portion, over what looks to be open cells. It now seldom opens up and has one open cell on top as well. Is there anything I can do for this guy?
My tank is a 6 months old, 55 gal, 50 lb live rock, 4 fish, 10 corals. Magnum filter, zoomed powerhead, seaclone skimmer. I recently switched from 260 w of Pc to 340 watts of icecap overdriven t5's with Icecap SLR reflectors. This may indeed be too much light, as some star polyps have turned dark in areas and even look "burnt" I am shortening the photo period and plan to move the lights further up. The T5's are incredible, but be careful, they may be too much....

Is this problem lighting, or something else on the flowerpot?


http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/117121IMG_0475_2.jpg

[Steven Pro]

The picture is very blurry, but it reminds me of the so-called brown jelly infection.

http://www.ericborneman.com/Brown%20Jelly%20/Brown%20Jelly.html

[John Kelly]

It does kind of look like brown jelly on the side of the coral; hard to tell from the pic though. If it blows off real easy and the tissue is quickly disintegrating where the "algae" is, then it is brown jelly. How long have you had it? Have you moved it recently?

The increase in lighting will cause both the polyps and tentacles to remain more retracted until the coral acclimates to it. Too much of an increase will shock the coral and can cause it to bleach (loss of zooxanthellae). It can even cause the polyps to die off and algae to develop, but that usually happens on or around the top of the coral. Brown jelly often occurs on the side of the coral around the perimeter; like in your photo.

[dbc1717]

Yes, looking at the link photos, this is what the flowerpot coral has. Other than what was in the link, any additional treatment ideas? Thanks very much.

[John Kelly]

About the only thing you can do is to give it iodine dips with lugols, Reef Dip, or Tech-D. It looks pretty advanced and usually with advanced brown jelly infections on Goniopora it is just about impossible to get rid of IME.