Acropora Coral Trouble Card
Coralkin honest saltwater & reef care · coralkin.com Acropora — Coral Trouble Card
🔬 There's no vet for corals — diagnose the water & environment
Corals almost never need (or have) a vet. A struggling colony is a chemistry, lighting/flow, or pest problem you fix yourself. Work these Coralkin tools:
- Parameter target chart — the cited target ranges to compare your test against
- Water-test checker — read your numbers and see what's off
- Dosing calculator — correct alkalinity, calcium and magnesium safely, in small steps
- Coral placement, light & flow guide — confirm the spot suits this coral
📇 Fill this in now
🚨 Trouble signs now?
- Rapid tissue peeling off, exposing white skeleton (RTN/STN) — an emergency: frag well ahead of the receding tissue to save what you can, and find the swing, spike or pest.
- Base bleaching or browning — light not acclimated, or nutrients too high or too low.
- Polyps not extending — flow, acclimation, or an early water-quality problem.
- Tiny bite marks, pale patches or egg spirals on branch undersides — pests (AEFW); dip and inspect.
🚗 First things to check
✅ Do
- Test the full parameter set — salinity, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, nitrate, phosphate and temperature — and compare to targets.
- Check the lighting and flow at this coral's exact spot.
- Look for pests and for irritation from aggressive neighbours.
- Check for recent changes — new livestock, a dosing change, a big water change.
⛔ Don't
- Don't reach for OTC “cures” or dose blindly.
- Don't change everything at once — stability matters more than any single number.
- Don't keep a badly-failing colony next to healthy ones without isolating it or fragging off the healthy tissue.
📋 This coral's targets
- Colony / form
- Branching, tabling or staghorn forms (species-dependent); a healthy colony grows fast into a showpiece.
- Lighting
- High — roughly 200–400 PAR, with ≈250–350 the sweet spot. Colour and growth depend on strong, high-quality light, but a new frag must be acclimated up slowly to avoid bleaching.
- Water flow
- Strong and turbulent — high turnover (on the order of 20–40× the tank volume) to keep tissue clean and feed calcification. Acropora wants more flow than almost any other coral; dead spots and settled detritus are dangerous.
- Placement
- Up on exposed rockwork in strong light and turbulent flow, with room so it doesn't shade or touch neighbours as it grows. Acclimate to both light and flow before final placement.
- Temperature
- 75–82°F (24–28°C).
- pH
- 8.1–8.4.
- Specific gravity
- 1.023–1.026 (reef-standard ≈35 ppt).
- Other targets
- SPS build a dense stony skeleton and punish parameter swings far harder than LPS — keep alkalinity (≈8–11 dKH), calcium (≈400–450 ppm) and magnesium (≈1300–1400 ppm) rock-stable and test weekly. Acropora is the least forgiving of all — many acro-keepers automate dosing and prize consistency over any exact number.
- Feeding
- Largely photosynthetic in a well-lit reef; it also uses dissolved nutrients and captures tiny plankton. The real nutrient job is keeping the tank neither too dirty nor stripped bare — Acropora needs low but not zero nutrients.
- Growth & spread
- Fast once established and stable — branching and tabling colonies can become the showpiece of a tank. Easy to frag, but new frags need careful acclimation.
- Natural range
- Indo-Pacific reefs.
🌸 A struggling coral is almost always telling you about its water, light, flow, or a pest — not an infection a vet can treat. Stabilise your parameters to target, confirm the light and flow suit this coral, and rule out pests and aggressive neighbours before changing anything drastic. Sudden swings are themselves a stressor.
❓ Work through
- Is a parameter off-target?
- Is the light or flow wrong for this coral?
- Any pests, or aggressive neighbours?
- What changed recently?