Tropical Fish Forums

[Ciklido]

Hey, this is a bit of an "odd" questio but heres what I did, I went to Venezuela and I got some purple "coral lloking thing I thnk, it is like a leqaf but with just veins that has grea area and has a solid root, it was purple in color but once I add it to my freshwater african cichlid tank it turned brown and black, does it mean its rotting? bad for my fish?

By the way it was in open air for long time and remained its natural color but once underwater it changed.
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Get attached, love everything now, then, suffer when it comes to an end, for it will bring great meaning to one's existence. JR

[schaadrak]

What you got was a dyed gorgonian skeleton. It probably turned brown and black from algae growth.
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[Ciklido]

Thanks, =), after looking half an hour for my topic....

bUt the coral was not dyed, it was all natural I picked it up from the sea..it was purple, and I am not sure why now its black, algae does not normally go like that I will post a pic very soon after this message and place it in the photo album,
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Get attached, love everything now, then, suffer when it comes to an end, for it will bring great meaning to one's existence. JR

[Ciklido]

Specifically, its called Purple Fan coral, ..why did the color change occur?
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Get attached, love everything now, then, suffer when it comes to an end, for it will bring great meaning to one's existence. JR

[schaadrak]

Oh. I thought you had purchased it.

The purple coloring was the living part of the animals that made up the "leaf". What happened is that they died and turned black from rotting.

This probably should have been left in the ocean, and definitely never should have been put into a freshwater tank since Gorgonians are strictly a marine animal.
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[Darkblade48]

I am surprised you even managed to bring live coral across the border into Canada.

But as schaadrak mentioned, coral consists of living organisms. Once you remove them from the ocean and place them into freshwater, they will die off.
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Anthony

[Ciklido]

well it was not "live" per say, because it had been "dried" out, I brought it in a bag with some other rocks but the coral had been in the open air for about a month and retained its color, only when underwater I guess it started changing and I guess now I just have a rotting organism in my tank which sounds horrible hehe, By the way I found pretty much on the beach, I did not go out and break it off from the ocean reef.

From Cuba I brought some "dead" coral as well, finger looking and white, its also in my tank.
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Get attached, love everything now, then, suffer when it comes to an end, for it will bring great meaning to one's existence. JR

[Darkblade48]

Dead coral is white.

I am not sure how the coral managed to retain its colour (I.e. still be alive) if it was left out in the open air for a month.
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Anthony

[Ciklido]

Interesting ..........I wonder if it had been getting some form of food from the root, because I have the "stem" part, maybe its just this particular type of coralthat can be "frozen" , is it bad for my tank though? will it produce a lot of ammonia or other unwanted things?
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Get attached, love everything now, then, suffer when it comes to an end, for it will bring great meaning to one's existence. JR

[diademhill]

It is probably rotting in your tank and that means it will add to the ammonia level along with who knows what other substances.

Please take it out of the tank.