[Coral-List] Pink secretion on dead corals
albert
albert at ecology.su.se
Tue Jul 19 23:20:12 EDT 2005
Greetings listers,
I am currently working on a larval settlement experiment. In my set-up I'm
using dead coral oroigniating from six different species as natural
substrate. The substrate is prepared from a few colonies of living coral
which are cut into smaller fragments and cleaned of living tisue (using a
high pressure air-blower and water pick)
The problem is that in many cases a pink layer (mucus?) develops over the
substrate (often seeping out into the surrounding water) that seems to be
toxic to the larvae in each replicate. Substrate originating from porites
lutea and pachyseris speciosa is giving us the greatest problems. My guess
is that it's a cyanobacteria/fungus causing this (maybe the same as in the
reported pink line syndrome). Anybody have any ideas?
Albert Norstrom
Department of Systems Ecology
Stockholm University
More information about the Coral-List
mailing list