The effect of temperature on Acropora coral fluorescence & sps coloration

There's a new paper out all about the effects of increased heat on coral color (fluorescence) and dinoflagellate density. This is super interesting for us as keepers of acropora, since we always want our corals to be as colorful as possible. Brown boring SPS is never the goal in our reef tanks!
They found that has heat went up the amount of dinoflagellates in coral tissue also went up - meaning the coral gets more brown as temperature goes up. As temperatures raised from about 80 degrees fahrenheit to around 90 degrees corals first lost their fluorescent colors, then increased the amount of dinoflagellates in their tissue, then bleached out.
Dinoflagellates are a major source of nutrients for our corals, so the theory is that the stress of higher temperatures leads to a greater need for nutrients from the coral. Could keeping our tanks a little cooler help with our soft and stony coral coloration? This could even work for things like zoanthus! Temperature is not something we usually think all that much about, unless we are keeping things like C. tinkerii or other deep water fish that require cooler temperatures.
Check out the paper!
#scicomm
Santos JM, Shaw RW. 2019. Effects of increased heat on fluorescence and dinoflagellate density in the captive coral, Anthelia sp. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27566v1 doi.org/10.728...
This video is in glorious 4k HDR - enjoy it! Let me know what you think so I can do better next time. I think it works well for the coral shots.
Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video!

[@bbeenn]

Highly informative video thank you.

[@InappropriateReefer]

Interesting research, thank you for sharing the info in digestible pieces!

[@ReefMan]

Very welcome. I enjoy reading these, and it's fun to try to make these (sometimes boring..) papers into a visual medium of some sort. This one was particularly low on graphics hah

[@dirtydogsanddiesel]

Great video again 🙂👍

[@tasanastasi7799]

Yes please , i believe the more info we have the better quality of care we can give our fish and corals .

[@ReefMan]

Thanks! I worry that they might be a little on the dry side for TH-cam but I enjoy making them. I'm glad there are other people like me out there interested in this kind of info.

[@tasanastasi7799]

Possibly ... but hobbyist who have invested heavily and want to stay on top of their game and go to a higher level of understanding ..your presentations are perfect

[@tasanastasi7799]

Really interesting ...thank you for sharing this info

[@ReefMan]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Would you like more of these paper videos?

[@mgultra5613]

Very helpful

[@tsurro8086]

I like 78, now in summer, mine go from 76-81, with no heater, colder at night , nice vid

[@ReefMan]

What is your daily temperature swing?

[@dhk0407]

Nice video Reefman. If I keep my tank between 78-80, would that be the ideal temperature?

[@ReefMan]

Yep, that would be fine. Don't go much over 80F.

[@dhk0407]

@@ReefMan Thank you

[@DiptiRanjanLenka-zi3el]

Could you explain why coral health goes down when you increase temperature?

[@mehulkumarkashyap1135]

Sir can you tell me why too much zooxanthellae is bad for coral what they do to the coral.

[@ReefMan]

I'm not sure a healthy coral can have too much zooxanthellae - they're able to expel them at will and they can also absorb them from the water if they don't have enough of the right species. It's a very complex system, and one that science is just really starting to explore now that we have genetic sequencing and all that which we can use to understand what's actually going on.

[@mehulkumarkashyap1135]

@@ReefMan thank you so much and video is greatly explained.

[@ImNate69]

mines at 82 do you think this is to high ever since my temp has stayed at 82 my anemones have been unhappy I don’t know if it’s due to the temp change though .

[@ReefMan]

82F is on the high end. As you've seen though, you can grow coral at that temperature. I'd worry about it getting any hotter though!

[@sungwoo0524]

Could you explain the reason fluorescence decreases when temperature increases?

[@ReefMan]

I believe it has to do with stress. I don’t know that we really know for sure though, as there are a few theories about what purpose the fluorescence serves in the first place.

[@jluusaltwateraquarium8320]

What costs Acroporas corals change brown...Thanks

[@ReefMan]

Lots of things can. Stress, low light or light of the wrong spectrum. It’s really hard to tell exactly.

[@jluusaltwateraquarium8320]

Thanks alot sir 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@FadilBayu]

Like Here.

[@anniejefferson8136]

Run mine at 79.

[@ReefMan]

That's about what mine averages to most days as well. I used to try to keep it at 72 with an old tank, but that was set up for deep water species.