Birdnest problem
Greetings, That litle ponipai <sp> birdsnest that I won has been growing well in my nano. A week or so ago I noticed one of the fingers was starting to bleach. Please take a look at the pics and let me know if I should worry and or what action should be taken. Thanks Bob

Most likely something stung that tip. Not sure if you have anything that can reach it, but sadly there is a chance that mushroom under it could have done it, they do it to my LPS all the time. The only Birdsnest I have with that same effect though was stung when a loose coral fell on it, the rest of the birdsnest grows just fine, but that one dead tip just sits there. I think you have a couple of option, you can either ignore it, and it will either stay there, or possible it will grow over the damaged area. Or you can cut that end off, just a little bit past the dead spot, and the birdsnest will grow over the fresh cut, and probablly start a new fork right there. I personally would cut it, but I have been so lazy when it comes to my tank lately, that my stung birdsnest has grown almost double it's size since it was stung, and I still haven't cut that limb off.

Here is a picture of my Tubs purple polyped birdsnest that has the same issue. I know what happened to him though, I had to pull a bali slime off him that fell over thanks to a crab.

oh and just for a color comparison, here is my Ponape birdsnest.

Looks like the Shroom stung it to me.

^^^ I know what Rob meant but shrooms don't actually sting but instead simply smother/irritate or use other obnoxious means to dominate an area. Also referred to as a passive/aggressive nature. They grow fast, can pop off and relocated themselves, and are near impossible to kill. You have to remove all of the mushroom or over time even the sligh-*test*-('") remenant will grow back. They've stung an eye twice now trying to erradicate them off rocks and the remaining liquid in them for some reason squirts right into or near my eye. This last time, I was smart enough to rinse my eye immedately and several times over a few hours and only had relatively minor irritation/reddness and was still able to work on shroom eradication. You'd think from my first lesson where I had practically a useless eye overnight, I'd have worn goggles but nooo, I was so careful for the first five rocks, it was the last rock that had a shroom that got me.

I'd have to agree with Twisted too. It appears you might not have a Ponape there. Generally, they go from a green base to a bright light pink tip. Also it appears you may have some serious downward flow directed at your birdsnest there.

Looks like White Band Disease to me... but I don't know that it affects birdsnest...

Actually Chris some mushrooms pack a sting almost as effective as a small anemone. one of the more potent being the Rhodactice <not> is one of the stronger mushrooms and will sting anything in its reach.

Thanks Twisted... I've simply got the purple/blue and a few spotted ones (like seen in that photo above) that only seem to send out anything that looks like nematosis stinging cells when they are belching their insides. I've not read or seen anything about common discomas having any type of aggressive attack but very strong defensive passive/aggressive nature. Thanks for sharing and enlightening my mushroom information basis! :D

Well a rhodactis is a discosoma and fairly aggressive. http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+598+665&pcatid=665 While others like you mentioned are a lot less aggressive they still can sting, and smother like you mentioned.

Shrroms are clssified as anemones by a lot of scientist. They also have stinging cells just like anemone's. Even the common Discosoma