Acro bleaching, ideas?

rrasco

Active member
Okay, so I'll try to make this as concise as possible.

Tank info: LEDs, which were running at 45% whites and 50% blues. I was dosing BRS 2-part, keeping numbers around 8.4dKH, 420-440ppm Ca, and 1400ppm Mag. ROX8 GAC.

There were a few changes I've made over the last few weeks, and I'm trying to figure out what I did to cause my acro to start bleaching by listing them below. Up until I noticed the bleaching, this acro has been growing well. It's a stubor staghorn.

-I increased the light output to 55% whites and 60% blues. This started bleaching my pink birdnest, but I didn't see any change to the staghorn. A few softies took a few days to adjust as well.
-After noticing a few ill-effects to the light increase, I dialed it back to 50% whites and 55% blues. And I eventually dialed it back to my original values: 45% and 50%.
-I changed from 2-part to a kalk reactor.
-I removed GAC/GFO because I started running an ATS. Still skimming with BM NAC9.

I need to test params again tonight, but kalk was holding things steady at the ranges I posted above.

So basically, I know I've changed quite a few things over the last few weeks, and that goes against what I normally try to do, as minimal as possible. I'm hoping someone can help me identify what may be causing my staghorn to bleach. It seems like over the last day a whole branch bleached out, it was originally starting on the underside of the branches, but has spread to the top of those and seems to be getting worse by the hour.

I said I would *try* to be concise. :D
 
3W bridgelux, 4500k, 6500k, 10000k, RB and pinks. He was doing great under them, but I suspect maybe changing the intensity too quickly (up and down) may have caused it.
 
Bleaching or tissues loss?
Sounds to me like possibly due to all the quick changes in an effort to save itself it started killing off parts stn rtn
 
I'm not sure. Maybe you could tell me? Its the small branch on the lower right and a few spots on the underside of others.
 

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Yeah that looks like tissue loss to me
I'm assuming its due to all the changes just try to do things slower next time
Test the kh mag and ca keep things steady
 
I agree. Today it looked like it got a little worse, and the little pieces of tissue were hanging where it is receding.

I didn't test last night, but I did when I got home today and it looks like the kalk wasn't holding my params. I last tested on 11/15 with the numbers posted in the OP, today, KH was at 7dKH and Cal was at 380ppm. I'm sure that had something to do with it. I dosed to get things back to 8.4dKH and 430ppm. Now I need to take a look at why my kalk wasn't working right, it worked well the first week.

Assuming that was the issue, what happens with where the acro receded? Will it heal, or do I need to cut it back?
 
I'm going to watch it over the next 24 hours. If it continues, I am going to frag it. It's gotten worse than that picture though, if I frag off the stn areas, I'll have to break it into several pieces.
 
Crossing my fingers it has not gotten worse today. Didn't check this morning.

I did some reading on STN and some people shared their experiences that if the recession is at the base, then it's typically a flow issue, if the recession is in the middle of the colony (like mine) then it's typically low alk. If so, that's in line with my findings and observations. We'll see what happens though.
 
I wanted to update this thread. I took a few pictures in the days following the recession. I fragged a few of the tips that were not receding but they also receded. It didn't stop. It actually receded at an alarming rate. If that was STN, I don't want to encounter RTN. The whole coral was skeleton except for just a few tips. I decided to see if it would recover. It mostly covered with algae in the following weeks. But today, it appears it is beginning to encrust the old skeleton. A welcomed sight. Hopefully on it's way to a full recovery.

Some pics of the continued recession and then two from today.

heqebase.jpg

unu2azu9.jpg

a6e6utyj.jpg

9egu2ase.jpg
 
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