Alk Swing

[frofan]

I had an alk swing a little over a month ago and noticed the corals beginning to bleach. I also switched out the bulbs in my T5 fixture around the same time. I lost my ORA birdsnest, and the rest of the corals are looking pretty bad. I replaced the bulbs over a period of 4 weeks in an effort to not shock the corals. All of my parameters are also in check now.

SG - 1.026
Phosphates - 0 (Have a little algae, so there is some present)
Nitrate - 0
Nitrite - 0
Calcium - 460
Alk - 8 or 9
Mag - 1450

I'm dosing 75ml of BRS recipe #1 into 120 gallons of water. Is there anything I can do to help revive my SPS? Egg crate to difuse the light, shorter light cycle, dip the corals in revive, etc..?

 

[tibob32]

If you've already changed all the bulbs, egg crate won't do much. If it were me, I'd just keep parameters stable and leave the corals alone. Just make sure you're certain it's the alk swing and not something else that's responsible

 

[GhostCon1]

+1 to tibob32's advice.

Also, do you feed your coral anything? I would do that to help out with the coral getting food since they expelled some of their zooxanthellae.

 

[teesquare]

Can you describe the bleaching with some details:? As - more on the tips, or base? Or more localized to the skin of acros down in between corallites?, and so on?
Thanks,
T

 

[frofan]

The entire coral is bleaching fairly uniformly. The base appears to be affected first. Their is also minimal if any polyp extension. The birdsnest was hit the hardest and both look like they are gone.

 

[therman]

I mis-dosed due to a bad test kit reading a false low on Alk and I jacked up the alk too high. Some acros were unaffected, most quit growing, and many receded from the base up. Many lost color, bleached, and lost PE. Lost a few frags. Took about a month but I think they're starting to turn around again. Major PITA.

 

[SammyJ916]

+1 with might be a bad test kit! Do you have another one available to test and compare the 2! I notice when my magnesium starts to drop I have a hard time controlling alk!