Anemone bleaching! Help me diagnose

[Weboh]

My BTA is beginning to bleach. I'm not sure why. My parameters are always good when I test them, the temperature's been somewhat stable, and the anemone gets current and light.

I've done some reading today, and I see a couple possibilities:

• I've been keeping the temperature a little bit above 78 and they like it closer to 77. That small difference alone wouldn't make it bleach, would it? It's still within the acceptable range.
• I'm not really sure about the settings for my light either. I thought I found optimal settings for my AI Prime, but maybe not, since my anemone's bleaching. The light has been turned down a bit (50% for 3 weeks, 11 days to go) to acclimate my new zoas, but my birdsnest (seriatopora) is doing good under it. I attached a picture of my current settings. Let me know if you see anything wrong with them.
  I had my lighting on for about 14 hours, and they don't necessarily like it for that long. It's on for about 12 hours now.
• I recently began dosing calcium.

All of these things happened around the same time I started noticing the bleaching. Can you guys help me figure out what's causing it?

 

[aznflyfisherman]

Mainly btas bleach due to not enough light from my experience. I keep my lights on for 12 hrs, ramping up and down. If the bta looks healthy but shows signs of bleaching, I would feed it mysis twice a week and see how it goes, How big is your bta? My gbta took a long time to recover from bleaching even with good lighting and feeding, but if it’s rbta they seem to recover faster imo. My temp will range from 76 to 79. Post some pictures of your bta.

From your graph, why do you have your violet and uv settings so high at the beginning and end?

 

[Weboh]

Here are some pictures: https://imgur.com/a/sn1IN

I made the violet, uv, and red like that to try to make it look like sunrise/set.

 

[humphreyhh]

I agree. Bleach is usually caused by not enough light. I don't know your light. I just use a small kessil led and it works perfect for my rbtas. I don't think btas are too light hungry. What's your readings?


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[aznflyfisherman]

I think it looks healthy besides being bleached, i would feed it twice a week with mysis n see how it goes. Also you may need to increase your light, not sure what you have it set at.

 

[Weboh]

Well, I found out the reason it's bleaching. It turns out my hydrometer was off by 5 points! I tested it at .026, but when my LFS tested it, it came out as .031. Since I don't have an ATO, when I thought it was .028 (usually what it is when I notice the water is low) it got as high as .033! Now I'm surprised it survived at all. Who knows how long it was like that?!

Anyway, I'm slowly lowering the salinity: .002 a day or so. I'm cleaning the hydrometer in vinegar too. I'll make sure it works!