Aussie maze/brain PAR?

[punchy]

i have an australian maze brain coral and the tips are bleaching. it was already starting to bleach when i got it and has been slowly getting worse. i had it originally at about 130 par for 3 weeks and was rarely fed.

i've since increased its par over a few days to 200, and has been sitting there for the past week now, and is fed nightly with vitalis lps coral pellets since increasing par.

color hasn't returned yet, i'm guessing these things take awhile.

what have others found to be optimal par for australian brain maze platygyra?

 

[Mark9]

Feeding daily seems excessive, why raising par when it's bleaching?

 

[organism]

Bleached corals always need less light, not more light. Daily feedings are a good way to foul up your water quality and stress it more. Either way it's going to take a long time to recover.

 

[punchy]

its been bleaching slowly over 3 weeks at ~130 par, not sure if i made that clear. if par was nuking it bleaching would happen over days, no?

i'm feeding nightly cause i don't want it to die my water is at 0.02 phosphate, 0 nitrates, 8.1 ph, 420 alk, 420 ca, all @1.026, and i wc 15% weekly so i'm not overly concerned with the additional food which is a small pinch.

i am however battling dinos i've been manually removing it along with running gac. snails have perked up which is cool. i've been waiting for the maze to feel better as i thought a 3 day blackout might push him over the edge. =x

thoughts?

 

[punchy]

oops alk ~8.5 dkh

 

[organism]

its been bleaching slowly over 3 weeks at ~130 par, not sure if i made that clear. if par was nuking it bleaching would happen over days, no?

Corals bleach slowly for many reasons, light may or may not be one of them. From your parameters it looks like you're not feeding your fish enough.

Photos would help.

 

[punchy]

day 1 bathroom lights

last night under mostly blue

theres more signs of feeding response now (although still minimal) along with more sweepers (4-5, before 0-1).

looking at the pic timestamps i stand corrected; he was at 130 par for almost 6 weeks, and has been at 200 for about 10 days now. flow has always been moderate.

From your parameters it looks like you're not feeding your fish enough.

everything in my tank is fat. i even abduct hermit crabs to target feed them lol

i've started blackout day 1. i was tired of dinos and wanted to eliminate toxins as a possibility. daily feedings will obviously continue, hope it doesn't die =x

 

[kurt_n]

My Platy has been successful sitting beneath 150-200 lighting. For the first few years, I fed it weekly, but over the last couple years... I've never spot fed it. Funny... since I've stopped spot feeding my LPS completely, nothing has really changed and things just continue to grow like weeds.

Your water parameters look OK. What temperature are you running?

 

[punchy]

My Platy has been successful sitting beneath 150-200 lighting. For the first few years, I fed it weekly, but over the last couple years... I've never spot fed it. Funny... since I've stopped spot feeding my LPS completely, nothing has really changed and things just continue to grow like weeds.

Your water parameters look OK. What temperature are you running?

temp is 77-78.

thanks for your numbers. confirms i was prolly starving it.

 

[Flanders]

That's not a great pic but it doesn't look bleached to me. The darker raised areas between the polyps will lighten in color in increased lighting. I probably wouldn't change what you're doing at this point, especially if you're starting to get more sweepers at night.

 

[punchy]

for the posterity of future aussie 'ultra' brain maze corals i've decided to conclude this post with my findings.

6 months ago, after being under 130 par for 6 weeks, the ridges were bleaching badly. the blue light photo may not have illustrated this well, but over easily over 50% of it was a stark white. and some of the polyps looked like they were translucent, as in, you could see brown skeleton through the green tissue. in retrospect its clear it was dying.

after living under 240 par these past 6 months, color has returned! the ridges are now darkening up nicely and the polyps are now a vibrant fluorescent green, ie. no brown skeleton showing through whatsoever.

conclusion: 130 par bad. 240 par good.

so happy i didn't end up killing it

 

[karimwassef]

Thanks!