Bleaching! help

[Dert42]

A couple of my sps bleached/ are bleaching.
I think it was a combination of low lights(cause my endcaps caught on fire) and the tank getting colder then normal. i saw it down to 74.

2 of them are flat out gone. a 3rd has one of it's branches bleaching. do i break it off or will it stop bleaching now that the tank is warm and the lights are on again?
i think the bleached part will regrow if still connected to living coral right?

 

[Nanook]

Once they bleach, it is a crapshoot...I think in 90% of cases, they do not make it back...maybe you will get lucky, but SPS will not tolerate variations in parameters very well...they are not easy corals to keep and most people give up after a year or three dt catastrophe's.

 

[Dert42]

poop.
do i break off the bleaching branch? will it continue to spread even though conditions are back to normal? or will it stop spreading?

 

[Markk96]

It is random on what they will do, you need to find the cause to why this happeniing. Are they bleaced or did they STN or RTN? Bleached corals are times still alive and will come back, the latter two are dead and it spreads.

 

[STABB]

I've had a few corals bleach on me. One bleached for no apprent reason, the otherbleached then stopped bleaching and looked like ti started to rot where it was bleaching, but is growing elsewhere.

 

[levon15]

might sound stupid, but I have limited exposure and work with SPS corals. I have started working with them via free or low costs am lazy and STN and RTN have not yielded any seach results for me in this area. Could someone expplain. It sounds bad and would like to know what to look for.

Thanks

 

[beapeams]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9163935#post9163935 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by levon15
might sound stupid, but I have limited exposure and work with SPS corals. I have started working with them via free or low costs am lazy and STN and RTN have not yielded any seach results for me in this area. Could someone expplain. It sounds bad and would like to know what to look for.

Thanks

Slow Tissue Necrosis (STN) and Rapid Tissue Necrosis (RTN) Basicly the Coral flesh dies off and a loss of polyps happen. Most corals can recover from STN as long as the codition that caused it is corrected before All flesh is gone. RTN almost always ends badly. They can sometimes happen for no reason at all, but normally it is caused by some environmental change (ie To low or High Alk; Temp Swings; PH drop or spike; To much flow or not enough Flow; To much light or not enough light etc) These are things I have seen to cause STN or RTN events. If you look in the SPS forum there is info on it in one of the tacked threads at the top of the forum.

Dert,
Get a heater for your tank. I have a chiller and a heater I set the heater at 80.5 and the chiller at 81.5. I use this range because my Lights heat the tank to 81 degrees. This way if the lights are off or I have a problem with the lights my tank stays at a constant temp. I use a 200 Watt Heater as well (undersized for my system) to prevent it from flipping out and super heating my tank. You don't want your lights to be the only way you heat your tank.

 

[capncapo]

Actually, if you believe at least one of the experts that I read temperature swings are not only non-hazardous but actually desired as long as they are within reason and happen slowly.

Supposedly when corals are kept at the same exact temperature they develop little tolerance for any temperature swings and if one should occur there is a much greater risk of them dying than when temps swing on a daily basis.

I believe that temps on certain reefs can vary as much as 20 degrees from morning until night.

 

[Dert42]

i had one heater. i guess with the 2nd set of lights off it wasn't quite enough. so i did get a 2nd one pretty quick last week. but i think it was too late. and 74 isn't that cold. i think it had mostly to do with lights.

 

[trottman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9163594#post9163594 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by STABB
I've had a few corals bleach on me. One bleached for no apprent reason, the otherbleached then stopped bleaching and looked like ti started to rot where it was bleaching, but is growing elsewhere.

corals dont bleach for no apparent reason

 

[beapeams]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9164462#post9164462 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by capncapo
Actually, if you believe at least one of the experts that I read temperature swings are not only non-hazardous but actually desired as long as they are within reason and happen slowly.

Supposedly when corals are kept at the same exact temperature they develop little tolerance for any temperature swings and if one should occur there is a much greater risk of them dying than when temps swing on a daily basis.

I believe that temps on certain reefs can vary as much as 20 degrees from morning until night.

You are correct, but we are not talking the ocean where everything else is perfect (water quality). In our inclosed systems a swing of greater than 4 degrees can be deadly to fish and corals. But you are right most likely it was something else that caused it or a combination of things.

Dert what was your starting Temp before the drop, and did you check phosphates? Unless you are without lights for over a week, your corals should be fine. In the summer when I lost power my corals were without power for almost a week and i did not loose any SPS, LPS, or Softies. Most likely a combination of things What are your water parameters?

 

[STABB]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9166229#post9166229 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by trottman
corals dont bleach for no apparent reason

Mine did.

 

[trottman]

impossible. they bleahed because their environment or situation was too stressful for them to survive in. ie. water condition, a new move, temp, salinity, .....

would you abort yourself for no apparent reason?

 

[nano7joy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9164462#post9164462 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by capncapo
Actually, if you believe at least one of the experts that I read temperature swings are not only non-hazardous but actually desired as long as they are within reason and happen slowly.

Supposedly when corals are kept at the same exact temperature they develop little tolerance for any temperature swings and if one should occur there is a much greater risk of them dying than when temps swing on a daily basis.

I believe that temps on certain reefs can vary as much as 20 degrees from morning until night.

I have heard or read not sure which the exact same thing and completely agree as long as that change if very gradually, and I know the topic is about corals. However I think that fish that could in nature migrate to better/more preferential conditions would find this very stressful in captivity

 

[STABB]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9167256#post9167256 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by trottman
impossible. they bleahed because their environment or situation was too stressful for them to survive in. ie. water condition, a new move, temp, salinity, .....

would you abort yourself for no apparent reason?

The condition did not vary much from the time it was heathy (5 weeks) to the time it was completely gone (2 weeks later).

Could've been something in there already, a parasite, whatever, but it was not apparent to me that anything could have stressd it out.

Which is why I said no apparent reason.

 

[Dert42]

i'm pretty certain it was temps swings.
i hold around 79 and i saw it as low as 74. it might of gotten slightly lower then that.

 

[beapeams]

Question now that the temp is stabilized do you see any polyp extension. I had a green slimer that bleached but still had polyps it looks great now and has grown a 1/2 inch since December's power outage and encrusting like crazy. So if you have any polyps left I would leave them in the tank.

 

[Dert42]

i have polyp extension on other corals, but not the bleached ones.
very slow bleaching is continuing on one coral. i'm going to take it down and frag it tonight.

this is frustrating.