Cause of bleaching?

[Raptor72]

Woke up today and and noticed another coral showing signs of "bleaching" I believe. I'm doing a water change and running tests right now. What parameters cause this? I'll get back with the results shortly.

 

[brettinteriors]

Lot of things could do it. Water chemistry, light change, or paramater swing would be on the top of my list. Whats your dkh? I would go easy on the water change. A little at a time because that will also change your params. Bad water is better than a quick change.

 

[oscarslr]

+1 on Alk and maybe something is off with your Mag

 

[Raptor72]

Here it is

Temp 79
Alk 176
Cal 320
Dkh 9.8
Mag 1,020

I did the water change and bumped up the dosing pump a smidge on the Cal and Mag.

 

[danfeig]

I would definitely raise your Ca. For SPS, I like to keep mine at 400-420.

 

[oscarslr]

Raise Mg to above 1300 and +1 on calcium, Alk will decrease once you raise calcium so look out for that.

 

[Raptor72]

Alright, I'm getting used to this auto doser and I keep adding corals. Both of those things at the same time don't let me get a stable feel of where the levels are at. I've been bumping up the levels slowly, but maybe it's not enough.

Thanks for the input.

 

[aquaph8]

Just make sure you make corrections slowly, it's the rapid changes that will effect SPS the most

 

[David520]

If it was something that happened suddenly, and everything has been fine prior to, then I would say it has to do something with temp or ph swing. Dont do anything drastic as you will throw it out more with bad results, I have had my calcium as low as 250 with no bleaching with the alk being at15dkh. Have you added or changed anything recently? If it was gradual, then I would suspect parameters.

 

[brettinteriors]

I would also make sure your refrac is calibrated right. Mine got off once and I had issues before I realized it.
Personally I would forgo the wc and up the daily mag dosing

 

[Raptor72]

It's been gradual. It's also happened to a Sunset Monti. I think the parameters just aren't where they need to be yet. I've been testing weekly and slowly adjusting. I think I just need to bump it up a tad.

This doesn't look like something that any invert would cause, right?

 

[brettinteriors]

No it doesn't look like damage to me.