Corals bleached?

S

starionesir

New member
I recently did some refugium maintenance. I had let the algae get a little out of control in there so I turned the pumps off and scooped out a lot of nuisance algae along with the excess calupra. Turned everything back on and all looked good till the following day. Now all the lps corals are closed up pretty good and the sps corals are closed and there color is bleached. Any ideas as to what could have happened. All parameters are still as listed in my sig. Maybe stirred something up that the coral didn't like?
 
Also something odd but since I did the fuge cleaning the protein skimmer has been going crazy. Currently I have it turned off because even wide open it is overflowing with foam.
 
Could be multiple things:

1. Test for an Ammonia spike. What test kit are you using? Are you able to try another test kit or take a sample of your water to the LFS to get tested?

2. Any possible chance of an external pollutant getting into your water column? Either from your hands or any other means?

3. What lights are you using? Is there a chance that the intensity has changed?

4. Have you done any water changes or refilled your ATO container? Test the water regardless. Also test for Chlormines or find out if your water supplier changed over to chloramines. My water supplier changes over to chloramines at this time of year to "clear the pipes" and will keep using them for 2-3 months.

5. Do you have a DSB that you stirred up? Did you smell rotten eggs when you were working on clearing your algae?

6.Unlikely from what you have suggested so far but have you used any epoxy, putty or glue to stick down corals that you have never or don't normally use? My skimmer goes crazy when I use 2lf putty. Corals remain healthy though

Just pulling algae from your sump/fuge wouldn't cause your corals to bleach. There is something else going on there.
 
I'd bet more than likely your nitrates and phosphates are through the roof from stirring up the sandbed of the sump. If so will need to do several big wc's say 20% every other day until you hit 100% so 5 wc's
 
Nothing else was changed. Just cleaning of the fuge which is bare bottom. I will check for ammonia, nitrate and phosphate again when I get home.
 
When I do water changes I take it out of the sump as the detritus settles there so I vacuum it out. I normally don't mess with the DT sand bed. I have been cleaning out some algae from the DT recently but this bleaching has happened right after the fuge cleaning.
 
corals turning white, they have symbiotic algae that give them the colors, if they are under stress they can eject the symbiotic algae in an attempt to deal with the stress.


so *SOMETHING* happened in that tank that stressed the corals.

several things can lead to this, chemicals , temperature swing are the main ones.

when getting the algae out you may have released a bunch of sediment and some nasty stuff from the algae that the corals are reacting to.

in the wild reefs algae and corals are at an ongoing state of war with each other and they release toxins , the algae and the coral both want to win out.
 
So its very possible that stirring up the algae infested fuge could have irritated the corals? All corals showed effects the very next day. Some looked a little bit more open this morning but nothing like before the fuge cleaning.
 
I would also assume if something like ammonia spiked then the fish would show signs of distress. All fish and invert's seem to be uneffected. They all are eating normally and seem like nothing has changed. Corals are the only ones upset.
 
starionesir said:
So its very possible that stirring up the algae infested fuge could have irritated the corals? All corals showed effects the very next day. Some looked a little bit more open this morning but nothing like before the fuge cleaning.
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pulling the macro algae may have released some stuff into the water that the corals do not like.
when some algae grow up next to some corals the corals die and the algae take over, it's chemical warfare in action.

that may be what you did by accident.
 
I'll get some pictures in the next hour when I get home. The majority of the algae was caulerpa. There was other slimy nuisance algae in there as well which was what I was working on getting out of there. I do have some carbon I can run in my reactor to help if the algae is indeed causing the issues.
 
I'm also going to try and start the skimmer again when I get home. So far hadn't been able to run it without it overflowing all over the place.
 
starionesir said:
I'm also going to try and start the skimmer again when I get home. So far hadn't been able to run it without it overflowing all over the place.
Click to expand...

Hey I missed that before, skimmer going nuts also is a sign of something in the water that is not right. Like a load of waste it's tying to get out of the tank as one example. Some chemicals also make skimmers go nuts.
 
Heres a couple shots of some of the corals that are closed up and some shots of the algae that I can't seem to shake in the DT. The other algae picture is from the fuge that I was cleaning out.
 

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It's been in the fuge for the better half of a year. I can certainly get rid of the rest of it. I bought it from lfs to help with phosphate control. Still thinking me cleaning it out caused the issues? Think the corals will survive?
 
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