Everything Bleached within hours!

[jackinfobo]

Hello everyone, I am having some issues with my tank. When I came home on Thursday all of my corals were totally bleached out. I have mostly SPS corals, but also a chalice and a green galaxia. My fish and invertebrates. are all looking, and acting fine. When I tested my pH it dropped all the way to 7.6 Does anyone know what could cause this drop? I'm useing marine buffer to bring it back up and I'm figuring this is the problem? If anyone has any ideas I would greatly appriciate them.

 

[theROYSKIE]

what are other water params?
temp flux > 4*f?
have you done any maintanence lately? stirred up sand and/or detritus?

 

[ddnguyen]

check ur automatic clocks for ur light.
permanently light can cause bleaching and ph drop...

 

[Toadally]

I would first of all do away with the buffer. It can raise your alk and ph way too fast and can cause serious issues. What do you dose for calcium and alkalinity? What are your parameters? I use to have issues keeping my ph stable until I started using kalk in my top off water. Now it stays between 8.1 and 8.3. Anytime you make changes to your system do it slowly.

 

[bobbyboussy]

was there any big swings in temp

 

[jackinfobo]

There was a 1.5 degree drop on Thursday, but I don't think that is the issue because this morning I woke up and everything was worse. My water is:
Nitrate-0
Nitrite-0
Amonia-0
Calcium-380
KH- is low at 7
pH- is the problem at 7.6
Phosphate-0

I have done no recent mantence such as stir the sand, etc.

My light is not the problem either cause my tank is right next to my bed so I would know if my light was constantly on.

I just can't figure out what would cause my pH to drop to 7.6 so dramatically, I added the buffer right before light went out thinking it wouldn't raise the pH too quickly, is that ok?

 

[tuberider]

Cracked bulb?

 

[smtank]

Sorry if I missed this but do you have a ATO ? Or dosing pump. What is your SG?

A pH of 7.6 is not going to bleach all sps in a short amount of time, unless it was at 8.2 or greater, and you dropped it quickly or went up quickly.
I suspect you had a large swing of either pH or Alk, or SG, but not temp.

Another thought would be if you disturbed the sandbed at the time?

 

[GhostCon1]

pH of 7.6 is not that bad.

Cracked bulb?

This is where I would start looking.

All your params are not anything that would cause bleaching. Also, bleaching doesn't usually happen in a few hours (unless it was RIGHT under the light I guess. Or you were frying your tank) and my guess is on RTN.

 

[murphreef]

Ph is a funny thing back in the day i used to worry about Ph and buffer it because i Thought 7.8 -7.6 was too low.

Now i havent tested Ph in years. Each tank runs a little different on the Ph levels obviously it swings from high to low when lights are on or off.... when did you test your Ph? were lights on or off?

Like said above do not use buffer it will harm corals more than help as those rapid swings in Ph will hurt more than a low stable Ph.

Something else has to have happened you need to list all your other parameters... Also were all of these corals newly placed into the tank or have you had them for a while?

 

[allsps40]

I agree your parameters are on the low side but will not cause bleaching this bad this fast. My ph was 7.6-7.8 for a least 6-8 months, I opened a window bumped it to 8.0 dipping kalk up to 8.2. I also want to chime in on the ATO and SG. What is your SG? Check to be sure your sps did not rnt, look for PE and bare skeleton. Your temp swing is fine, my tank goes from 75.8 to sometimes as high as 80 with the light on, with no problems. Temp swings just need to happen slowly over a few hours and nothing crazy like 76 to 90 or 80 to 70. I have never had an issue using buffer to increase alk, just add slowly. I use Kent Super Buff, its just baking soda. But kalk is my main source of alk and ca, works best by far. Can you post some pics of the corals? That will help a lot.