Help! More Corals are Bleaching.

[Str8linespeed]

Im at a loss, I had some SPS bleaching about 2 months ago, they appear to be slowly recovering. Figured it was from a T5 Lamp change.

Now I have a Red Monti Cap and War Coral that have started to show bleaching, I also have a Weslo that has been showing its skeleton for the past week and appears to have tissue recession (color loss), and a gaping mouth.

I have a dual GFO and Carbon reactor. My water parameters are.....
Sal. 1.025
Temp 78.5
PH 8.13
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 7
Calcium 435
Phosphate .006
Mag 1410
Alk 8.3
Sorry I cant turn my blues off with the T5 set up I have.
Overall Tank Shot

Monti Cap

Weslo

War Coral (Red Circles show spots that are starting to bleach)

 

[Uncle99]

Your parameters appear on point, so I would have to guess too much, or too rapid change in light source. Corals sometimes get angry when their light is changed in colour spectrum or increased intensity. The thrive in stability so each time we make change, they will react unless we slow down the changes...

BTW, very nice tank....so the problem is newly occurred....and not catastrophic.

Think light

 

[Str8linespeed]

Your parameters appear on point, so I would have to guess too much, or too rapid change in light source. Corals sometimes get angry when their light is changed in colour spectrum or increased intensity. The thrive in stability so each time we make change, they will react unless we slow down the changes...

But its been about 2 months since the last lamp was changed out. Why would this just start in the last week or so?

 

[Uncle99]

Corals can react quickly or slowly depends on the degree of change and the composite of the change. A low PH for example may take months whereas copper, maybe a day.
Im not sure it's light, but if your water is was good, light is the next parameter, one that has changed. If T5 are used to long, their colour changes, and when the new lamps are installed, both the colour and intensity changes.
If you can lower intensity, you could consider that maybe

 

[on the spot]

...I have a dual GFO and Carbon reactor...

Monkey with either of these lately?

GFO can do that sort of thing too. I'd off line them for a few days, see how things look.

HTH

 

[Str8linespeed]

Monkey with either of these lately?

GFO can do that sort of thing too. I'd off line them for a few days, see how things look.

HTH

Nope havent changed what I was doing, but I did shut it down..

I caught my Christmas Wrasse picking on the Weslo, so I moved that to my other tank and the Wrasse is going to finding a new home. Im not sure if the other coral bleaching is caused from it or not.

 

[top shelf]

You could still be experiencing fallout from the lamp change but looking at your phosphate it seems a little low. Coral still need phosphate as a food source along with nitrate. With a nitrate level of 7 I would try to raise phosphate to about .03 and see if that doesn't help. I believe many have had success with seachem flourish, there's another product but can't recall it atm.

 

[Str8linespeed]

You could still be experiencing fallout from the lamp change but looking at your phosphate it seems a little low. Coral still need phosphate as a food source along with nitrate. With a nitrate level of 7 I would try to raise phosphate to about .03 and see if that doesn't help. I believe many have had success with seachem flourish, there's another product but can't recall it atm.

I was wondering if the water was "to" clean so to speak. I think I may have changed that I'll test tomorrow. I had to disassemble by rock work to catch a wrasse and stirred up a lot of crud that was hiding in the substrate. That may be more nitrates, but I'll find out.

 

[top shelf]

It could be, you may spike nitrate with that. Just like mag, calc, and alk there is a balance between nitrate and phosphate as well. To little or to much of both is a bad thing and to much of one and not enough of the other is bad as well and can cause other problems. Your nitrate isn't bad though, if you can get p04 up a bit and keep it steady see how that does.

 

[anthonys51]

Nope havent changed what I was doing, but I did shut it down..



I caught my Christmas Wrasse picking on the Weslo, so I moved that to my other tank and the Wrasse is going to finding a new home. Im not sure if the other coral bleaching is caused from it or not.

The wrasse isn't eating the coral. It picks at pods.


How often do you test. Also phosphates did you mean to say .06. .006 is too low for out test kits to read


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[Str8linespeed]

The wrasse isn't eating the coral. It picks at pods.


How often do you test. Also phosphates did you mean to say .06. .006 is too low for out test kits to read


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Sorry I beg to differ, I believe it was eating the coral. If it was picking then it was doing it aggressively enough to actually pick the weslo up off of the bottom. I find it strange that if it was pods, which I dont believe I have any in that tank, that the Wrasse was picking in the same spot and repeatedly. Regardless I found a new home for the wrasse.

I test twice a week, I use the Hanna ULR tester. My last reading was 2, so
2x3/1000=.006 (the way I've read to convert and the charts that I've found online.

 

[anthonys51]

Sorry I beg to differ, I believe it was eating the coral. If it was picking then it was doing it aggressively enough to actually pick the weslo up off of the bottom. I find it strange that if it was pods, which I dont believe I have any in that tank, that the Wrasse was picking in the same spot and repeatedly. Regardless I found a new home for the wrasse.



I test twice a week, I use the Hanna ULR tester. My last reading was 2, so

2x3/1000=.006 (the way I've read to convert and the charts that I've found online.
If all the stuff in your tank is dying there has to be something wrong with your water chemistry LHow often do you do water changes
Also The Hanna ulr phosphates tester the results are the results. Do you use thst one or the other one There is no reason to convert. So your phosphates are 2.00 with is really high.
Anyway move the welso to a dark low flow spot. Once they start not puffing up it's normal means death. So you need to get it to puff up.

I


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[Uncle99]

If your phosphate is .006, that is way to low, and bleach yup...
Nitrate should be in the 2-4ppm range and phosphate in the .02-.04 range or they starve

 

[anthonys51]

Your eyes must be a lot better than mine. Because I can not tell the difference without a shadow of the doubt on salifert or red sea nitrates test kit once you get under 10.

Also op didn't state if he had phosphates checker or phosphorus


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[nereefpat]

We can wait for OP to confirm, but based on the conversion it looks like he's using the ULR Phosphorous.

Definitely take the GFO offline if that hasn't already been done. I agree that close to zero is too little phosphate.

 

[anthonys51]

I don't like to assume anything. When trying to figure out a problem I never assume anything


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[nereefpat]

There's no way phosphates are 2ppm...especially when GFO has been used.

But, like I said, we can wait for OP to confirm.

 

[anthonys51]

Help! More Corals are Bleaching.

I don't think they are at 2 if Gfo is used correctly. But maybe it isn't. Maybe it stopped tumbling after a day. Maybe his test vial is dirty and giving a false reading. Op also never stated how often he tested. We are assuming he is doing everything correctly. But why are we assuming that. He also didn't state if he does water changes. Also he states he doesn't have an autotop off. Maybe he gets lazy for a couple days then tops off. This over time will cause problems.

As far as the lights. After 2 months the coral would of gotten used to the increased lights of it was simply stranger lights. And unless he went 2 years without changing his t5 I don't think that's an issue but once again we shouldn't assume


We simple don't know enough


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[anthonys51]

Also a reef tank with no pods. Lol. Can we really trust his judgement. If he doesn't have pods I am the queen of England


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[Uncle99]

Your eyes must be a lot better than mine. Because I can not tell the difference without a shadow of the doubt on salifert or red sea nitrates test kit once you get under 10.

Also op didn’t state if he had phosphates checker or phosphorus


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Point well taken.
I use the API test which low scale is .25
But the resulting colour is very very pale which I figured, and yes, it's a guess, is probably a quarter of that number. We are getting no green at all, so likely, we should be at least, close to that range.
If green stops, close is good enough for this test. I only ensure that the green colour in the test remains as it was....