How can I help bleached corals to recover?

[forensicdoc]

My reef tank had beautiful large acro's and monti's, in addition to other corals. Literally overnight everything started to crash. I think it might have happened from a sea cucumber that might have died in the tank (I can't find it, but it has vanished before and reappeared) because all the water parameters are fine. No new lights or additions to tank - everything had been cruising along just fine. In the evening just before the lights went out it looked like some of the polyps on my other corals were a bit more retracted then usual and the next morning I had sloughing and bleaching of the SPS's and retraction of everything else.

I immediately started water changes as quickly as I could make water and did four 15% water changes in 2-1/2 days. I also added some purigen to the sump to help removal of toxins. This seems to have worked as the other corals have begun to expand their polyps again.

The acro's and monti's remain white in color with some brown areas. I can still see the bumps from the "polyps?" on the branches. I will try to take and post some pictures later when I get a chance.

Any suggestions for what I can do to help these beautiful specimens recover? Thanks for your help!

 

[Jfishdr]

They sound dead. Snow white is the bare skeleton, the brown areas may have some tisssue you could try to frag those areas out and see if you can save them.

Keep up with stable parameters and small volume water changes and some of the frags may come back.

Post some pics, the brown could be algae, infected tissue, slime, brown jelly etc.

HTH

 

[forensicdoc]

I was afraid that was the case

 

[parkavenuereef]

Snow white doesnt mean dead.. I have one that has bleached completely due to excessive light.. PE is minimal but its alive from top to bottom.. You really have to look close.. from what I understand good flow and low light is key for bleached corals.