New Colonies Bleaching Very Fast

[splix]

I picked up 5 new colonies of random acro SPS. They were all doing great for 2 weeks, starting to color back up from the stress of the transition into my tank. I've got a mostly SPS dominated tank so I'm always making sure things are spot on.
2 of the 5 colonies are bleaching very quickly (25% increase over night) from the base up. I know it's not lighting because the low light area of the coral is bleaching, ie: the bottom branches of the milli that get low light due to the top branches. I noticed slight bleaching of the tri-color around the very edges of the base but it was so small I wasnt worried. Now I wake up and 25% of the colony from the base up is bleached. I dont think the milli has bleached any more which is a good thing.
All my other SPS is doing fine, except a couple birdsnest frags I've had for a couple months started bleaching from the base up a week ago also. I gave some to a friend when I got it and his started doing the same thing about the same time as mine. It was cheap so I didnt really bother with it. This was about a week before the colonies started.

All the other SPS that's been in the tank is doing fine, I dont see any bleaching. The two colonies that are bleaching are to the right side of the tank, the other 2 that have no signs are on the left side which is odd. There is 1 new colony on the right side that hasnt shown any signs of bleaching yet.

Temp: 80.2
salt: 1.026
calc: 480
mag: 1450
dkh: 10
nitrates: 5
po4: undectable

All parameters are rock solid. Every time I test they never change.

Any ideas?

 

[rvareef]

close ups of the colonies and a FTS? Where did the colonies come from?

 

[splix]

The two colonies so far hit the hardest. Colonies came to me from my LFS, not sure where they've come from in the world exactly.

Think I should re-dip the colonies? I'm not seeing any pests but thats never a guarantee. I dont want to stress them even more though.

 

[splix]

I'm about to bring a new lagoon style sump online today which will basically double my water volume. Hoping this will help drop my nitrates since I'll be expanding my refugium by a huge amount.

 

[Smoke_N_Reefer]

Generally related to alk swings. A lot of people keep birdsnest as an indicator coral. They are one of the first SPS to show the signs of unstable alkalinity. Also did you dip those new maricultured pieces?

 

[splix]

I thought it would be an alk swing but I tested alk this morning and it's still 10. I usually test at like 3pm and it's always 10.
I did bayer dip them when I got them.

The only change I did was I swapped out GFO. I think it might be related to this because it's about the same time it all started. GFO is off now though. I used the same amount and brand I alway do.

 

[ksc]

To be blunt, your tank is too new to be adding mariculture colonies. Stick to the tried and true named sps until you have them grown into the size of those colonies you just added. In the future I'd put those in a quarantine system for a few months to be sure they are pest free.

 

[Scorpius]

To be blunt, your tank is too new to be adding mariculture colonies. Stick to the tried and true named sps until you have them grown into the size of those colonies you just added. In the future I'd put those in a quarantine system for a few months to be sure they are pest free.

How do you know how old his tank is? He never said in his original post?

From his pictures it looks like his lights are way too intense.

 

[rvareef]

I bet the gfo change did it

 

[splix]

As far as lighting, keep in mind these are cell phone pics so the colors are all off. I have 4 65w sunspect (mars aqua type) LEDs. blues at 50%, whites at 25%, and two 80w ATI coral pro t5's flanking all the LED boxes running down the middle of the tank. All my SPS grows like crazy and honestly the lights may be a little dim. I've ran a par meter through my tank a few times and levels are good.

I've got 2 other maricultured pieces of SPS that have been in the tank for 6+ months and the stag has almost doubled in size. I've never had an issue with SPS until these couple pieces. Tank will be up for a year in August.

 

[SkullV]

Your Alk is way high for a tank with undetectable phosphates. Drop them to 7-8 (slowly) and I bet things turn around. Keep in mind that those mariculture/wild pieces were in the ocean pretty recently (sometimes a matter of days) where Alk is much lower and the nutrient deficient water is FULL of particulate food.

 

[splix]

Yeah I'm starting to drop alk slowly. Dropped my 2 part dosing by 5ml/day so hopefully by the end of the week it'll be around 8.

 

[twon8]

Pretty sure that is stn, not bleaching


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[tigersmith]

Yup ALK is too high. Shoot between 8 dKH and no more than 9 dKH. I've kept both wild and maricultured acros the size of 2 human fists with success. The larger the colony the more flow you need. Especailly tabling type colonies.

 

[rhinonm]

That is stning... Those acros will be gonners in a day or so.

 

[splix]

yeah I fragged it into about 8 frags. 2 and 1/2 are still alive. The 1/2 is wierd. couple branches RTNed but 2 others are solid. I dont expect it to live but whatever.

Live and learn

I swapped out the sump and installed an 80g refugium last weekend. I quit dosing alk and let it fall and it's around 9 right now. I'd like it to keep falling to 8.5 but I've slowed the fall by dosing a tiny amount.

All other colonies are doing really well, one is even growing quickly already by encrusting around the rocks that it's attached to.

The only other colony that is STN'ing is a milli which stopped RTN'ing for awhile but started to STN when I was dropping the alk over the past week. hopefully now that alk will be stable from here on it'll quit STN'ing. It's not the entire thing like the tricolor did, just one of the branches.