Please Help - SPS Corals Pale / Almost Bleached
- Thread starter hilde123
- Start date
austin93
Don't Panic!
Its absolutely possible and actually likely that the gha is using the nutrients in your tank before you can test it. Its like an ugly refugium in that it cleans the tank water of nutrients before they can be removed by the gfo. I bet your gfo cleans up what is left over leaving nothing for the corals. I just got 5 frags from a tank similar to yours where the corals are all very pale. I would increase feedings and pluck out as much gha as possible. Hopefully I can offer some more help if these corals turn around as I do have measurable nitrates and phosphate. I wouldn't spend much time worrying about potassium as that is rarely going to be limited unless maybe you are running zeo stones.
souperman
Member
I wanted to comment that I am in a similar situation with having no detectable phosphates or nitrates and GHA growing on my pumps and back glass. My corals are very pale with the exception of a blue acro and a blue milli. Those blue corals have started to brow in what I'm hoping is them bouncing back from bleaching? The browning is on the under side of the corals away from the light. Do blue corals generally need more light?
I have begun to feed more aggressive and am considering taking my GFO offline, but I am worried the GHA would go crazy. It has stayed off my rockwork so far.
My lighting is a 6 lamp Tek that is on 10 hours total, 8 hours with both ballasts on.
I have begun to feed more aggressive and am considering taking my GFO offline, but I am worried the GHA would go crazy. It has stayed off my rockwork so far.
My lighting is a 6 lamp Tek that is on 10 hours total, 8 hours with both ballasts on.
I have to agree with the comments about the GHA sucking up nutrients. It makes total sense. It also helps explain why my chaeto grows very slowly in the fuge.... almost no growth at all. I haven't ran GFO in months and still pale colors, but I'm pulling a fair bit of GHA out of my frag tank weekly... no tang to nip it back and couldn't put a tang in that tank as it's only 40 gal. So, I plan to up the phyto amount. I put very little in now. Also plan to add a bit more food and just watch N&P so they don't climb too high. My skimmer is oversized for my system and my bioload is low (6 Anthias, Sailfin, Manderin, Coris Wrasse, 3 Chromis, Chalk Basslet) for 450 gallons of water.
I highly recommend the Hanna ULR meter. Be sure to get the ULR model as it displays Phosphorus in ppb and you convert it over to P04 in ppm. By this means, you get low readings whereas traditional titration test kits tend to show zero or less than some value with no further resolution.
I highly recommend the Hanna ULR meter. Be sure to get the ULR model as it displays Phosphorus in ppb and you convert it over to P04 in ppm. By this means, you get low readings whereas traditional titration test kits tend to show zero or less than some value with no further resolution.
acroholicreefer
New member
It sounds like GFO is your problem. I would slowly turn off the reactor completely and you should see weekly improvements. Keep up with your water changes and you should be set. It is possible that the issue could be from your carbon but I would start with taking the GFO offline.
From my experience with GFO, it is not completely about how much GFO you have in the reactor. Too much flow going through the reactor can easily strip your nutrients, even with a small amount of GFO.
From my experience with GFO, it is not completely about how much GFO you have in the reactor. Too much flow going through the reactor can easily strip your nutrients, even with a small amount of GFO.
flyingphish
Member
hilde123.
you are starving your corals.
i think you are doing everything else correct, except the kind of food you are feeding your corals.
dont change a thing to your other routines, they are fine.
feed corals once a day until they look better, try this:
Oyster eggs (from bottle)
rotifers (either from bottle or dry, i like "Coral Frenzy")
cyclopeze
aminos
mix it all up and dump...
wait two to four weeks.
you will see a difference.
add snails to clean algae.
you are starving your corals.
i think you are doing everything else correct, except the kind of food you are feeding your corals.
dont change a thing to your other routines, they are fine.
feed corals once a day until they look better, try this:
Oyster eggs (from bottle)
rotifers (either from bottle or dry, i like "Coral Frenzy")
cyclopeze
aminos
mix it all up and dump...
wait two to four weeks.
you will see a difference.
add snails to clean algae.
I will cut back GFO as recommended... I didnt think you had much choice with waterflow thru GFO reactor, it has to be set high enough that the GFO tumbles but not so high that it is out of control. From my understanding if it does not tumble it will become a solid block. I have stepped up feed the last week or so and will see how things do. I have some Coral Frenzy and Reef Chili I will add those into my routines as well.
CHSUB
"Certified Hobby Expert"
I don't read anything about waterchanges? are you doing any and if so how much....i would start doing small WC a couple times a week for a month or two and take all GFO, carbon, and ozone offline, add a tang or two....IMO you need to balance and stabilize your saltwater ion balance, adding tangs will increase nutrients, althought i think that is not the problem, while help controlling GHA...
Can you explain a little more aobut "ion balance" I am noti familar with that. I change 15 gallons every 2 weeks. I'll completely shut off GFO tonight, what the hell, all it can do is let some phosphate build up which wouldnt hurt anything in the short term (obvioulsy I'll test to make sure it doesnt get up too high)
CHSUB
"Certified Hobby Expert"
i think the combination of ozone,gfo,carbon,high mg, and low salinity, may haved caused stress to your sps, because the balance of elements in your tank has be changed...it seems like you are feeding your tank enough food, so starving your sps, although possible but unlikily...this is why i think small water changes might help, slowing bring back the right ratio of elements in your tank.
I must say the corals are starting to look better, the orange digi is getting a more rich / less pale orange to it and I am starting to see some green on the birdsnest polyps. I have done quite a few water changes (probably 60-80 gallons) in the last 2 weeks as well. I will keep up the increased food regiment and see if I see any nuisance algae (none yet). I have some new fish in QT (Sailfin Tang, Yellow Tang, Chromis, and Mandarin Goby), that should help out the bio load when they are ready for introduction to the DT. Thanks to everyone who has helped me out so far.
Sounds good. I'm seeing similar results as well with my increased feedings. Polyp extension is much improved. I'm doing a 40-50 gal water change every 10 days. The downside is cyano is covering more of the substrate and P04 up from 0.03 to 0.06 ppm on the Hanna ULR meter. Think I'm going to run a little GFO and try to combat it. Also planning another w/c this weekend which is only a week since the last one. Such a balance - this hobby.
DaddyJax
New member
I am very happy to see some of these responses!
Pulling the gfo and carbon are the first thing along with adding the fish and feeding them daily. Also might want to diversify the type of fish you have. this is something that seems to be overlooked among many others. Planktivores are a great type of fish to have in a sps system imo. They are always in an around the corals in the wild and their detritus feeds the corals unlike other fish do. Once again this is my observation. A school of blue green chromis are cheap and beautiful and peaceful. I am also very fond of schools of Anthias as well.
Pulling the gfo and carbon are the first thing along with adding the fish and feeding them daily. Also might want to diversify the type of fish you have. this is something that seems to be overlooked among many others. Planktivores are a great type of fish to have in a sps system imo. They are always in an around the corals in the wild and their detritus feeds the corals unlike other fish do. Once again this is my observation. A school of blue green chromis are cheap and beautiful and peaceful. I am also very fond of schools of Anthias as well.
Planning on a school of chromis, I bought 4 of them with my recent shipment from live aquaria, 3 were DOA and the 4th died the night after. They had them all in one bag and I think the death of the others made the water toxic (it was real yellow) which ended up affecting the 4th. I dont know why they didnt put each in its own small bag.
I find that the Hanna gives me different readings generally within a tolerance of 5-10. For example, the other day, I saw 7, 12 and 10. . I generally take 3 readings to get an average so in this case I called it 10 or 0.03ppm P04. For the last 10 days, I've been running about 2 cups of GFO and feeding roughly a couple cubes of frozen food (a cube of mysis cube or spirulina brine shrimp and roughly a 3/4" piece of Rod's food), a healthy piece of nori plus a squirt or two of Zooplanktos-L per day. I still have some GHA and cyano... since I increased feedings to this level, the cyano crept up in my display along with some turf algae. The cyano recedes throughout the day. I added about a dozen red legged hermits to the frag tank a couple weeks ago and between them and the GFO I suspect, the GHA has been under control although still present at a slower growth rate and does not require as frequent cleanings. So, all in all, my P04 is low but I still get algae growth. The algae store nutrients so that could explain why we both have algae growth and low P04. I should note that my SPS has really perked up since I upped the feedings. I just want to get rid of the cyano now...
muscleflex
New member
Hi - i know it's old.... and I can't PM you but did you manage to fix your sps corals bleaching trouble?
Devil Man
Member
im with this guy!!! i too am having similar issues my water is very clean though my calcium is a bit to high over 500. im so confused gonna get oyster eggs tom and give that a try
