sps bleaching?

[Gary Majchrzak]

bottom line

bottom line

fluctuations can cause stress and stress can cause bleaching. Bleached SPS can usually recover if conditions go back to optimal before it's too late.

 

[diverdick]

nah, ii know what growth looks like, this is more or less a whitening of the branch of the sps...the tips still have color though


rich, i have used radiums for over a year and everything has loved them around 9" off the surface. i know the bulbs arent the issue this is happening. i started off my tank with radiums basically so theyre used to the spectrum. i wonder why ur tank didnt like them, ive never really read anything bad about radiums! lol on a side note, ill be home this weekend, u gonna be around?

My work schedule is overlapping weekends for a couple months.....will be in hiding for a while......bummer for me

I can make 3 - 250 watt radiums available (used 10 weeks - ~ 6 hous/day) Will have to wait until June though...lol

 

[Willistein]

I can make 3 - 250 watt radiums available (used 10 weeks - ~ 6 hous/day) Will have to wait until June though...lol

Hey, let me know if you do!

 

[tmz]

What are your levels of PO4 and NO3?
I've kept good color with PO4 as high as 0.1ppm and nitrate as high as 20ppm.However, everything except nuisance algae and cyano does better for me at current levels of NO3 at 0.2ppm and PO4 at less than 0.05ppm. FYI reef surface water values are: PO4 .005ppm, NO3 about .2ppm. Down beyond 60 feet or so they can be 2 to 3 times higher.Also, some corals from turbid lagoons or deep water may do better with higher nutrients but not sps in my experience.

When reducing PO4 and NO3 it is prudent to go slowly to give corals time to adjust to altered lighting conditions associated with enhanced water quality, the reduced nutrient levels themselves and the alkalinity changes reduced nutrients can bring as they enhance abiotic and biotic precipitation.At very low nutrients corals seem more sensitive to alkalinity shifts in my experience, perhaps without a period tissue growth can't keep up with increased production of skeletal mass .

Rox 8 is more abosorbent than other carbons by about 1.5 to 1. Generally 1/3 cup about 3 ounces of rox per 50 gallons of waer vome changed 1x per month is sufficient.

How steady is your salinity?

How steady is your alkalinity and what is it?

I doubt a drop in temperature to 75 would cause issues although constancy in temperature is very desireable.

I have never used radiums or T5s,so I wont comment. Many like them though. I have always used plain old hamilton SE mogul bulbs 250w l4k for sps and 175 20k for the sps dominated tank both with vho supplementation . The vho seems to make a big difference in color for me.

Hypoxia can be an issue,especially at night, particularly if flow patterns are altered by growth. Zero nightime photosynthesis means less O2 and localized hypoxic areas can occur. Running a chaeto fuge on opposite photo period can help.

A build up of total organic carbon is always a suspect . Aggressive skimming gac and perhaps purigen use and/or ozone can help.

Ammino acids are a nitrogen source . So if your nitrate is 0 doing may be helpful. They also add organics though. It seems the most beneficial of them may be aspartic acid.
As for feeding I like small micron foods for sps such as coral frenzy. Admittedly, I don't feed very often but do have plenty of well fed fish in teh system.

 

[oneradtek202]

salinity stable between 1.0245 - 1.0255

have not test po4 no3 levels in awhile because until now there has not yet been an indication of any issue of them being too high. No algae growth what so ever, however the color loss is now the issue.

I think back to a month or so and look at my pics that i take monthly and i see that i moved my powerheads to be "out of view" and i think may have disturbed the flow that everything was used to. so i moved them back about 2 weeks ago.

Also about early march is when i accidentally got sodium bicarb and was using that for the last month , which has a lowering effect on PH. i tested my ph and being a cruddy test, i think it was 7.8 at night. that is possibly the reason why ive been having the issue, so now i have baked my sodium bicarb and have been dosing that the last few nights and retesed my PH and it was 8.0 at night, and my alk back to 8 dkh where it was before all of this started. ill post pics in a min

 

[tmz]

Brandon Without testing PO4 and NO3 I wouldn't conclude they are too low due to bleaching. Even if they test very low I personally don't think they are a problem. The opposite could be true.You may also have some form of toxin in the water (metal etc) .A little polyfilter in additio to your gac might be a good thing to try.

While baked baking soda can raise ph significantly unbaked will have only a minimal sometimes undiscernible lowering effect .Unbaked is HCO3 (bicarbonate);baked is CO3(carbonate). These two carbonate species change back and forth based on ph(ie the availability of H+in the water). At nsw ph of 8.2 there is about 5x as much bicarbonate as carbonate.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Brandon Without testing PO4 and NO3 I wouldn't conclude they are too low due to bleaching.

I agree with this. There's no way to know what Brandon's levels are without testing and therefore we may never know if this was the problem.

Even if they test very low I personally don't think they are a problem

I disagree with this.
Extremely low PO4 and NO3 can be a problem (ie:result in certain corals "bleaching" or exhibiting other undesirable symptoms) IME.

 

[tmz]

For clarification I think of "very low" as less than .03ppm PO4 and 0.2ppm NO3. Mine runs well at around .04ppm PO4 and 0.2 NO3. Even chaeto thrives with slow/moderate growth at these levels. These are still higher than natural reef values(PO4 .005ppm with NO3 at 0.2ppm) and barely detectable on some hobby test kits. For along while I ran the system at about 1.0 ppm PO4 with nitrate in the 10ppm range. Corals did fine but there was some cyano and hair algae which are now gone at the lower levels and the corals are still doing fine.
Corals from deeper water and turbid lagoons may live in water 2 to 5 times richer in nutrients than high reef waters but that is still pretty low ( PO4 at .005ppm x5 would be 0.025ppm and NO3 at0.2ppm x5 would be 1ppm).


In my system some corals like xenia do well but don't grow much. Euphylia are also grow more slowly in my system now than they did when nitrogen and phosphorous were higher. When I move a euphylia to my 65 galon leather tank which is not part of the system and has high nitrate(80ppm) and phosphate(.5 ppm) they grow better.Sps most lps nepthia sinularia and scrophyton thrive in the low nutrient water. Zoanthidae including zoanthus and palythoa and propalytoa grow very well .

I do think dropping nutrients too quickly can be a problem(stn/ burnt tips) particularly with high alk or concurrent shifts in alkalinity based on my experience. As a practical matter I don't worry about them being too low if I am feeddng my fish.I just try to keep them low (via skimming, gac, gfo,and a little vodka and vinegar) and steady along with steady sg, temp, and alkalinity.

 

[GMaquarium]

These days it very common to find 0 or 0.01 po4 with a hanna meter. With good skimmers, gfo being a staple of chemical filtration and folks not being shy about doing good size regular waterchanges. At the same time most like to keep dkh at and over 9. In my opinion This is what I would call "Ultra Low Nutrient" It is not healthy and will bleach many corals.

Also Tom brings up a very good and sometimes missed point. Not all corals come from same waters. Although they can adapt and compromise, and for the most part that is how majority of corals survive in captivity anyways. But its nice to know where each type of coral is found in terms of depth and type of habitat. Can make a difference.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I have been using ROX carbon for the last few months , maybe ive been using too much? for 100 gallons of water i use just about half a phosban reactor of carbon.

also i have no algae what so ever in my tank, it seems my cleanup crew has been doing a good job or my skimmer has been . i dose amino acids every day.

what yall think?

I think you should cut your use of ROX down to 1/5 Phosban reactor and skip a few water changes. Let things slide for a couple of weeks and see if the bleaching SPS start showing signs of regaining pigmentation.

reminder edit: this recommendation is made making the assumption that 'ultra low nutrients' are the problem here and we don't know for sure if that's the truth!

 

[Bluephish13]

I am still listening in.

At very low nutrients corals seem more sensitive to alkalinity shifts in my experience, perhaps without a period tissue growth can't keep up with increased production of skeletal mass .

This still seems to be a problem in my tank. Some corals have been sprouting new growth tips that get covered with brown algae first, then slowly grow flesh to cover it.

my other concern
Is it possible to have 0.01 po4/0 no3 and still have a build up of Dissolved Organic Carbon.

I am at a stand still again. Do feed to raise nutrients, or do i feed less to decrease DOC.lol

Sry do not mean to jack the thread.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

This still seems to be a problem in my tank. Some corals have been sprouting new growth tips that get covered with brown algae first, then slowly grow flesh to cover it.

I've never seen or heard of this before. Is this happening with SPS... specifically Acropora?

my other concern:
Is it possible to have 0.01 po4/0 no3 and still have a build up of Dissolved Organic Carbon.
I am at a stand still again. Do feed to raise nutrients, or do i feed less to decrease?

again, I'm at a loss. Perhaps I'm just not aware of test kits for dissolved organic carbon.

Brandon- if you ever mistakenly order sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) you can simply bake it at 300F for one hour to make it into soda ash. (You probably already know that.)
It's also better to use less carbon than too much IME.
Use small amounts of GAC and change it out more frequently. ROX lasts a long time so you might want to skip the next carbon changeout.

 

[Bluephish13]

've never seen or heard of this before. Is this happening with SPS... specifically Acropora?

yes only acropora, and it is very odd. I was not sure at first if it was just tips receding then growing back, But now it looks to be for sure because new branches have formed.

 

[Gravesj1s]

temp swings, for the last month or so, my 300watt titanium aquaheat heater has been malfunctioning because of the temp probe faulting causing it not to turn on sometimes...some days ive woken up to a 75 degree tank






Noone thinks this could be the problem?
I recall another poster not long ago that went through a whole host of issues ,replacing everything from lights ,RO membrane, DI,ect..ect.. He later posted a followup in finding a link between titanium heaters even though their was no obvious sign of malfuction.
To be honest from everything Ive read I dont trust titanium heaters to begin with.

 

[oneradtek202]

okay, using my salifert po4 kit, i cant even get a reading on high sensitivity reading!It was hard to even see a tinge to teh water color to get a reading, but if there was any it was probably around .007! (haha Bond) i dont have my nitrate kit anymore, but ill borrow one and get a reading.

in the last week ive been feeding twice a day, and i actually noticed that my lighting was on for 9 hours for a good month or so, i turned that back to 8 over the course of the week. I think ive notice some coloring up of some SPS in the last few days.

Gary im gonna try and only do a 5 gal change instead of 10 this week and the following.

I tend to keep my alk around 8 dkh, to get it just slightly higher than natural seawater. i know its nice to have a higher alk to prevent ph swings , but its worked for me.

 

[oneradtek202]

some wuick pix, i didnt edit these, and didnt take any time taking them, sorry for teh quality. Also since i didnt take time, it kinda made my tank look MORE bleached lol. the radiums are one of teh hardest bulbs to photo IMO.

that one stag acro is kinda bad, but its a drab color anyways. But still bleached

Efflo, kinda lost some color, but the rose nem is stinging the crap outta its base, so that might do some contribution

FTS

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

first off- your aquarium looks fantastic!

I think the 5 gallon change is a good idea. (Wanna get brave and skip a change altogether? I think you'll be fine!)

 

[oneradtek202]

lol thanx gary, yea it still looks good, but not like it did....ill give it a shot and be brave:dance:

then..

now...

 

[tmz]

The tank looks great.
There are many ways to look at what corals need in terms of water chemistry.(organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, carbonate/bicarbonate ,calcium, magnesium ,potassium , idoine and trace elements and so on) and opinions will vary.

Nutrients are threefold: organic carbon ,nitrogen and phosphorous. Organisms use them in variable ratios but a useful benchmark is the redfield ratio which shows a 116 parts carbon to 16 nitrogen to 1 phosphorous in living tissue of marine organisms. As you can see very little PO is involved . In a tank with lots of photosynthetic organisms the organic carbon is likely replenished as CO2 is converted into organic carbon forms by the autotrophs (corals algae etc). So sometimes in extremely low nutrient systems a boost in nitrotgen is needed and usually provided with ammino dosing.

Low nitrogen may be an issue but I'd test for it before dosing anything. If NO3 is truly less than 0.5 or so, I'd consider dosing some ammino acids.

Generally, low nutrients fall low on my list for issues with sps except when they are dropped precipitously or in tanks with high alkalinity. Most tanks just don't get lower than reef values but it is possible with zeovit systems and or carbon dosing. High total organic carbon(there is no useful hobby grade test) is more likely as are alkalinity shifts in my opinion. Personally I'd be reluctant to use less than 1/3 cup per 50 gallons of rox carbon since it is a primary means of toc control.
In my opinion water changes are an important way to keep up with any trace or minor element depletion particularly if you are dosing carbon and/or using gac.

 

[tmz]

yes only acropora, and it is very odd. I was not sure at first if it was just tips receding then growing back, But now it looks to be for sure because new branches have formed.

I've seen it. It is commonly called "burnt tips". It generally occurs,in my experience, after alkalinity swings or at high alk levels . It may also occur after a rapid drop in PO4 as less PO4 permits more calcification. Perhaps The coral can't quickly adjust tissue growth to keep up with the enhanced precipitation or the change upsets the coral's symbiont bacteria or something else entirely.
I'd let the alkalinity fall to around 9.5 dkh or less and snip the tips a few at a time. While the cause of "burnt tips" is not known, they don't seem to occur at lower alkalinity ranges. Zeovit systems for example reccomend alkalinity at about 7to 8dkh.
I ran my system at 12 dkh for a long time with relatively high PO4( greater than 0.1ppm) but when I dropped the PO4 the corals would no longer tolerate the higher alk without burnt tips . At alkalinity less than 10dkh with PO4 at .04/.5 and nitrate at 0.2ppm everything is doing very well.