SPS bleaching

[CamDAX]

I don't know what to do I've tried somethings and my coral is not growing and all have a considerable amount of color loss. I just lost my purple montipora. Red monti has no white growth rim and is not as red as it used to be. Same with my green montiporta.

A month ago (3/18/16) I got some new corals from a LFS and within two weeks the blue acro I bought started to RTN. A couple weeks later they all started to loose color. The coral I already had has lost color over the years (I have pic examples) and I've been trying to figure that out.

Nitrate 0
Ca 390
Alk 157ppm (8.792 dKH - 3.141meq/l)
Mg 1410

Lights: 2x 165W Full Spectrum LED Whites at 50% blues 60% 5" off the surface of the water. They are supported by 2x4s and they block some of the light. There is also some hinged glass lids over the tank. The hinge is black plastic right in the center of the tank also blocking light.

Flow: Hydor Koralia 750/850, and two 530GPH power heads at opposite ends of the tank.

Polyp exstention is good on my Stylophora and other montiporas but not my red acro & Superman Monti.

The Superman Monti has lost a ton of color you almost think its dead but you can still see a few orange polyps.

My Duncans open all night and sometimes during the day

Purple tipped frog spawn and Green hammer coral open during the day not sure how to say how much but they are open.

The first two photos are my stylophora in Oct of 2014 and then now obviously its grown since but lost lots of color the tips of the polyps aren't blue anymore. Most of that growing was done up until Nov 2015 I haven't noticed any growth since.

The birdsnest I just got on 03/18/16. Photo taken on 3/20/16 the second photo of it was taken today 4/15/16

How do I get my corals color back and get them to start growing? I'm really worried.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Keep in mind that "white/blue" LED isn't full spectrum. Perhaps you mean "2 channel control full spectrum LED".

It's of course tough to diagnose an issue like this over the web, but here are a few thoughts:

1) Did you recently change your light type (for example, from T5HO to LED, or between different LED fixtures) or their photoperiod, intensity, color mix of height above the water? What you've pictured is indicative of photobleaching, though that's not the only potential cause of bleaching.

2) You mention that your nitrates are zero (actually, below the limit of detection of your test). What is the phosphate level in the water? If both of these parameters are below the kits' Level of Detection (LOD), that's not good for coral (any coral, not just SPS). It is possible to keep water this clean if the corals are very heavily fed, but no feeding and ultra-clean water isn't good. One typically wants to keep nitrates somewhere around 5 ppm and phosphates somewhere between 0.05 ppm - 0.1 ppm, but definitely not "zero".

 

[CamDAX]

1) Did you recently change your light type (for example, from T5HO to LED, or between different LED fixtures) or their photoperiod, intensity, color mix of height above the water? What you've pictured is indicative of photobleaching, though that's not the only potential cause of bleaching.

So should I turn them down more? Jan 30 2014 I was using a DIY GU10 fixture I made that was great for corals my growth was epic! but the light was an eye sore and whites were brunning out on me because they were from a cheap batch that couldn't handle their own heat even with fans.

On December 23 2014 I got what look identical to this

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Attached is a photo of my setup.

2) You mention that your nitrates are zero (actually, below the limit of detection of your test). What is the phosphate level in the water? If both of these parameters are below the kits' Level of Detection (LOD), that's not good for coral (any coral, not just SPS). It is possible to keep water this clean if the corals are very heavily fed, but no feeding and ultra-clean water isn't good. One typically wants to keep nitrates somewhere around 5 ppm and phosphates somewhere between 0.05 ppm - 0.1 ppm, but definitely not "zero".

I don't have a phosphate test currently. A little more than a month ago I started feeding my one purple dottyback every other day and have been keeping that up. I also tried dosing Red Sea Reef Energy as per directions on the back and the stuff is almost gone so I stopped dosing about a week ago. If I stop doing water changes green slime algea starts to break out which is where I'm at right now.

 

[71xlch]

Keep in mind that "white/blue" LED isn't full spectrum. Perhaps you mean "2 channel control full spectrum LED".

It's of course tough to diagnose an issue like this over the web, but here are a few thoughts:

1) Did you recently change your light type (for example, from T5HO to LED, or between different LED fixtures) or their photoperiod, intensity, color mix of height above the water? What you've pictured is indicative of photobleaching, though that's not the only potential cause of bleaching.

2) You mention that your nitrates are zero (actually, below the limit of detection of your test). What is the phosphate level in the water? If both of these parameters are below the kits' Level of Detection (LOD), that's not good for coral (any coral, not just SPS). It is possible to keep water this clean if the corals are very heavily fed, but no feeding and ultra-clean water isn't good. One typically wants to keep nitrates somewhere around 5 ppm and phosphates somewhere between 0.05 ppm - 0.1 ppm, but definitely not "zero".

"Keep in mind that "white/blue" LED isn't full spectrum." ???? Please explain. White light is full spectrum. Every colour in the rainbow gives you white light. By definition white light is a full spectrum. There may be varying levels within said white light but it has all the colours there.

 

[zsuman101]

First i would turn the lights down to 20to 25 % tota,l you have alot of light let them acclimate and bring up slowly over a month or so to maybe 50%. i also suspect low potassium, when its low corals lose color pretty quick especially seriatipora. ime, good luck

 

[dkeller_nc]

"Keep in mind that "white/blue" LED isn't full spectrum." ???? Please explain. White light is full spectrum. Every colour in the rainbow gives you white light. By definition white light is a full spectrum. There may be varying levels within said white light but it has all the colours there.

For our purposes, no it isn't. White diodes do emit a spread spectrum, but most of their energy is centered around 550 nM - 600 nM with a relatively minor peak at about 450 nm. This is antecdotal, but it certainly seems to be the case that SPS corals require significant output below 420nm, which neither "whites" nor "blues" have. This is why most manufacturers include at least a few "hyper violet" diodes in their fixtures.

 

[71xlch]

For our purposes, no it isn't. White diodes do emit a spread spectrum, but most of their energy is centered around 550 nM - 600 nM with a relatively minor peak at about 450 nm. This is antecdotal, but it certainly seems to be the case that SPS corals require significant output below 420nm, which neither "whites" nor "blues" have. This is why most manufacturers include at least a few "hyper violet" diodes in their fixtures.

They include them to boost the amount of light in those areas but white light contains them. There were a ton of SPS reefs when just white/blue lights came out. Not disagreeing that there is better options but telling people they have to buy lights that contain red/green diodes etc is dumb.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Well, as far as I can discern from your posts, the issues you've been having don't seem to correspond to the time that you switched light fixtures. Nevertheless, most would recommend running LED fixtures at a considerably greater height over the water than your current set-up. If you'll look through some of the "build threads" on this forum section, some of other member's set-ups may give you a guide.

This is my opinion based on insufficient information - I suspect that your water is too nutrient poor. That speculation is based on zero nitrates, feeding only Red Sea reef energy, and very little bioload.

My suggestions would be to first get the kits you need to get a better profile of your tank water condition. That would include a functional low-range phosphate kit; either the hanna checker 736 or the 713. Make sure your nitrate kit is decent (that pretty much means Salifert - API is out). Lower your alkalinity slightly; target about 8 dKH, and make daily additions to keep it stable or use dosing pumps. Get more fish - I'd say that your tank would support at least 5-6 fish in the 1" - 2" range. Possible candidates would be clownfish, gobies, basslets or perhaps some of the smaller wrasses like a six-line. Feed them twice daily.

From the standpoint of lighting, I'm guessing that your intensity is far too high. But without a PAR meter, that's only a guess.

 

[dkeller_nc]

They include them to boost the amount of light in those areas but white light contains them. There were a ton of SPS reefs when just white/blue lights came out. Not disagreeing that there is better options but telling people they have to buy lights that contain red/green diodes etc is dumb.

Wasn't speaking of red and greens, of course. And no, there aren't very many successful SPS reefs that run solely white/blue diodes. I'll leave it to you to do a bit more reading on the SPS forum and let you draw your own conclusions.

 

[CamDAX]

Well, as far as I can discern from your posts, the issues you've been having don't seem to correspond to the time that you switched light fixtures. Nevertheless, most would recommend running LED fixtures at a considerably greater height over the water than your current set-up. If you'll look through some of the "build threads" on this forum section, some of other member's set-ups may give you a guide.

This is my opinion based on insufficient information - I suspect that your water is too nutrient poor. That speculation is based on zero nitrates, feeding only Red Sea reef energy, and very little bioload.

My suggestions would be to first get the kits you need to get a better profile of your tank water condition. That would include a functional low-range phosphate kit; either the hanna checker 736 or the 713. Make sure your nitrate kit is decent (that pretty much means Salifert - API is out). Lower your alkalinity slightly; target about 8 dKH, and make daily additions to keep it stable or use dosing pumps. Get more fish - I'd say that your tank would support at least 5-6 fish in the 1" - 2" range. Possible candidates would be clownfish, gobies, basslets or perhaps some of the smaller wrasses like a six-line. Feed them twice daily.

From the standpoint of lighting, I'm guessing that your intensity is far too high. But without a PAR meter, that's only a guess.

One of these days I will get my lights up higher over my tank I found a nice video this guy has the same lights as me and used 1x4s for a nice setup I think I will mount mine a bit differently though just same concept.

I will try and get another fish in there soon. Should I turn off my big skimmer? I can't get my cheato to really grow so that ties in with your assumption of my tank being nutrient poor. What do I do about all the algea taking over though? More cleanup crew?

I've lowered my lights to 25 blue and 20 other colors.

The Seachem MultiTest Phosphate and Nitrate Test Kit is good right?
This article makes it look like it's not so bad http://kb.marinedepot.com/article.aspx?id=10833 They are cheaper and I can get them quicker than Red Sea test kits.

 

[CamDAX]

Today's Tests showed Ca 410ppm ALK 153 (8.568Dkh - 3.06 meq/L) Mg > 1500

I did notice some of my zoanthids on the sand bed at one end of the tank won't open unless I turn them up a bit to 30 blues 20 other colors, even then they aren't open fully.

 

[CamDAX]

Get more fish - I'd say that your tank would support at least 5-6 fish in the 1" - 2" range. Possible candidates would be clownfish, gobies, basslets or perhaps some of the smaller wrasses like a six-line. Feed them twice daily.

A year ago or so I tried a six-line but he died in my tank but this was around the same time my two clowns died. My purple dottyback never died though.

Back when I had epic coral growth and color December 2014 I had algea and aiptasia all over the place and it was ugly. I had gotten a bubble tip anemone and then it died and then I lost a few corals. A month later both my clowns that I had for almost a year and a six-line wrasse I had just gotten died. Ever since then I've tried to keep my nutrients as low as possible because carpets of algae everywhere is SO UGLY.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Keep in mind that my comment about lighting was in no way definitive. One of the issues with LED units is that you just can't "eyeball it". Absent a light meter, the best you can do is to copy the geometry (i.e., height above the water vs. water depth) and intensity/photoperiod of other successful users that have similar light fixtures. The problem with that, though, is that interpreting "successful" is sometimes difficult from forum posts.

Don't turn off your skimmer. The physics of skimming prevents even the largest skimmer from removing all of the organics from the tank water. An efficient skimmer will reduce DOC to a particular point and no further, because a stable foam head won't form below a certain baseline level. And your tank's inhabitants may well need the aeration that the skimmer provides.

With respect to test kits, I'd recommend Salifert for calcium, alkalinity, magnesium and nitrate. They're inexpensive, highly reliable, and easy to use. Since you're in California, I'd think an order of kits would come from Marine Depot pretty quickly. But even ordering them from BRS should take no more than 4 days to your doorstep.

With respect to phosphate, Don't burn your money on color patch comparitor-chart kits. For our purposes (reefing), the only ones worth having are the photometer-based ones like the Hanna Checker 736 or 713. That's not because Hanna's reagents or formulations are superior, it's simply that the molybedum-phosphate chemistry that underlies most hobbyist test kits can't be correctly quantitated below about 0.5 ppm at their absolute limit without a photometer, and we typically want phosphates to be above zero, but below 0.05 ppm - 0.1 ppm.

With respect to your fish, realize that you must quarantine all fish purchases. That is likely what killed your others when you got the six-line a while back. This wasn't really the case 20 years ago, though still a good idea. Today, with consolidation of almost all incoming fish in only a handful of importers in L.A., it's an absolute requirement.

You mention that you had "epic coral growth" in December of 2014. What lighting were you using at the time, and were you running GFO/GAC?

 

[CamDAX]

With respect to test kits, I'd recommend Salifert for calcium, alkalinity, magnesium and nitrate.

As of right now I use Red Sea for calcium, Hanna checker for alkalinity, Salifert for magnesium and API for nitrate.

With respect to phosphate, Don't burn your money on color patch comparitor-chart kits. For our purposes (reefing), the only ones worth having are the photometer-based ones like the Hanna Checker 736 or 713. That's not because Hanna's reagents or formulations are superior, it's simply that the molybedum-phosphate chemistry that underlies most hobbyist test kits can't be correctly quantitated below about 0.5 ppm at their absolute limit without a photometer, and we typically want phosphates to be above zero, but below 0.05 ppm - 0.1 ppm.

Oh I didn't know that thank you. Now I just have to go and cancel my amazon prime order and make an order from marine depot...

Normally I QT all my fish but I made a mistake and listened to the guy at the old LFS I used to goto. He said I wouldn't need to QT him but the coral beauty I would. My dottyback never showed any signs of stress during or after my clowns and six-line died and they were all in the same tank. I thought it was possibly stress induced since my dottyback is very aggressive and was chasing the poor thing around the tank. As for the clowns the water where I used to live was horrible and would eat up my RO/DI filters in just like 3 months and suspected something got in after someone told me that was a possibility.

You mention that you had "epic coral growth" in December of 2014. What lighting were you using at the time, and were you running GFO/GAC?

December 2014 is when I switched to the new light but my growth was the same till at least June 2015. Sadly I can't remember for the life of me what setting I had it on. I try to take photos as much as possible to catalog the tanks status over time and I keep a parameters journal but I have a gap of no photos from June to November 2015 so I can't vouch for that period of time.

Here is my whole library of the tank from Oct 2014 - present
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_DMxw4JX5pUNkpyeHkxbEVJaVU&usp=sharing

 

[dkeller_nc]

It's not impossible, but it's unlikely something in your RODI killed your fish. Copper is the most common contaminant in tap/well water that will cause problems in a reef, but that's for the inverts. You'd have to have a lot of copper getting past your RODI set-up to kill fish.

Your test kit selection sounds fine, with the exception of the API nitrate test. A lot of folks have had issues with that test, and it's a real PITA to use because of the required vigorous shaking. But the critical tests are Alkalinity and, if you're battling algae, phosphate. Calcium and magnesium are important to test occasionally, perhaps once per week, but unless they're way, way off of optimal values, they don't typically cause problems with corals.

 

[CamDAX]

Another coral just started to RTN. :headwalls: I'm going to loose everything ;...( I fragged it three times at still tissue laden parts in hopes of one of the frags staying around for the long haul. Wish me luck.

 

[Coralmassa]

Have you considered getting on your local forum or craigslist and buying an inexpensive t5 fixture? I've been running less for the past few years but now that my tank is mostly sps I've found the light is not adequate for good growth and color. If u get a shitty two bulb fixture and stick in a couple ati blue plus bulbs it might give your coral a little extra push. If I were you I would also try to lower your kh to nsw levels, as elevated kh coupled with ultra low no3 and po4 can cause sps to die. I read that u had really great growth when your tank was dirtiest- seems like you reduced nutrients in the tank but didn't drop your lights or kh respectively. When i switched to an sps oriented system from my old dirty and nutrient rich tank, I kept my lighting intensity and ca and kh at the same levels as before and I was getting rtn everywhere. When I dropped my uv and white led output and lowered my kh, sps started to come back very slowly

 

[CamDAX]

Ok So I finally got my hanna phosphate checker after a headache of an issue with marine depot with shipping and $12 extra later.

I tested my tank just now and the reading came to 0. I think it did it right. I pressed the button waited for C1, put the 10ml water in the vial in pressed the button, waited for C2, added the powder from the packet and shaked it for 2 minutes but then the meter had already turned off! So I got the other vial filled it with 10ml and zeroed the meter with that but put the vial with the reagent water in for the count down. I wish they had put the power saving delay longer like 5mins would be perfect.

Anyways 0 phosphates what now?

 

[Coralmassa]

I found with my Hanna checker that if I shook the vial too fast, microbubbles would skew the results. If you don't like getting the reagent in the vial and back into the machine within like 40 seconds, use the second tube and mix the reagent preemptively, then switch tube at the c2 prompt

 

[Pife]

Ok So I finally got my hanna phosphate checker after a headache of an issue with marine depot with shipping and $12 extra later.

I tested my tank just now and the reading came to 0. I think it did it right. I pressed the button waited for C1, put the 10ml water in the vial in pressed the button, waited for C2, added the powder from the packet and shaked it for 2 minutes but then the meter had already turned off! So I got the other vial filled it with 10ml and zeroed the meter with that but put the vial with the reagent water in for the count down. I wish they had put the power saving delay longer like 5mins would be perfect.

Anyways 0 phosphates what now?

You tube how to use it. One vial c1. Add powder and shake. Hold button for timer to start. Pit vial back I'm and wait.