Will corals come back from bleaching

[mchammer]

I've been a reefer for years but I'm new to SPS corals. I recently had a problem with my water chemistry and almost all of my corals bleached out to some degree. I'm sure I lost my Blue Gomez and my Superman montipora. I still have a bushy green acropora that looks ok and my scrolling monti looks good but my Blue Polyp Austera Acropora went from good to just two branches having any color and polyp extension. Can acropora's come back from such a bad state?

 

[YoungREEFA]

Certainly

 

[jg93]

Bleaching, yes - STN, maybe but doubtful. RTN, they're done.

 

[rogerwilco357]

What went wrong?

 

[footballdude2k3]

I would cut off one of the healthy branches to be safe

 

[mchammer]

Thanks for the reply's. I use a two part dosing with BRS pumps and I would test the water roughly every 15 days and adjust my AlK and calcium based on my readings. The problem with that is my ALK was swinging from low 7 to high 11 and it was wreaking havoc on my tank. after posting my problem on the chemistry board some people suggested I just do water changes and test more often. My corals are all small frags and do not consume much calcium. It's been a couple of weeks now and the tank looks much better but most of my new corals died off. My one acro went from 10 - 12 branches to 2 1/2 branches but the color on the live branches looks much better not bleached out and it has polyp extension. I just didn't know if it will die a slow death or come back. That's why I posted the question.

 

[biggles]

Now that you've got the water under control again there's no reason that the acro won't make a recovery. I'd drop it to low light for a few days and watch for good PE at least at night. When it looks ok PE wise i'd give it some med light and good flow and let it get busy growing again.
A pic of the happy acro once it's recovered would be cool if you can manage it. Good luck and if the remaining branches are losing any tissue slowly at the area where the die off ends i'd strongly suggest cutting frags off into healthy tissue above any dying tissue.

Edit: just noticed you have PE so scratch the low light bit lol.

 

[mchammer]

Thanks biggles. I will post pictures if it makes it back from near death.

 

[sanchoy]

NO skin, just skeleton, NO
Skin but just brownish, yES