Acropora bleaching/dying

[paola1315]

Hi all, I bought my first acropora about 3 weeks ago, never showed polyps all this time, this morning I woke up and looks like is bleaching, I moved down in the tank but noticed my green branching montipora is bleaching as well
What's is happening?? I had issues with phosphate, is going down slowly and algae is annoying me but apart from this my parameters are ok, nitrates 10, calcium 510, Dkh 9.5, magn 1395. Salinity 1026. Calcium and magnesium always been high since the first day. Not dosing but never goes on right range, slowly every month is going down but still very high.

 

[Psyduck]

It is not bleaching. It is losing its tissue meaning dying. How old is your tank? If your parameters are stable, those numbers arent high. What is your PH? Light? Flow? Unfortunately it is beyond savable so you can take them out and toss..

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

How old is your tank? What kind of lighting do you have? What type of flow? If you don't dose, how do you maintain the parameters, especially the alk?

 

[paola1315]

How old is your tank? What kind of lighting do you have? What type of flow? If you don't dose, how do you maintain the parameters, especially the alk?

This is a good question, I don't dose because since the beginning calcium dkh and magnesium where too high, I change water every week maybe they keep high for this reason, not sure. The light is RL60. Flow is enough two wave maker on both side of the tank once pointing on surface the other on the middle this makes moving with no dead spot.

 

[paola1315]

How old is your tank? What kind of lighting do you have? What type of flow? If you don't dose, how do you maintain the parameters, especially the alk?

It is not bleaching. It is losing its tissue meaning dying. How old is your tank? If your parameters are stable, those numbers arent high. What is your PH? Light? Flow? Unfortunately it is beyond savable so you can take them out and toss..

This is the light, the tank is 5 months old. I keep sps and lps successfully, I decided to buy my first acropora but ended up like this, the green branching montipora has been perfect untill now, I,changed my heater 2 weeks ago because the one I had wasn't heating enough, now this one is perfect keeping temperature 25/26°. Ph is 8.2. The montipora has still polyps all around, the acropora still with colour is not totally dead. Maybe I can cut the live part And make frags?

 

[Hersheyb]

How old is your tank? how big is the tank? how many gallons of water are you changing? since you aren't dosing and doing water changes weekly are you making sure that the new water is the same salinity/temp? what are you no3 and po4?

 

[Faurek]

It's not bleached it's RTN. It's a goner by tomorrow, not being mean, telling from experience. The problem is your water. Dkh 9.5 is way too high for a young tank and there was fluctuation somewhere since other corals are suffering. Get your dkh to 7-7.5 before you add more SPS and keep it there. Feed more stuff. If that is macroalgae in the second photo that is a slippery slope for beginners, specially on new tanks. It can be done with time, but mainly you don't want macro to starve elements the coral need.
With all that whatever fluctuation you had was your problem and it was a big fluctuation to get that reaction.