coral bleaching and can't figure out why

[Noodles_Jefferson]

Hi, so I could use some input here/ I have these two corals (circled in red). I think one is sps and one is lps. not sure. the larger disk on the right has been in my tank for almost 20 years and over the last few months it has started bleaching. If half dead at this point. Not sure why. I added a pic of the whole tank because I previously was told that my bubble coral (all the way on the left) which was closer to it at the time, was sending stinging tendrils at it so I moved it the bubble to the other side. The one on the right is also starting to bleach. My other corals are doing fine.

I've been doing chemiclean treatments for cyano for a few weeks. Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Parameters:
Alk- 9.1 dkh
Calcium- 450
mag-1320
Nitrates- 15ppm
Phos- .03
PH- 8

I have an orbit marine LED lighting system running mostly blue and white. It's a 29 gallon tank. I feed a variety of stuff- frozen mysis, oyster feast, live phyto and microalgae. I also supplement amino, fatty acids, and vitamins although I recently cut that back a bit while i'm trying to get id of the cyano. Any insight is appreciated!

 

[cdemoss01]

Hi, so I could use some input here/ I have these two corals (circled in red). I think one is sps and one is lps. not sure. the larger disk on the right has been in my tank for almost 20 years and over the last few months it has started bleaching. If half dead at this point. Not sure why. I added a pic of the whole tank because I previously was told that my bubble coral (all the way on the left) which was closer to it at the time, was sending stinging tendrils at it so I moved it the bubble to the other side. The one on the right is also starting to bleach. My other corals are doing fine.

I've been doing chemiclean treatments for cyano for a few weeks. Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Parameters:
Alk- 9.1 dkh
Calcium- 450
mag-1320
Nitrates- 15ppm
Phos- .03
PH- 8

I have an orbit marine LED lighting system running mostly blue and white. It's a 29 gallon tank. I feed a variety of stuff- frozen mysis, oyster feast, live phyto and microalgae. I also supplement amino, fatty acids, and vitamins although I recently cut that back a bit while i'm trying to get id of the cyano. Any insight is appreciated!

Could be the chemiclean. Do some waterchanges

 

[Noodles_Jefferson]

Could be the chemiclean. Do some waterchanges

I have done some water changes. This started prior to the chemiclean treantment but I am giving the tank a break after 3 straight treatments. I just installed a UV sterilizer and it seems to be helping with the Cyano. Still the bleaching is a mystery. I could see if the alk or calcium was too low but it's not.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Do you know what the light PAR in your tank is?

 

[Shirak]

although I recently cut that back a bit

I think this is your answer.

I would consider it recession not bleaching.

 

[Noodles_Jefferson]

Do you know what the light PAR in your tank is?

Not really sure. I have this lighting system.
Orbit Marine LED
Doesn't mention PAR in the product description. Apparetly I need a par meter to find out? I'm running them at 70%

 

[Pod_01]

It may be light related, looking at the description it does state following:

The fish only and soft corals…
But if the light was used for few years and the issue only started now it may not be related.

In my opinion the issue could be this:

Phos- .03

From my experience long term that can lead to starving/ dead corals.
I like to run alk at 7-8, yours is getting on the upper limit.

From your post it seems there is lot of food added, are you using some type of PO4 absorbers?

I prefer to feed the fish and the fish will produce coral food (poop and ammonia).

 

[Outlaw Corals]

It’s from your water or your lights

 

[Noodles_Jefferson]

It may be light related, looking at the description it does state following:

The fish only and soft corals…
But if the light was used for few years and the issue only started now it may not be related.

In my opinion the issue could be this:



From my experience long term that can lead to starving/ dead corals.
I like to run alk at 7-8, yours is getting on the upper limit.

From your post it seems there is lot of food added, are you using some type of PO4 absorbers?

I prefer to feed the fish and the fish will produce coral food (poop and ammonia).

.03 seems pretty good for phosphates. I don't want to bottom out, that's how I got cyano that I've been battling. Maybe too many chemiclean treatments in a row? could that be stressing them out?

 

[Pod_01]

.03 seems pretty good for phosphates. I don't want to bottom out, that's how I got cyano that I've been battling. Maybe too many chemiclean treatments in a row? could that be stressing them out?

I run my reef at 0.1-0.2 ppm of PO4, sometimes higher. I always end up with some dead corals when I go below 0.1 and had zero luck with 0.03 level. Some make it work.
Some recent pictures:

I have not used chemiclean, so I cannot comment.
Since I started reefing I have not knowingly used any type of pesticides, antibiotics etc… in the reef tank. For brief time I used Vibrant in my 10gal, this was before it was known it contains algaefix.

Good luck,

 

[Peair]

Your parameters look really good, way to go on that, I think it's your Lights, I don't think you have an adjustable spectrum, so try lowering the intensity and have it on less hours, say 6 to 8 hours a day.

 

[Shirak]

First thing is look at what you changed.
Added chemiclean
Reduced feeding.

Your .03ppm phosphate is potentially 0 Most test kits have a margin of error larger than .03ppm Even the Hanna ULR has a .02ppm accuracy range.

Chemiclean is just erythromycin antibiotic so highly unlikely to affect your corals.

 

[Noodles_Jefferson]

Your parameters look really good, way to go on that, I think it's your Lights, I don't think you have an adjustable spectrum, so try lowering the intensity and have it on less hours, say 6 to 8 hours a day.

ok. When you say adjustable spectrum, it runs blue, white, red, and green. I have the white and blue at 70% intensity and i'm not running red or green at all on the advice of the LFS. Was that what you mean? I was planning to take a picture of my tank, head back to the LFS, and find out where they all like to be in terms of distance from the lights. The weird thing is they were fine for a while then one day they started to bleach and then it seemed to have stopped and then started again more rapidly when I was battling cyano that suddenly appeared on my sand bed.

 

[Noodles_Jefferson]

First thing is look at what you changed.
Added chemiclean
Reduced feeding.

Your .03ppm phosphate is potentially 0 Most test kits have a margin of error larger than .03ppm Even the Hanna ULR has a .02ppm accuracy range.

Chemiclean is just erythromycin antibiotic so highly unlikely to affect your corals.

I use the salifert Po4 test kit. It's annoying because you have to complere with the color chart. Is there a better, more accurate test kit for phosphates?

 

[Shirak]

I use the salifert Po4 test kit. It's annoying because you have to complere with the color chart. Is there a better, more accurate test kit for phosphates?

Salifert tests are pretty good. I use the Ca, Mg

Personally I like the Hanna ultra low range phosphate tester for marine aquariums. Up to 0-.9ppm range with .01 resolution and .02ppm accuracy. Takes about 5min to do a test plus a little clean up.

 

[Peair]

ok. When you say adjustable spectrum, it runs blue, white, red, and green. I have the white and blue at 70% intensity and i'm not running red or green at all on the advice of the LFS. Was that what you mean? I was planning to take a picture of my tank, head back to the LFS, and find out where they all like to be in terms of distance from the lights. The weird thing is they were fine for a while then one day they started to bleach and then it seemed to have stopped and then started again more rapidly when I was battling cyano that suddenly appeared on my sand bed.

White and blue at 70% intensity seems high, I don't know your wattage, I keep my white and blue ( most important) at 30% no way more, violet 20%, warm blue/white at 15%, red and green at 3%, adjustable spectrum is just changing the numbers, try and remember too much white light and warmer water will bleach corals, some LED's will warm water, also I would move the bleaching corals towards the bottom where it is cooler.