Corals bleaching

[PlantsBirdsAndFish]

Hello all, first of all, yes, the tank is new, 2.5 months, and yes, I probably added too much at once, but with a buy on get one frag sale it was too hard to resist and at the time I didn't know my coral qt had a laser for a light. I know I'm making excuses but I just want a possible exact cause other than "you added them too fast" which I am well aware of at the moment. I played with fire and am not a stranger to getting burnt.

That being said, I have added 3 frags and a small newly-healed rainbow bta. To a cycled but largely lifeless tank, ie just cuc and no corals (fish is in qt currently). The three frags include a single micromussa polyp, a small cube of favia, and a frag of encrusting montipora.

The anemone seems to be doing the best. The scan shows no difference and the favia was fine for the first week. The problem is the monti.

I have 2 ai prime hds on ab+ running at 35% now, was 50%. The monti had a small white spot in the middle which I didn't notice at the time till I got it home. Over the course of a few days the color started fading. Polyps were still fully out so I assumed it was lighting and decreased it which seemed to have helped. Before that the growth edge was starting to recede rapidly.

I tested my ammonia and nitrite weekly being paranoid and even tested nitrate and phosphate which all were zero. I know it's not great to have zero nitrate and phos but I figured it wouldn't be enough to cause fading. The problem is the calcium and alkalinity.

I'm not sure if I'm just using the tests incorrectly but I was consistently reading a drop in alkalinity of 2 dkH in a period of about a week of adding the corals from 10 to 8. Calcium has also dropped from 420 to 400.

I did a 30% water change and got it back up to about 9 and the monti within a day started to get a significant amount of color back but testing the alk the next night several times is reading 8 dkH.

Is something wrong with my kit? Is it possible for newly added corals to start sucking up alk that quickly? I've noticed an explosion of coralline growth immediately after adding the corals but surely that wouldn't cause that dramatic of a drop. Should I begin frequent water changes to elevate my parameters or should I keep waiting a week? It seems I can't keep up with the uptake of parameters if I'm performing the tests correctly.

 

[EW_Fish]

The 3 frags are not sucking up 1 dkh of alk. The possible explosion of coraline my be the cause of alk drop

 

[vetteguy53081]

Possible false readings. Assuming you are using an API test kit, to determine if your test results are accurate, I’d suggest taking a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test water for you to see what readings they get and for comparison with yours

 

[PlantsBirdsAndFish]

I'm using red sea foundation pro. I also have an api test giving me similar results.

 

[EW_Fish]

Are you testing at the time of day? Testing at different times can have a different DKH

 

[PlantsBirdsAndFish]

I test every evening right after the lights go off, so the alk should be at its highest right?

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Well, zero nutrients will lead to bleaching so I would address that.
Try dosing some reef energy or other amino supplement to give them a little boost

 

[PlantsBirdsAndFish]

I'm not sure if my tank is ready for coral food yet. I thought the problem was lighting and alk because it started looking really good after a water change and lowering the intensity of the lights but then I checked the alkalinity again and it dropped 2 points

 

[PlantsBirdsAndFish]

I may try to dose a bit of nitrates but I really want to get my algae in control before I start adding even inorganic nutrients

 

[Ento-Reefer]

The corals need some food and or nutrients. If you don’t have any fish in the tank yet then you need to dose some. You can manually dose 2 part to maintain calcium and alkalinity.

 

[PlantsBirdsAndFish]

So I decided to start adding about a quarter kalkwasser dose in my ato water to keep up with the seemingly anomalous drops in alk in such a short period of time. Hopefully the alk won't rise over time but also won't drop so sharply every day or so. Today the Monti looks like it's starting to fade again after a period of showing no signs of improvement. On the other hand, my favia is no longer pale at the edges and the micromussa has colored up.

I'm kind of lost at this point. Is it a lost cause to just dose kalk and avoid water changes in order to build up the nitrates or should I continue doing weekly water changes but also begin dosing nitrates? The general consensus seems to be to not dose nitrates and it's only a last-ditch effort to stop dinos or improve coral health.

I think I may leave it for a week if the kalk dosing is enough and then start dosing nitrates to get them up to 1 ppm. After that I'm pretty much out of options other than increasing the light intensity from 35% back to 50%

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

What size tank is it and have you tested no3/po4?

 

[PlantsBirdsAndFish]

20 gallons and yes both are undetectable even with double precision

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

20 gallons and yes both are undetectable even with double precision

That’ll kill them fo sho

 

[Zero1091]

Try Acropower, stuff is awesome.
Cant over dose it and doesn't easily cause a bloom.

 

[PlantsBirdsAndFish]

After a very stressful couple of weeks this coral appears to finally be making a comeback. It's slowly but noticably regaining it's color. I didn't even do a water change for three weeks due to a dino outbreak.

So what did I do? I moved the danged thing up on a rock. It makes no sense but I decided after two weeks of no progress to try something else and to my surprise it almost immediately began to recover. Still no detectable nitrates or phosphates.

So the takeaway here is that apparently too little light can cause bleaching in corals maybe? I'm sure there's something else going on here but I'm just happy it hasn't died yet!

Here are some photos:

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

After a very stressful couple of weeks this coral appears to finally be making a comeback. It's slowly but noticably regaining it's color. I didn't even do a water change for three weeks due to a dino outbreak.

So what did I do? I moved the danged thing up on a rock. It makes no sense but I decided after two weeks of no progress to try something else and to my surprise it almost immediately began to recover. Still no detectable nitrates or phosphates.

So the takeaway here is that apparently too little light can cause bleaching in corals maybe? I'm sure there's something else going on here but I'm just happy it hasn't died yet!

Here are some photos:

Too little light will absolutely stress corals, especially sps. 70% of their nutrition comes from sugars produced by the zooxanthelle during photosynthesis. They basically starve when they are not provided with enough par.