Corals bleaching

[n05stang]

I have an innovative marine 75ext with Neptune sky, Red Sea skimmer, Red Sea dosing pump, reef mat. My parameters are pretty stable. Alk 8.2, nitrate 8-10 sometimes up to 13, phosphate .08-0.12, all of these through a Hanna checker.

For a few months now I have been dealing with not so great coloration and even some bleaching of certain acros. PC rainbow for instance bleached, my Walt Disney bleached. My LPS corals have been pretty good minus two blastos.

I dose kalk about 120ml daily, 2 ml of all for reef and tropic Marin bactobalance 1ml daily.

I am not sure what is going on but I’m getting to the point where I’m gonna throw in the towel on this tank. what else could possible be affected corals.

 

[wculver]

With numbers like this and past success, I tend to lean toward ionic balance challenges. This is a general term describing a challenge that cannot be easily managed.

I've had a similar outcome like this in the past and the solution was two fold.
1. I do light dosing of full spectrum trace elements. If I don't the color slowly gets drab and the coral looks stressed. I dose just enough for effect.
2. Water changes are important to bring some balance. At one time I was doing them monthly and eventually caught up to me.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

How are you dosing? All at once or spread out?

 

[LOONEBIN]

Have you recently added any new corals in the last few weeks? Potentially a pest? I recently had a bleaching event involving many of my acros. I discovered AEFW.

 

[n05stang]

I havent added any new corals, and I dose every hour.
I do water changes weekly usually 5 gallons.

Should I do larger water changes? Or should I add trace elements? Which brand do you use?

 

[Pod_01]

I have an innovative marine 75ext with Neptune sky, Red Sea skimmer, Red Sea dosing pump, reef mat. My parameters are pretty stable. Alk 8.2, nitrate 8-10 sometimes up to 13, phosphate .08-0.12, all of these through a Hanna checker.

For a few months now I have been dealing with not so great coloration and even some bleaching of certain acros. PC rainbow for instance bleached, my Walt Disney bleached. My LPS corals have been pretty good minus two blastos.

I dose kalk about 120ml daily, 2 ml of all for reef and tropic Marin bactobalance 1ml daily.

I am not sure what is going on but I’m getting to the point where I’m gonna throw in the towel on this tank. what else could possible be affected corals.

Just couple of ideas/suggestions. You did not mention if you feed the corals but some type of coral food in my opinion is always required. Lights, N and P is not enough so I do feed coral food daily. Fish poop is very good option assuming the fish are fed fatty foods/ no fillers. You might want to perform ICP test “I use Fauna Marin /Total ICP” to get an idea what the state of trace elements and the main elements.
My system is similar size to yours and I only use 0.5ml of bacto ballance maybe reduce that. Looking at you pictures your rocks look clean like really clean…..
Here are few quick pictures I just took of my system and you can see some algae and other things on the rocks (also aiptasia that I am slowly working on removing/not recommended).

I also would buy some quick growing corals, plating montipora or zoas to build up coral mass.

Good luck.

 

[n05stang]

I have stuff growing on rocks, they are pretty clean because I have urchins that graze all day. The tanks rocks are a few years old. And my nutrient levels climb if I decrease dosing. At 0.5 my phosphates would be around .16 consistently I increased doses slowly over last year.

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

Your Alk swings are excessive. 8 to 13 dkh alk swing could cause all of your Acropora to RTN or expell zooxanthellae.

I didn't see it mentioned in your post, but what are your nitrates at?

 

[n05stang]

Your Alk swings are excessive. 8 to 13 dkh alk swing could cause all of your Acropora to RTN or expell zooxanthellae.

I didn't see it mentioned in your post, but what are your nitrates at?

I don’t have any alk swing, you misread the nitrate as alkalinity.

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

I don’t have any alk swing, you misread the nitrate as alkalinity.

Yep! I sure did, sorry about that, too much going on at once.

Well, there are a few other options for bleaching.

1) Too high PAR. Would really have to be high since your nutrients are not bottomed out.
2) Not enough flow.
3) Red, White, Black bugs.

And lastly, some type of airborne contamination. Wife like Bath and Body plug-in scents, etc? Don't laugh, my wife killed my previous entire tank with that stuff.......

***EDIT*** I also wanted to add that Acropora do really well with Amino Acid supplements for coloration. I use Red Sea AB+ Coral Nutrition and mainly Acropower.

 

[n05stang]

I was thinking about starting acro power, I do dose ab+ on occasion but not often enough. I don’t use any scented candles or sprays in that room. Rarely downstairs I’ll burn a candle.
As for par I think I’m on the low side, I have the Neptune sky at 50 percent because I have some torches and hammers I don’t want to burn. I could try to go up in par but my red planet is mostly red as is so I use him as an indicator.

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

I was thinking about starting acro power, I do dose ab+ on occasion but not often enough. I don’t use any scented candles or sprays in that room. Rarely downstairs I’ll burn a candle.
As for par I think I’m on the low side, I have the Neptune sky at 50 percent because I have some torches and hammers I don’t want to burn. I could try to go up in par but my red planet is mostly red as is so I use him as an indicator.

Maybe look at some videos where BRS has tested those lights and find out the PAR levels at percentages. It's not the right way to do it, but it's going to be hard to keep Acros when you're guessing PAR. Best to borrow or rent a meter.

Red Planet is a funny one. I know the rumors around that Acro about green equals low light. I have a wild maricultured Acropora Hyacinthus (Red Planet) and the more PAR I feed it, the greener it gets.

It has red tips, but a vibrant green base. It's currently under Metal Halides and LEDs getting 400 PAR which would be 500 PAR on the Apogee MQ-510 meter.

On the Acropower, take it slow. A little goes a long way. With your size tank, I would do an initial dose of 25ml. Then I would dose about 5ml every other day and see how it goes.

Best of luck and hang in there. Don't give up, you'll learn from this and be a better stick head!