HELP! Sun Coral bleaching?

[BlurCaze]

Hi,
I've had these pair for months, positioned under an overhang. The polyps hardly come out so I learnt to target feed ( reef roid, vitamins and some lps pellets) in a separate container for every other day. First 2 rounds, they reacted positively the bright orange polyps are visible, noticed the bleaching yesterday and some dark grey algae like hanging out the opening.
No change to position only feeding, what could cause this and what to do to remedy them?

 

[CHSUB]

Probably damaged by movement, but does not look good. Mine eats large prey and doesn’t react well with small prey like reef Roids. I would glue in place in the overhang and feed daily with no flow so coral has time to catch food. I would believe stable SPS parameters are necessary.
This coral wouldn’t “bleach” as it doesn’t have zooxanthellae, however yes definitely not healthy.
Here is mine and it is doing well and growing rapidly with what I described above:

 

[BlurCaze]

Probably damaged by movement, but does not look good. Mine eats large prey and doesn’t react well with small prey like reef Roids. I would glue in place in the overhang and feed daily with no flow so coral has time to catch food. I would believe stable SPS parameters are necessary.
Here is mine and it is doing well and growing rapidly with what I described above:

So it doesn't like to be moved for feeding?
I did so to avoid spiking the water parameter from frequent feeding .
So I should leave it alone for now and hope it recovers?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

no corals like to be touched, corals should be placed in the tank and never touched again. The more a coral is manhandled the more it stresses the coral.

 

[CHSUB]

So it doesn't like to be moved for feeding?
I did so to avoid spiking the water parameter from frequent feeding .
So I should leave it alone for now and hope it recovers?

It is a guess that you handling it for feeding is hurting it. Ime corals in general don’t like being touched. I understand why you are doing it but believe it’s at least one issue. Mine takes nearly an entire cube of mysis shrimp daily and don’t really feed the 4 fish in the tank besides that so nutrients stay near undetectable. If you can get it feeding I would try larger prey like brine and mysis. Mine just does not react to reef Roids. I’m not optimistic it will recover from your pictures.
Here is it eating large prey, you can see it consuming large foods not dust stuff.

 

[BlurCaze]

So it doesn't like to be moved for feeding?
I did so to avoid spiking the water parameter from frequent feeding .
So I should leave it alone for now and hope it recovers?

It is a guess that you handling it for feeding is hurting it. Ime corals in general don’t like being touched. I understand why you are doing it but believe it’s at least one issue. Mine takes nearly an entire cube of mysis shrimp daily and don’t really feed the 4 fish in the tank besides that so nutrients stay near undetectable. If you can get it feeding I would try larger prey like brine and mysis. Mine just does not react to reef Roids. I’m not optimistic it will recover from your pictures.
Here is it eating large prey, you can see it consuming large foods not dust stuff.

Thank you for the advice.
Out of curiosity tho, would incorrect food i.e.reef roid cause the bleaching reaction? Or was it the handling/ touching them, they seemed to love the spot feeding.

 

[BlurCaze]

no corals like to be touched, corals should be placed in the tank and never touched again. The more a coral is manhandled the more it stresses the coral.

Thank you

 

[CHSUB]

Thank you for the advice.
Out of curiosity tho, would incorrect food i.e.reef roid cause the bleaching reaction? Or was it the handling/ touching them, they seemed to love the spot feeding.

I think both. The handling was causing some negative reaction and reef Roids was not enough food. The amount of food my coral eats is amazing. I use reef Roids also but mostly for other corals like SPS and LPS. This coral eats way more than I think reef Roids could provide. The reef Roids might just get it to open but not provide enough nutrients?

 

[Shirak]

It's not bleaching it's the skeleton showing through where the tissue is gone. Some of the polyps around the top edges could have been damaged by touching and moving them frequently. However, the tissue is very thin all over and in some spots the skeleton is showing down between the polyps which means it has been losing tissue over time and not getting enough nutrition. It may recover but you need to put it someplace in the aquarium where you can target feed it every night. LPS pellets and chopped frozen mysis are good choices. Wait about an hour after lights out and pour a little liquid in the water from the defrosted frozen mysis cube. Hopefully the polyps will extend and you can start feeding them regularly.

 

[BlurCaze]

It's not bleaching it's the skeleton showing through where the tissue is gone. Some of the polyps around the top edges could have been damaged by touching and moving them frequently. However, the tissue is very thin all over and in some spots the skeleton is showing down between the polyps which means it has been losing tissue over time and not getting enough nutrition. It may recover but you need to put it someplace in the aquarium where you can target feed it every night. LPS pellets and chopped frozen mysis are good choices. Wait about an hour after lights out and pour a little liquid in the water from the defrosted frozen mysis cube. Hopefully the polyps will extend and you can start feeding them regularly.

Thank you, will definitely give that a go, I was feeding a mixture including LPS pellets which sits nicely in each opening.
Definitely a Lesson learned! Frequent Touching of coral will damage the tissue and I thoughtI was doing them a favor. Tbh, I am surprised to learn the exterior are tissues as they are extremely hard!

 

[Shirak]

Thank you, will definitely give that a go, I was feeding a mixture including LPS pellets which sits nicely in each opening.
Definitely a Lesson learned! Frequent Touching of coral will damage the tissue and I thoughtI was doing them a favor. Tbh, I am surprised to learn the exterior are tissues as they are extremely hard!

Well it's a calcium skeleton under the pinkish orange flesh. The flesh is quite soft and easily damaged by handling as the skeleton is very hard and sharp edged. Hope you are able to get it to eat some food and get on the road to recovery!