Help with vacation casualty (almost)

[Formulator]

Despite having almost everything automated and a good sitter, I had a significant pH rise due to the lack of breathing humans in the house and subsequent CO2 decrease. With that pH rise came a drastic increase in Alk consumption. I was able to compensate remotely via my apex fairly quickly, but it seems the brief instability has taken a toll on one of my montipora. Surprisingly my more sensitive acros and basically everything else in the tank seems to have pulled through just fine.

Has anyone seen this kind of bleaching from the center outward on an encrusting monti? Any chance it will pull through? It was growing like a weed before I left… I’ve been doing this a long time and my parameters were golden.

 

[Dread Pirate Dave]

That is different. I would have thought bleaching would start on the newer areas of the coral.

 

[exnisstech]

Don't give up hope. I had a green one bleach similarly. The entire piece eventually turned bone white, all other coral fine and I don't know what caused it. It's not a great picture with heavy blues but this was it when it was bleached. I was going to pull it but it was part of the rock at that point so I left it.

This is it today

 

[Formulator]

That is different. I would have thought bleaching would start on the newer areas of the coral.

Me too. Interestingly, that coral always had an oddly higher density of polyps in the center where it bleached. Here is a photo from the end of June.

 

[Formulator]

Don't give up hope. I had a green one bleach similarly. The entire piece eventually turned bone white, all other coral fine and I don't know what caused it. It's not a great picture with heavy blues but this was it when it was bleached. I was going to pull it but it was part of the rock at that point so I left it.

This is it today

That is reassuring to hear! I plan to let it be and hope for the same.