How to bring back bleached SPS?

[DracoKat]

I ordered and received 11 acros three weeks ago, shipped.

1 arrived bleached out- it's on a frag rack to see if I can bring it back.
1 bleached out overnight - 3 nights ago.
9 are doing well, puffed up and white tips of growth on a few.

I should've been prepared with checking calcium, alk and all that. I didn't have the supplements yet and it was on its way. Delayed 4 days thanks to UPS.

My calcium was low (310) on the day my acro bleached overnight. I don't think the light caused the bleaching.
I slowly raised calcium back up with BRS 2 Part. 4 days of raising, calcium is now at 430.

Alk's been steady at 7.8 dKH since then. I didn't dose.

Now that my calcium's up to par and I am going to keep testing/dosing to keep up all levels, any chance my bleached acros will come back? or are they a lost cause considering I don't see polyps?

 

[stravo71]

As long as everything stays stable they should come back. Try shading them from full light. That's what I did when my acros bleached.

 

[DracoKat]

thank you, they are my first SPS ever and I am still learning :) I will try to shade a bit

 

[Anirban]

Hold tight your parameters and they will be back within no time. One of mine recovered within a week but I think if place it to lower light it will help it.

 

[alten78]

Pics? How much of each frag is actually alive?

 

[drawman]

If your calcium was that low you may have had full tissue necrosis. Bleaching is loss of the symbiotic zooxanthellae. If you can keep your parameters stable it doesn't hurt to hold onto the frags. I've had single polyps hold on with frags that have experienced RTN and had them regrow but it's hard to predict if that will happen here. Good luck!

 

[DracoKat]

I thought it might be full tissue necrosis since it happened so fast. literally over night because it was fine the day before.

I will take a pic tonight. From what I can see, I do not see any polyps. No harm in keeping it there for a while to see.

 

[john.m.cole3]

Yeah man I have a pocillopora, birdsnest, and Scripps acro that bleached from an alk swing from 8.3 to 9.6 in sm hour. Letting my Alk fall back down. The Scripps and pocillopora came back from straight whiteness. Just leave em alone once para meters are on track. One lady told me it took 5 months for her chalice to cone back. This hobby will make you patient. Practice with some hardy lps on your next few purchases.

 

[CodyRVA]

+1 on maintaining stable parameters. I would leave the frags in there and wait and see; if you can obtain stability they may fully recover depending on how much damage has been done. I've taken bleached out, presumably dead, frags before and while it took months, they fully recovered.

That being said, only purchase creatures that you can successfully house now, not in the future. You can blame the UPS man all you want, but your parameters should have been stable and on point for weeks before introducing these corals; just my two cents. Good luck!