Recovering a completey bleached acro

[Tim92G]

About a week ago I had a sump/heating malfunction and the temp of my tank dropped to 75 from 78 overnight. Unfortunately a new acro frag I have almost died. The skin is completely bleached but it still has full polyp extension. I have it on the sandbed of my tank so the skeleton is not damaged by light, but I really don't know what else to do for it.

 

[ShepherdReefer]

This is an excellent question. Joining in on the discussion.

 

[Dburr1014]

About a week ago I had a sump/heating malfunction and the temp of my tank dropped to 75 from 78 overnight. Unfortunately a new acro frag I have almost died. The skin is completely bleached but it still has full polyp extension. I have it on the sandbed of my tank so the skeleton is not damaged by light, but I really don't know what else to do for it.

IMO, I would have left it where it was and just turn down the lights a bit. But that is me. My reasoning is I would want to keep the same flow it was used to and everything else so not to add another stress factor.
All you can do is give it the very best water conditions you can and hope it pulls through.

This guy was covered in dinos.
Bleached, total dinos havoc. I left alone thinking it was a goner. Just worked on water parameters to defeat the dinos.



Here it is today in full glory.

The one on the right.

 

[Waters]

There really isn't anything else you can do....keep everything stable. Make sure you have available nutrients and let it be.

 

[sculpin01]

Recovery from bleaching (expulsion of zooxanthellae) requires low light (no UV exposure from tank lights), proper nutrient levels (so as not to stress the coral), and availability of coral food. If the coral is naturally heterotrophic (consumes plankton or other food-type material), it can use this for energy until it reabsorbs its zooxanthellae. Studies have shown that this varies highly from coral-to-coral, with some genus's like Porites having little heterotrophy while others are aggressively heterotrophic, absorbing >100% of their daily nutrient requirements from plankton.

 

[Homewrecker]

One of the biggest things you can do is keep everything stable so that it has the opportunity to make a comeback.

 

[Lavey29]

I doubt a 3 degree temp drop caused that. I had power out for 13 hours and my tank dropped to 67 degrees and I had over SPS frags with no bad effects so most likely another source for your coral health problem.

 

[Tim92G]

I doubt a 3 degree temp drop caused that. I had power out for 13 hours and my tank dropped to 67 degrees and I had over SPS frags with no bad effects so most likely another source for your coral health problem.

I don't know what else would it have been since all other acros were fine and water parameters were stable

 

[Lavey29]

I don't know what else would it have been since all other acros were fine and water parameters were stable

Tank over heat much harder on acros then a couple degree drop. You mentioned it was a new acro frag and sometimes unfortunately they just don't acclimate well to our tanks for unknown reasons. Could be shipping stress but the RTN or STN shows up in the tank.

 

[pasquale petrovia]

I bleached my entire tank of sps almost a year ago. I spot dosed algen phyco pure and Red Sea ab plus for a month and the colors came back. It was about 20 plus that were pure white and they came back in my 225 gallon sps only

 

[pasquale petrovia]

Latest

 

[pasquale petrovia]

My water change heated my tank .6 degree’s

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

Hardest part now is to keep nuisance algae from taking over.

 

[sculpin01]

My water change heated my tank .6 degree’s

6 degrees or 0.6 degrees? That seems like a very small shift to cause mass bleaching.

 

[pasquale petrovia]

.6. It bleached in front of my eyes within an hour

 

[pasquale petrovia]

0.6

 

[pasquale petrovia]

I can’t tell you if it was Ab plus or the combo of zoanthelae and food

 

[ReefingDreams]

.6. It bleached in front of my eyes within an hour

It wasn't your temp. Currents in the ocean can cause more of a "swing" than that MANY times throughout the day. Correlation does not mean causation.

 

[pasquale petrovia]

I keep my temp at 81 degrees and I never heat the water I use for water change it was the only time I did that in 3 years. I always change 50 gallons in my 200 gallon system. My basement stays around 65 so I fill it back slowly to not lower temp to fast. That time I used a spare ink bird that wasn’t calibrated to my tank and it was off .6. I pumped in 50 gallons and raised it quickly

 

[exnisstech]

No way 0.6 degree swing is going to cause any problems. My tanks swing 3-4 degrees within minutes doing water changes because I sometimes I forget to heat the new water.