Select sps slowly bleaching

[Jskinn27]

Hey guys. Over the past month I’ve had montipora lose color and begin to bleach. I manually dose and brought up the calc/alk and monti are slowly getting their color back. But the past week my forest fire digi is bleaching from the bottom up. I also have another acro that’s slowly bleaching as well. I had a birdsnest colony that’s bleached too. These parameters were taken with hanna, Red Sea and api test kits. Magnesium was taken with salifert. Tank is about a year and a half old.

temp 79 degrees.

Alk 9.8

Calcium 530

Magnesium 1260

Ph: 8.2

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite:0

Nitrate:15

Salinity 1.024

 

[Maximitsurugi]

You seem to have missed a key parameter that could explain bleaching. Maybe i didnt see it but whats your phosphate level?

 

[KrisReef]

Bummer. Seen this before. Not certain of your source, but frag now and hope for the best would be my instant advice. A frag in the rack is better than a coral skeleton in the display tank.

 

[Maximitsurugi]

Yeah but lets get a better pic of the issue. We need a phosphate reading, especially at that Alk number. Might be nothing but its one thing to eliminate

 

[Jskinn27]

On the api test phosphate appears to be 0.25.

How that I think of it, I did remove some chaeto from the sump which kicked up a bunch of crap.

 

[Jskinn27]

I’m also going to do a water change whenever I have time this week. Tank is 220gal plus sump as well.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Probabilities:
Any change in lighting or light schedule?

Flow too strong or weak
Alk spike
Ph low or high
Salinity high
Lights too bright
Red bugs or flatworms
Calcium high

 

[ScottB]

Nice tank. Agree the two prior posts. Frag it and get a PO4 number from a Hanna ULR.

I don't think I would describe this as bleaching, but instead slow tissue necrosis (STN). As it is happening from the base, I doubt it is light related. More likely a pest. Perhaps a monti-eating nudibranch. Do you have wrasses?

 

[Jskinn27]

I have a 6 line and another wrasse. Can’t remember the name. Not a tri color wrasse, but colorful. I looked for pests last night and didn’t see any.

 

[Jskinn27]

Probabilities:
Any change in lighting or light schedule?

Flow too strong or weak
Alk spike
Ph low or high
Salinity high
Lights too bright
Red bugs or flatworms
Calcium high

no change in lighting. The only thing I changed was I removed 2 rocks with nems on them and replaced with new rocks. Been manually dosing 2 part.

 

[nereefpat]

Been manually dosing 2 part.

What is the alk consumption per day? Or, another way to look at it, what is the alk swing from dosing each time?