Sps bleach

[allof fish]

So yesterday I had a acro frag bleach out on me and I’m a little puzzled how and why. Little context was in tank for about a month looked fine until last day or 2 polyps out color decent from when I got it. Just recently got a couple more Acro frags so am a little concerned but they all appear to be good and healthy. No changes in lighting a little in flow as I moved a gyre up to top more to create more flow higher up but also added another gyre vertical on back so should’ve gotten plenty of flow. Not changes in Parameters. Alk 8.3-8.6 calcium 440 magnesium 1440. Nitrates 8-10. Phosphate was .05. Last week it got down to .02 I added some reef roids and got up to .14 but tank usually sucks nutrients up pretty fast. Could that be why? Other frags look perfectly fine. A little puzzling. Maybe a bad piece? When I bought it wasn’t super encrusted yet so maybe never fully recovered. Was dipped/inspected never saw bugs. Little puzzling to me just concerned about others

 

[TX_REEF]

When I've experienced bleaching events. it is usually from rapid changes in alk or phosphate. I would look to those as potential causes, as long as there are no other obvious maladies.

 

[allof fish]

When I've experienced bleaching events. it is usually from rapid changes in alk or phosphate. I would look to those as potential causes, as long as there are no other obvious maladies.

I haven’t seen any rapid changes besides the phosphate jumping up. What’s another way I can keep phosphate stable without having to add reef roids to keep it up? Tank sucks up nutrients pretty quick. Another thing to add my salinity went from 1.026-1.024 since I last checked it. But that had to be over the course of atleast 2 weeks, I would think that slow should be fine. Slowly bringing it up again

 

[TX_REEF]

yeah, that SG change over 2 weeks is unlikely to cause issues. Reef roids is a good way to keep P up, but perhaps add smaller amounts less frequently, and focus on target feeding with something like this, because broadcast feeding obviously causes more waste: https://amzn.to/3LvhEMC

To more passively maintain P, you could try reducing your nutrient export. For example, I run my frag tank without a protein skimmer for this reason.

 

[allof fish]

Normally I spot feed roids once a week but decided to broadcast a small amount to bring phos up. I run my skimmer 24/7 bc I have a co2 scrubber on it to bring ph up. I’ve thought about running no socks for a week or 2 to see but haven’t done that yet. I’m also trying to not do water changes anymore unless needed since I deplete all nutrients. Going to add trace elements to 2 part and do icp every month or 2. Just trying not to deplete my already low nutrients. Will keep an eye on raising phosphate levels