SPS bleaching

[GeoHawk]

I recently moved and had my lfs hold onto my sps coral and ship them out to me. A few of the coral however are bleaching some. I have a 60 gallon tank with lots of flow. 1 250w mh phoenix 1400 k, 2 uv t5 one super actinic the other aqua sun.
The coral are.
Green Slimer - not bleaching, but has some dead spots (doesnt seem to be getting worse)
Pink Birds nest- bleaching, but good polyp extension (some areas are completely white)
Red Monti- It is now pink.
Oarnge Digi-looking better, but had some bleaching.
Green granulosa acro- Looks like a champ no bleaching at all.

Paramaters,
Calcium 400
Magnesium 1125
KH 13 A little high, but I am waiting for it to drop before I dose with Bionic
S.G. 1.023
Temp 76-80 Depending on time of day due to MH lights

Corals were under T5 lighting at LFS before being shipped.

I wonder if the bleaching could be do to stress of shipping or am I missing something. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[LILBUDDHA]

A few questions . Was old sand moved to the new and how much ? How long after the move and new location set? Time frame the the corals were placed in their new home after moving . Old or all new water ?
Did you change salts ? Sounds like you have a squeaky clean tank now and a lil coral stress .
From a ULN point of view high dkh and low potassium caused issues with my Birdsnest and Monitpora cap . Red went pink . etc .
I dosed per directions Lugols or Brightwell's Potassium , got my Kh lower and things returned to normal .

 

[GeoHawk]

Was old sand moved to the new and how much ? Both old and new sand was used, as I upgraded from a 29 to a 60 gallon.
How long after the move and new location set? Aquarium has been set up and cycling for 6 weeks before coral was sent to me.
Old or all new water ? About 25 gallons from original aquarium the rest was new reef crystral water.
Did you change salts ? No, however I am about to change to instant ocean regular brand, as reef crystals are a little out of my current price range

I will check Iodine , I have a salifert test kit. And I also have some lugols.

 

[LILBUDDHA]

@geohawk .Not trying to confuse you . The potassium is a by product (so to speak ) of using the Lugols .

 

[GeoHawk]

Right, I was thinking of Iodine for some reason. Thanks for clarification LILBUDDHA
Iodine is .02ppm

 

[Amici]

Drop your lighting period down some and keep knocking out water changes. IME bleaching is too much light or something in the params.

 

[GeoHawk]

Ok I reduced lighting on t5 from 12 hours down to 10 hours and metal halides from 7 hours down to 6 hours. Any other ideas?

 

[LILBUDDHA]

GeoHawk
Right, I was thinking of Iodine for some reason. Thanks for clarification LILBUDDHA
Iodine is .02ppm


Sounds low . I thought target range is .06 off the top of my head . BTW the lugols would help with the protecting the corals from high light levels . Careful with it ,if you use it . It's like 2 drops per 75 gallons .

 

[GeoHawk]

It said on the bottle as a routine add 1 drop per 25 gallons. I added 5 drops because it was low, and I have a 20 gallon sump. Hopefully not to much I will keep my eye on it though. Thanks

 

[condor]

also mg is a little low

 

[pitbullguy]

IME abrupt changes in anything can cause tissue necrosis. These animals usually will not tolerate any parameters changing quickly. I have had necrosis mostly from temp spikes and salt change. Whatever parameters you decide to change to remedy this situation; do it slow.
If you feel you are going to lose the colony you can frag above the necrosis where tissue is still intact and hope for the best. This has worked for me several times but it is a last ditch effort to save anything from the colony you can so you can regrow it.
Good Luck

 

[GeoHawk]

Thanks guys, maybe Ill will relax off a bit and see how things shake out by the end of the week.

 

[GeoHawk]

If bleaching was caused from placing SPS from an aquarium using T5s to my aquarium using MH do the corals usually get used to the lighting change and return there color, or should I be doing something else?

 

[KingRicky]

If bleaching was caused from placing SPS from an aquarium using T5s to my aquarium using MH do the corals usually get used to the lighting change and return there color, or should I be doing something else?

I recently switched from T-5's to Radiums. I placed a layer of egg crate and window screen across the top of my tank. I removed the window screen after the first week and the egg crate after the second week and had no issues acclimating to the more intense lighting.

 

[LILBUDDHA]

^^^^^^^^^^^ +1 . I was about the say the same thing . U get that KH down yet ?

 

[pitbullguy]

I missed that you put the coral under new lighting, this can definitely cause stress.
I usually will put new corals in a partially shaded or low light spot in the tank for a couple weeks until the coral is expanding polyps nicely and seems content. Then slowly move it up depending on light requirements. Even the same genus acropora but different species can have entirely different light requirements. Lighting placement also has a big impact on coloration as seen with alot of ora acros, they seem to color up best in low light compared to most of my acros which love high light.
Best to start in low light then move it until it seems content. If it is not happy move it.

 

[GeoHawk]

I recently switched from T-5's to Radiums. I placed a layer of egg crate and window screen across the top of my tank. I removed the window screen after the first week and the egg crate after the second week and had no issues acclimating to the more intense lighting.

Would placing the screen help now even though bleaching has allready occurred? Do I place it over the the glass of the MH (I would think it would melt it), or down below where the canopy meets the top of the tank?

I havn't checked kh for a few days, I plan on doing a water change tomorrow, with regular salt instead of reef crystals. I think the reef crystals caused the kh to be high.

 

[GeoHawk]

Polyp extension is great, even better during the night (which made me think maybe it was the lights.) I am mostly worried about the color returning. Before I took these corals to the LFS they were beautifully colored under my PC lights, which most people say you cant do. (growth sucked and having to keep them placed high was annoying so I switched to MH) They havn't been under PC lighting for about 2 months though, then T5's 1 and for 1/2 months (until 2 weeks ago when they were shipped to me), and now under my MH.