Bleached coral help

Sharkattackmack · Jan 6, 2022

Hey everyone, ill start off with my tank lay out of my tank to help with this. I have a 34"x34"x16" square "low boy" tank. I'm running two radion xr30 pros in a t5 hybrid system. Since its such wide tank i have the led running perpendicular to the t5's for maximum coverage. My one radion has been giving me issues with not sticking to its programing and staying on all the time. I thought i had fixed it but i guess not as when i returned form my vacation the back side of my tank was quite bleached. I think the light was running 24/7. Not sure for how long but it was long enough to tick them off. I picked up a reeflink and ecotech helped me factory reset the troublemaker but now i'm looking for your guys help on how i should bring these guys back to life. 95% of them still have poylp extension and the undersides of them still have color so i do have hope. I was advised by another reefer to feed the corals with aminos/phyto to help them recover. They also recommended that i back the lights off about 25% and set the acclamation mode to 3-4 weeks to let the corals slowly recover.

What is everyone else's thoughts on this?

ghostmantank · Jan 6, 2022

I agree I had close to the same issue that you are seeing and I put the lights down and set a 6 week acclamation while dosing aminos and phyto after about 2 weeks I started seeing some of the color come back. After 4 weeks they had recovered to about 70% and over the next couple weeks they got back to 100%. Now they are growing and doing just fine.

ghostmantank · Jan 6, 2022

slow and steady is the name of the game nothing happens fast

Sharkattackmack · Jan 6, 2022

ghostmantank said:
I agree I had close to the same issue that you are seeing and I put the lights down and set a 6 week acclamation while dosing aminos and phyto after about 2 weeks I started seeing some of the color come back. After 4 weeks they had recovered to about 70% and over the next couple weeks they got back to 100%. Now they are growing and doing just fine.

Thanks for the response. Ill set myself up on a good feeding routine with my usual weekly water changes so the nutrients in the water don't get too high. I had imagined most of them would make a recovery but it is a relief to hear that someone else has had the same issue and overcome it.

Spare time · Jan 6, 2022

I like to dose reef energy (or fuel) and phycopure (zooxanthellae) to bleached corals. I had a bleached coral come back after doing this daily (though I can't say if it was that or something else).

Sharkattackmack · Jan 8, 2022

It’s hasn’t been a week since I returned home and I already see small progress. More polyp extension, and corals already look less bleached. I mix up my own “reef crack”. It’s a kitchen sink kind of approach and seems to work. I’ll uploads some photos tonight