Fallow tank and SPS are bleaching

[lyscer]

A month ago I pulled all of the fish out of my display due to a fish being infected with something and a few fish dying. When I pulled the fish I did a 35% water change because I used the DT water as the base water for my emergency tank. I noticed that since I did that water change my SPS have been turning whiter and whiter.

My parameters are as follows:

Salinity: 1.026
Mg: 1500
Ca: 440
Alk: 9.5
Temp: 79
Ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrite/Phos: 0

I do have a refugium that is running on a reverse daylight schedule. I run 1/2 cup of carbon in a BRS single reactor and I skim 24/7.

Since pulling my fish out, I feed a light feeding to the reef every 2-3 days. I feed LRS "Reef Frenzy". I think that I may be running too low of a nutrient tank so I just turned my skimmer off yesterday and am going to stop running my carbon reactor for a week or two and see if that helps.

Also, should I stop performing 10% weekly water changes since there are no fish in the system? I feel like a 10% every other week should be sufficient at this point since I have so few corals in the system and they are small so they shouldn't use up too many nutrients that need to be replaced by water changes.

Any help/suggestions are appreciated.

 

[D maul]

I would hold off on water changes and keep alk and cal steady. Get the nitrates and phosphate up hope they color back up for you.

 

[Piranhapat]

Do you know what your water pars were before the 35% water change. Most likely your Alk took a swing for higher causing SPS to bleach.

 

[Dan1789]

When my tank was fallow, my corals suffered.

 

[lyscer]

The params were exactly the same prior to the water change. I test them weekly and they haven't fluctuated much since the tank has been setup. It is only 4-5 months old

 

[reefndude]

They may be starving without fish. May need to try to target feed while no fish in tank

 

[Tahoe61]

You made no mention of lighting and photoperiod time?

 

[lyscer]

You are very correct. I have a 4 month old 24" ATI 8 bulb fixture (I put new bulbs in it when I bought the fixture). My lighting schedule is as follows:

Channel 1:
13:00 On
13:30 10%
14:00 20%
15:00 100%
19:00 75%
21:00 20%
21:30 10%
22:00 Off

Channel 2:
13:30 On
14:00 10%
14:30 30%
15:00 100%
18:30 75%
20:30 30%
21:00 10%
21:30 Off

Front to Back:
Blue Plus
Coral Plus
Coral Plus
Blue Plus
Purple Plus
Blue Plus
Coral Plus
Blue Plus

 

[Tahoe61]

It's an awesome fixture, and a ton of light. You might want to back it down a little. Feed more, maybe consider some AcroporaPower and reduce that 3 hour period when you're running the light at 100% to a lower intensity or a shorter period of time at 100%. The fixture went up in July so it's relatively new to the sps. You can always increase it again slowly.
If possible post an image of the sps in question, sometimes it's easy to tell pale sps from lack of nutrients vs loss of color due to light shock.

 

[Diesel]

Starving is my $0.02.
Po4 and No3 need to come up slowly.

 

[LILBUDDHA]

My tank has been fallow for almost 6 weeks . I added bio-balls and feed almost every night . I do weekly water changes and my nitrates are around 20ppm. Phos was 0 so I stepped up the feeding . No SPS have paled since then . I did change my lighting because it was way too much . The corals did start to pale as a result of the excess lighting but everything seems to be on track now .

 

[robert]

A month ago I pulled all of the fish out of my display due to a fish being infected with something and a few fish dying. When I pulled the fish I did a 35% water change because I used the DT water as the base water for my emergency tank. I noticed that since I did that water change my SPS have been turning whiter and whiter.

My parameters are as follows:

Salinity: 1.026
Mg: 1500
Ca: 440
Alk: 9.5
Temp: 79
Ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrite/Phos: 0

I do have a refugium that is running on a reverse daylight schedule. I run 1/2 cup of carbon in a BRS single reactor and I skim 24/7.

Since pulling my fish out, I feed a light feeding to the reef every 2-3 days. I feed LRS "Reef Frenzy". I think that I may be running too low of a nutrient tank so I just turned my skimmer off yesterday and am going to stop running my carbon reactor for a week or two and see if that helps.

Also, should I stop performing 10% weekly water changes since there are no fish in the system? I feel like a 10% every other week should be sufficient at this point since I have so few corals in the system and they are small so they shouldn't use up too many nutrients that need to be replaced by water changes.

Any help/suggestions are appreciated.

Whats feeding the refugium? Is it growing - stagnant - or dying?
in reef systems macroalgae compete with coral - they can release DOC's containing surgars to kill off their competition.
If the refugium is failing - this might do it.

my bad - I see you have it under control...what was feeding the refugium?

 

[lyscer]

I just shortened the photoperiod time. I will leave it at this setting for 2 weeks and will re-assess the colors at that time. (I have to set time/date restraints so that I can measure effectively otherwise I get trigger happy haha). I also plan on performing nightly feedings to see if that helps with the colors as well.

Channel 1:
15:00 On
15:30 10%
16:00 20%
17:00 100%
19:00 75%
21:00 20%
21:30 10%
22:00 Off

Channel 2:
15:30 On
16:00 10%
16:30 30%
17:00 100%
18:30 75%
20:30 30%
21:00 10%
21:30 Off

 

[ReefMadScientist]

I would vote that your parameters are starving the coral. No nitrate, no PO4 (undetectable is fine) equals no food for the corals to eat.

What is your reason on going FALLOW?

 

[lyscer]

I had a blue chromis die unexpectedly so I started observing my fish closer and noticed my Flame Angel and Blue tang had white specks on them. So I started keeping a close eye on them and then my clowns had white stringy feces (which the forum helped me identify as an internal parasite) so I figured I had ich and parasites in the tank so all the fish went into QT and I am leaving the DT fallow for 75 days to starve out any remaining parasites.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

I had a blue chromis die unexpectedly so I started observing my fish closer and noticed my Flame Angel and Blue tang had white specks on them. So I started keeping a close eye on them and then my clowns had white stringy feces (which the forum helped me identify as an internal parasite) so I figured I had ich and parasites in the tank so all the fish went into QT and I am leaving the DT fallow for 75 days to starve out any remaining parasites.

Ah sorry. I did read that last night but was just about to fall asleep and decided to respond early morning lol.

Sorry to hear about your fish. Your corals are dying out because they are starving. No fish poop = no coral food (well on a macro scale). You will need to bring up your nitrates first then your po4 slightly. Aim for 2-5ppm of NO3 and .02-.08 po4.

 

[lyscer]

How would you recommend I bring up nitrates? They have always been undetectable in this tank - at least according to my API test kit.
For reference I use the following test kits:
API - Nitrite/Ammonia/Nitrate/PH
Salifert - MG, CA, ALK, Phosphates

I know that I do have some phosphates because I have noticed in recent weeks that my chaetomorpha has turned into a giant hairball of hair algae. So my guess is that the tank is using up the phosphates as soon as they are created which makes my test read 0.

 

[Tahoe61]

Correct me if I am wrong but the tank has not even been fallow for 1 month? Sps are not going to starve and die from such a short fallow period. My tank has one small clown that gets feed a tiny amount of food, my N/P at 0, my sps are not starving or paling from starvation.
While I agree he/she needs to increase the amount of available DOC, I do not think that is the end all solution. There is more at play here, new lights, introduction to sps, new tank........

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Correct me if I am wrong but the tank has not even been fallow for 1 month? Sps are not going to starve and die from such a short fallow period. My tank has one small clown that gets feed a tiny amount of food, my N/P at 0, my sps are not starving or paling from starvation.
While I agree he/she needs to increase the amount of available DOC, I do not think that is the end all solution. There is more at play here, new lights, introduction to sps, new tank........

Very true. The lights and all that CAN play a factor. However; I truly believe keeping your NO3 and PO4 at 0ppm's (especially NO3) is playing with fire. If your PO4 gets higher than NO3 then you can get into some nasty algae blooms. If NO3 and PO4 get stript, then starvation can occur.

It all just depends. My PO4 remains undetectable but I am okay with that since I feed my fish every day which introduces PO4 into the tank. My NO3 stays at 2ppm.

 

[lyscer]

The tank has been fallow since Aug 12. So not quite a month. The pink birdsnest was added middle of june and it is seeing the worst bleaching. IT did awesome up until I removed the fish. It did have lighter colors but it really started to turn white after the removal of the fish and the larger water change that I performed to get the QT tank setup.

Some other things to note, that I'm not sure if they are relavant or not that I have been wondering about.
- There is a slimy mucus film that builds up on the surface of my sump water every week. I get as much out as possible every week and then I wipe the glass down where the mucus is still clinging to the glass surface. I have no idea what is causing this.
- I have a 15 gallon water jug that I keep filled with RO water all the time so that when I need water I have it readily available. I'm sure that this has that buildup on the inside - is it bad to keep my water change water in this jug filled all the time? When I perform water changes I do a 10 gallon change a week. This is on a 68 gallon cadlights versa tank with a 20 gal (?) sump. I figure that my overall water value is probably 80 gallons.
- My RO Unit is probably 8 months old (air water ice dual home reef setup). I changed all of the filters on it (except the membrane) at the end of July. My TDS reads at 2-3ppm.
- This is an open top tank and I have found that kids like to put their fingers in the tank and "pet the snails" when they are at the top of the water column (even though we have had many talks about "discovery time")

I have tried to take pictures but all I have is an iPhone6 and the pictures are horrible. If I am able to get a better picture I will post it up.

Thanks for all of the help/suggestions thus far.