Leptastrea bleaching?

[SamMule]

The colors show up poorly, but there are white spots starting to show up on my leptastrea. Can mostly be seen on the backside wher I can't get a pic. The section in the top left background of this pic is mostly white.
Water parameters all good.
77f
8.2 ph
9.8 alk
2 ppm nitrates
0 ammonia
460 calc

Red sea max 250 placed 1" off of the bottom under T5's.

Any ideas? Everything else in the tank seems happy

 

[Anchor]

Have you dosed anything out of your normal routine lately? And is the rock it is on dippable?

 

[SamMule]

It is not glued down. Been in there 2 weeks maybe.
Only thing I dose is kalkwasser. I had a weird alkalinity spike last week. Went to 11 or so, but lasted less than 24 hours and was immediately after a water change. Still don't understand it because within 24 hrs, it returned to the mid 9's and has been 9.6- 9.8 since.
Tested every other day.

 

[Billldg]

Question, any reason why you are running your Alk that high? With a spike of 2 plus DKH, that can have a bad effect on corals. It may take a while to settle down.

 

[ReefGrammie]

Question, any reason why you are running your Alk that high? With a spike of 2 plus DKH, that can have a bad effect on corals. It may take a while to settle down.

I was just going to ask the same thing!

 

[Anchor]

:H:igh alk at water change with a drop after water change.. May I ask what salt you use?

 

[SamMule]

Red sea coral pro has a very high alk. I think it is 11dkh @ 35ppt.
I want to keep it around 9.5-10.
If I keep the all near what the salt mixes at, it will help prevent large swings, correct?

 

[SamMule]

Yes, I expected something bad to happen with that swing, but nothing else is showing any signs of distress. Not even my acro

 

[Billldg]

I know a bunch of reefers have had success with Red Sea Coral Pro, but I am not a fan of keeping parameters That high above natural seawater, so...

 

[Anchor]

My experience with red sea salt is that it does start out high but drops within days even in the mixing barrel.. So I switched to HW Marine.. Much more stable .. and then work to keep it up to 8.5 with dosing. Red Sea was OK so long as I only did small water changes.. Nothing over 10%

My experience has been tht LPS do not like big swings in Alk..

 

[SamMule]

I agree with what you are saying about the alk swing being an issue. However, it has been stable again for a week now. I find it hard to believe that only one coral out of the 20 or so in the tank is just now showing signs of stress. Is it possible that it is a light issue?
Some of what I have read says leptastrea is a low light coral. Others say it is a high light coral.

It is near the bottom just right of center.
Since it is bleachimg, I'm thinking of trying a more shaded area. I would think that if it was too little light, I would see it "reaching"

 

[SamMule]

Update:
At the advice of the LFS I bought it from, I dipped again and moved up higher in the tank.
Bleaching has stopped. Polyp extension is back, and color is returning. Hopefully it will make a full recovery.

 

[Gator_Reefer]

Update:
At the advice of the LFS I bought it from, I dipped again and moved up higher in the tank.
Bleaching has stopped. Polyp extension is back, and color is returning. Hopefully it will make a full recovery.

What did you dip it in?

 

[SamMule]

Seachem Reefdip. It did well for awhile After the move noted here, but then started losing color up top again. I got a seneye and measured par. Come to find out, the spot I moved it to that I thought was higher light, was in fact lower PAR. It was getting over 300. The move put it down at around 275 with better flow.
I just moved it again about a week ago here. It is getting around 100 par now. We will see how it goes here.