Sps bleaching, help!

oowtfmang · Jan 12, 2013

All three of my birdnest are bleaching and have little to no polyp extension. My pocillopora is also bleaching but still has polyp extension as well. My sunset millie is starting to bleach at the base as well.

I recently upgraded my tank, transferring all my live stock in one day from a 40 gallon to a 75 gallon tank. During this time, lots of my SPS have been browning out but only the birdsnest and the pocillopora have been bleaching.

My nutrients have been all out of whack since I moved everything with phosphates being high with little to no nitrate as I have a very small bioload and a very oversized skimmer. My other parameters have been relatively stable.
I just checked the parameters yesterday with salifert test kit and this is how it stands:

Alk 7.8
CA 420
Mg 1350
Nitrate .05 to 1
PO4 .06 (was just .104 yesterday, gfo was clogged) Tested with Hanna ULR

I also upgraded my lighting fixture but raised my canopy MUCH higher than it was before I replaced it. I feel like it could be a combination of the move and the lighting that is causing this but my pocci is literally at the bottom of the tank and it's bleaching. This concerns me. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Murfman · Jan 12, 2013

What lighting did you have before and upgrade to?

oowtfmang · Jan 12, 2013

It is a 250 watt mH. The only thing that changed was the reflector, from a lumenarc to lumenmax elite. Nothing else changed.

Rydogg420 · Jan 12, 2013

Did you use your old tank water to help cycle your tank or did you use all new freash water? Also how much more light do you think the new reflector gives? is it a more focused beam of light now?

It is way too hard to just tell you want is going on. there can be many things going on to make the corals bleach. I had a small basket ball size piece of neon green birds nest go from neon green to bleached over night for no reason. everything else in my tank was fine, but the birds nest just died withen 12 hours. I had the coral from a single branch frag to...

oowtfmang · Jan 13, 2013

Yes, I did use my old water. The light gives off a lot more light but I did raise it a lot more as well.

always reefin · Jan 13, 2013

Have you checked ammonia? Did you possibly lose your cycle?

ddpham · Jan 13, 2013

Too big of a change. Even though u used same water, old rock and sand the moved alone would stress out the corals not counting u adding 50 percent of new water to compensate for the 75. Try to stablelize your parameter and just have patience.

mcarroll · Jan 13, 2013

Could be the light
No chance of a before/after LUX meter (or even PAR meter - $$) reading?

You have the cover glass in place on the new reflector?

How far from the MH's hot spot is and was the birdsnest? There's a huge intensity difference form the center to the edge of coverage, as well as between bottom and top placement. (That hot spot might be bigger and/or more intense than it used to be too. A meter really helps to know what's going on when you change lighting and only costs $15 or so on eBay.)

But I think it's flow
Birdsnests do tend to be very sensitive to flow changes as well IME - in fact I'll wager those colonies are in a significantly different flow situation than before and just suffocated. You may not even know it from looking if you weren't looking for this. (Don't know why you would have been looking for this in particular...so makes it easy to miss.)

I've had this happen actually. I accidentally knocked a P. damicornis colony that I'd grown from a pathetic little mostly dead frag off it's mount during cleaning one late night. In my ready-for-bed state, I remounted him backward unbeknownst to me (it was dark, tank was murky, I was still new at gluing wet stuff...bad situation all the way around) which placed him just enough behind a rock that happened to be between him and the flow he loved that with in a very short time he was nothing but skeleton. The blocking rock was over 10" away and flow on the tank wall another 10" beyond that, so it was not clear at all that I was doing anything wrong at the moment. The space differential in where he was and where he ended up after being backward was only 2-3 inches.

Just sad. (I had actually forgotten about this...) Sorry about yours too.

If there's anything left of them that looks healthy frag immediately and see if you can save them. The bigger the better, but all your really need is a 1/4" or so. Mount them in the best spot you can for moderate-to-strong light and moderate-to-strong flow.

Maybe alkalinity (and pH) too
Also, you should really raise your minimum alkalinity to 8 or 9 dKH IMO. Personally I'd dose daily to keep it at 11 dKH (testing as necessary...daily after major changes), unless you have a special circumstance for keeping it low. This gives you leeway in preventing pH swings, which can also cause what you've seen....and which your Alk is in range of, especially after the tank being moved. By chance did you reuse your old sand without thoroughly cleaning it? That will usually guaranty an ammonia spike when all the little soft-bodied critters living in there become smooshed...which makes a pH swing even more likely when considered with that relatively low alk.

Lastly, don't count a birdsnest out if it's only bleached and hasn't lost all its tissue - if they've gone pure white you may have to be very observant to tell if there's tissue or polyps still there. If they still have polyps and you can check and/or fix what's wrong (all of the above - ammonia,flow,alk,light - in that order) they will pull through more than likely. (Still frag, IMO...just be careful.)

-Matt

Murfman · Jan 13, 2013

Phosphate level?

oowtfmang · Jan 14, 2013

I did not use the same sandbed. Started with fresh sand. I don't ever check my ammonia but the tank was moved some time last year so it would have cycled through already.

Matt, I don't have a par meter so it's hard to say. I have frags at the bottom of my tank that are bleaching out/ have little polyp extension / are losing color. There is a glass on my DE fixture. The placement of the birdsnest was relatively in the same spot so not too much of a change. I'm finding that more of my corals are bleaching and others are now turning brown and losing their color. Seems to be some tough times ahead for my corals, maybe due to a phosphate spike when I switched everything over. I don't find the need to keep my alkalinity high. Yes, it's a little low but still within the means of natural sea water and I've always had it there, never had any issues. I dose daily as well. Polyps are still there.

Thank you all for the suggestions. I'll be raising my light and checking my parameters daily until I can figure out what's going on.

oowtfmang · Jan 14, 2013

Here's a picture of my tank before the move.. I should have just left it :cry:

Murfman · Jan 14, 2013

oowtfmang said:
Here's a picture of my tank before the move.. I should have just left it :cry:

Beautiful tank!

slapshot · Jan 14, 2013

No problems with the other corals? The Dincan or anything? Just the acros? Did you add anything new?

oowtfmang · Jan 15, 2013

slapshot said:
No problems with the other corals? The Dincan or anything? Just the acros? Did you add anything new?

Most of my sps are struggling and either browning out or bleaching. It's weird that both things are happening which is pretty bad. Duncans, xenia, all other lps look completely fine.

oowtfmang · Jan 15, 2013

Murfman said:
Beautiful tank!

Thanks Murfman. Thankfully, everything is still alive but lots of things have lost their color.

mcarroll · Jan 16, 2013

Use sure there were no changes in plumbing (or other changes/accidents) that could have intruduced metals of any sort to the tank?

Even if nothing occurs to you, an $8 PolyFilter (I think most LFS's and online places carry it) is an inexpensive test to see if you have something like that on your hands...and it may have an overall improving affect on the water regardless.

Just a thought...wish it had occurred to me sooner.

-Matt

oowtfmang · Jan 17, 2013

mcarroll said:
Use sure there were no changes in plumbing (or other changes/accidents) that could have intruduced metals of any sort to the tank?

Even if nothing occurs to you, an $8 PolyFilter (I think most LFS's and online places carry it) is an inexpensive test to see if you have something like that on your hands...and it may have an overall improving affect on the water regardless.

Just a thought...wish it had occurred to me sooner.

-Matt

Hi Matt, not that I know of. Maybe I'll try it. Wouldn't carbon be doing the exact same t hing?

Diesel · Jan 18, 2013

I would say to big of a change.
Had the sam problem.
Just leave as it is and yes you might lose a few corals (SPS) but let mature and balance out.
Had the same thing happening, did my every day thing, WC dosing (by apex) and testing.
It toke about 4 months but slowly the corals start growing an better color.
Just do what you did with your old tank and it will kick in.

mcarroll · Jan 18, 2013

oowtfmang said:
Hi Matt, not that I know of. Maybe I'll try it. Wouldn't carbon be doing the exact same t hing?

Similar in that both are adsorptive media, but no. I believe they may even be complimentary vs redundant. (!!) One of the main reasons for suggesting that specifically is that it's a color-indicating media. It'll let you know what it's removing - can give you more of a clue if it happens to pick up something unexpected. I know some people with older reefs that run one all the time for stability, fwiw. (I run no chem. media, fwiw)

-Matt

mcarroll · Jan 18, 2013

BTW, what what your dosing like up through and after the move? I ask because I just noticed the high number of stony frags in the system from the "before" photos. A healthy load like that is bound to make a big impression on alkalinity once they become established. (One reason I don't favor lower alk numbers like yours - not enough "extra" or safety in the system to cover events like this...and others...IMO.)

-Matt