SPS Browning and Bleaching

[prcardinal91]

The ones on the rack are the ones not making it. They went in on the rack for a few days, then to the rocks and they started to bleach so I thought I was bleaching them with light so I moved them back.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

How high are your lights mounted?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

My hydra 52 HD’s, which are laser beams, are mounted 16” above the water

 

[terraincognita]

well seems like mystery solved.

They probably started bleaching on the rack, then with the sudden par shift, just got a little more stressed. I'd leave them on the rock.

Also you don't need to acclimate on racks now-a-days

Only reason I have a rack at all is I'm too lazy to de-frag and glue **** down 80% of the time hahaha.

 

[terraincognita]

My hydra 52 HD’s, which are laser beams, are mounted 16” above the water

Stop flexing.

Go home. Kidding. Beautiful sticks.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Stop flexing.

Go home. Kidding. Beautiful sticks.

Flexing??

That was just me getting off the couch
JK

How high are your lights mounted?

This is me warming up

 

[prcardinal91]

My lights are 18 in off the water

 

[prcardinal91]

So light too low - will this cause sps to bleach?

I figured it would make them brown out if anything

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

So light too low - will this cause sps to bleach?

I figured it would make them brown out if anything

Yes
It can make them look bleached before they dry up and fade away

 

[prcardinal91]

Should I increase my PAR overall?

The birdnest in the photo has not been moved in a while and it looks to have increased poor PE and bleaching. Right next to it is an acro frag that was bright green and purple (pictured on the rack) and is now brown with great PE. the large wild acro colony is browning quickly as well but has great PE

 

[prcardinal91]

The picture I am referring to is the top down photo

 

[prcardinal91]

Here are some more pics showing how some are doing compared to others

 

[prcardinal91]

I should also mention I have some cyano in the fuge

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Increase par to 250-300 for all sps areas. Don’t freak out if some corals don’t recover.

 

[terraincognita]

Should I increase my PAR overall?

The birdnest in the photo has not been moved in a while and it looks to have increased poor PE and bleaching. Right next to it is an acro frag that was bright green and purple (pictured on the rack) and is now brown with great PE. the large wild acro colony is browning quickly as well but has great PE

I would.

How far are you lights from the water?

You may be able to just move then down 1-2 inches and bump it 20-30 par

 

[prcardinal91]

My lights are 18 in from the water. I can bump my intensity up.

My understanding was:

Bleaching = low nutrients, too much light, or both.

Browning, slow growth = too little light too many nutrients

 

[sculpin01]

I may have missed this, but did you send a sample off for ICP? Your corals are bleaching add RTNing. Assuming you don't have some weird pathogen, the first thing I would think of would be a toxin in the water (copper, tin, etc.). Your lights and parameters are fine. You should be able to grow whatever you want.

 

[prcardinal91]

I have not sent for an ICP, but I just ordered one. If it were a toxin, wouldn't all my corals be affected and not just sps?

 

[prcardinal91]

Would the carbon in chemipure not remove some/all toxins? My rodi tests 0 tds before I mix it and I do religious 15 percent water changes weekly.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Icp isn’t a bad idea but they usually don’t reveal a smoking gun. The majority of the sps death threads are caused by over filtering/combined with high alk or poor lighting. Just my $0.02