SPS Bleached
 

So my first sps bleached.. :sad: any Ideas why? Params are spot on, lighting is the exact same as the tank it came from.. its in high flow... not sure what happened here.. $30 down the tube..

dont give up on it yet....SPS can come back from being bleached ....as long as it still has tissue and polyps its still alive......how long has it been in your tank?

No polyps I can see the whole frag is white. It's been in there almost 2 weeks and then today boom. Bleached.

Sounds like RTN rapid tissue necrosis

how did the monticap do for you??

Does that have anything to do with it being fragged the day I bought it?

The monticap is doing great even the small frag that was slightly bleached Is coming back.

Could be, RTN tends to be a product of stress to the acro. There are many ways we can stress the coral so targeting the cause can be difficult. I only buy healed frags personally.

No getting a fresh cut frag shouldn't matter as long as the params in your tank are ok. I actually prefer fresh cut frags when I get them from others.

Agreed.

you say your parameters are spot on, but how do they compare to the tank the frag came from? you may have your alkalinity at 10 and think it's spot on, but the other tank was at 7.

What are your parameters compares to the tank it come from?

well I dont know about the params in the other tank, it was from RC in edmonton, so I'd assume the params were good, but I couldnt be precise on the numbers :lol:

but mine are
ph 8.2
CA (low) 320-340
Alk 11
nitrates and nitrites 0
ammonia is 0
phosphates 0
dont know about my magnesium, but I know it has been lower around 1095 in the past.
Salinity is 1.025-1.026

edit, guess they arent "spot on" since my CA is a bit low, and mag is most likely low as well, it usually has been. I have some Reef advantage Calcium(Seachem) that buffers ph and Mag, and Strontium

Looks done for!:lol: might still be a single polyp but not counting on it. damn what a bummer my first sps frag ever :sad:http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/...a/DSCN2995.jpg

Alkalinity at 11 is too high. It could be ok but it could also cause a lot of RTN and STN if your level of nutriment is low and juging from your test, you have low nutriment.

You should keep your alkalinity at 8 or around 8, not more than this when you have no amount of nitrates and phosphates detectible.

I think this is your problem and why your SPS bleached, alkalinity shock with low nutriment system.

I could be wrong, but this is my guess, also your calcium is far from being spot on, and this also could be a problem, as well as the low mag.

I would try to keep the alkalinity lower though.

You should rise your magnesium before attempting to rise your calcium because no matter what amount of calcium you put in there, it won't rise if your magnesium is that low. First raise your magnesium to 1300 or a bit more, then rise your calcium to 420, then try to lower the alkalinity to 8 and you should be able to keep SPS no problem.

monticap is sps my friend and its doing fine so dont get yourself down yet stick with easy sps untill your tank matures:):)

so by raising my calcium my alk should go down? my wallet is tapped ATM but I got caclium/Mag buffer combined its by seachem.

thats the weird thing.. The monticap has actually seen some noticable growth in a short time. not huge but in comparing pictures, its changed. and the one you gave me(you know the small bleaching piece) is back 100%.. its so weird! I also added some bright red monti and same thing its doing great. my sps, is also quite low in the tank. but my tank isnt to deep, my alk is def. to high. hopefully I can get things undder control

ya that frag looks like its pretty much toast.....like Denny said, your tank is still fairly new...stick with montis, and birdsnests.....maybe a milli.... these SPS are quite a bit more forgiving then most SPS and are great corals for the ego.....place them a little lower in the tank(save the uppermost prime spots for more light thirsty SPS) and see how they do.....after a couple monthes your tank may better accomodate some of the harder to keep SPS....

Ca, Mg and Alk form what they call the "big three"......if one or more of those numbers is off it makes maintaining the other parameters very difficult....my advice if you want to test and dose and do things by the book would be to pick up a Mg test and have all three additives......it sucks to begin with, testing and testing and then testing some more to figure out where your at and what your tank is consuming, but after you've got it dialed in, half the battle with SPS is won.................





.............or you could just do what I do and dont test or dose a thing:mrgreen:

even experienced reefers can lose sps without any notice, I aquired a stable and starting to encrust australian Ice fire echinata that just died mysteriously in one day after being in my tank for 3 weeks.....

I know how you feel, however as others have said stick to the montis and millies for now and once the tank settles down maybe try slimer stags oand keep moving up to the more delicate species.

Good luck!

If you can remove it from the tank, smell it. If it has that acro smell, it's still alive and can come back. I've had frags go completely white for months, then suddenly color up.
Alk is also not likely the issue, I run a really low nutrient (as opposed to nutriment?) tank with alk around 14 (not on purpose, it just likes to sit that high). I don't have any bleached acros.
As others have said, sometimes frags just do this just to be annoying. You could add a second frag right beside it that does fine. Grab a couple of test frags from someone and see what happens. If they bleach too, then look for a problem. But don't get all worked up over one frag, it's probably just bad luck.
Low Ca will inhibit growth, but not likely to bleach a frag. Best guess on this one was just stress of moving. If it still has tissue (you'll smell it), then it's got a good chance to recover.

How come your alkalinity is so high? Are you dosing something for alkalinity? what type of salt are you using?

You just have to keep in mind that with very low level of nutriment it is a risk to have RTN or STN when you have such high alkalinity. It is not safe to keep your alkalinity so high.

First step is to raise your magnesium and calcium slowly, but don't dose anything for alkalinity until it drop lower. If you don't have much in coral it may take a while before your current alkalinity level drop.

But before buying any delicate SPS I would get these value: calcium 420, magnesium 1350, alkalinity 8. Then try to keep this stable and you will be fine.

It's high just for fun, as far as I can tell. It's always been high. I even run zeo and have very little nutrient. I supplement with a Ca reactor and use RBS salt. It's been like that for 16 months, so I'm not too worried about the perceived dangers of high alk. I did read on the Internet that it's bad, but you can't believe everything on the Internet. Nasty place, that Internet.
Only RTN I've had was yesterday, and that probably had a lot to do with the frag falling into my torch coral :)

Your tank is still in its infant days and so are you as far as reef keeping goes, so losing some SPS (especially stag-type) isn't unlikely. I think you should focus on the fact that you're able to keep Monti cap so far, and be happy about that achievement. Going from Montis to Birdnest would probably be a better way to progress rather than jumping straight to stags.

Btw, your nutrients are undetectable, but it depends on what type of test kits you are using. There are more sensitive kits out there particularly for phosphate (Elos has one, D-D Merck has one). What kits are you using? Low nutrients is not a problem for SPS, rather a good thing. Ultra low nutrients (aka ULN) could be an issue for some SPS (definitely an issue for LPS and softies) and you actually can starve them, but you would need to be carbon dosing in order to achieve ultra low nutrients.

People commonly keep SPS in tanks with alkalinity ranging from 7-12 dKH, although 8-10 dKH is more common. Brad's a bit "abnormal" (hahahaha) at 14 dKH, but if he says that's where it likes to sit then sometimes it's not worth fighting things. Higher alkalinity has some bonuses, like helping to keep many algae at bay. Keep in mind though that calcium and alkalinity should compliment each other, so if alkalinity is high calcium should be high too. If you check the link in my signature that mentions parameters I posted a chart that explains the appropriate, complimenting levels.

As far as terminology goes, "bleaching" is usually a slow process where a color gets more and more pastel. RTN is rapid tissue necrosis which is something that usually happens overnight, and almost always starts at the base and goes up. If you catch RTN in the middle of the event you will see the skin falling off the coral in little pieces (sometimes fairly big pieces). STN is slow tissue necrosis which happens over several weeks or several months and can start at the base or the tips. You won't see the tissue falling off because it is going so slowly that the tissue just dissolves unnoticed.

While I agree that these are wonderful numbers to GROW SPS, I don't think they're required to keep it alive as a freshly introduced frag. Maybe long term, the stress of not growing might tick it off a bit, but not bleach it in a couple of days.

Now, that being said, there's a lot of advantage in maintaining proper growing levels at all times. I would work on that routine before worrying about adding SPS.

im not anal over my parameters these days the way i see it is all my corals are doing well both sps and lps , im doing regular water changes equipment is good so why fix it if its working well.

even with high " nutriments" my sps are doing well i would also second that it was prob a acclimation issue of just not taking the move well give it another try:)

huh...I was talking to nanomano, not to you. You know the risk of running with high alkalinity and low nutriment, then you do what you want :)

I know it's all over the net but I beleive it because I have very experienced people telling me about it and I do beleive them because some of them have 30 years of experience in saltwater and a lot of them with corals.

I also know a lot of people who did have RTN and STN all the time running alkalinity higher than 10 with low nutriment, and that resolved when they lower the alkalinity.

You might just be lucky :) It is a risk, so once people know about it, they do what they want.

:lol: wow I went to bed and you guys have taught me a lot here! not to sure why the alk is high, it always has been, with lower CA. hopefully it balances out

Now now daniella, no need to get worked up.

Here is a thread on Reef Central where people discus the effect of high alkalinity with different setup. It is interesting to read about all these people experiences:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...readid=1297225

Daniella is right about low nutrients and high alkalinity, but that is more of an issue with ultra low nutrients when carbon dosing. That's why you see Zeovit recommending 7 dKH.

For the newbies, carbon dosing is not the carbon you put in the filter. :)

That hurts....:razz:

sorry I was just trying to correct a misunderstanding, not to be rude :)

I know I often sound rude, just not intentional! :redface:

so today everything in my tank looks p*ssed at me. inverts and fish are all fine, but here are my params after dosing a small amount of CA to the tank yesterday.

nitrates and nitrites 0
ammonia 0
phos 0
CA 440 <finally..
KH(alk) 13? mind you in my old tank it was 17dkh and everything was fine
ph 8.2
Salinity 1.026

nothing is open it my tank for polyps today... I added carbon and chemipure elite yesterday, but just a small amount. any Ideas? aside from the Alk, I know its high, but like I said it always has been high with no major concerns on the corals behalf

It wasn't Kent carbon was it?

You didn't answer which test kit brands you are using either...

API test kits as well as ELOS and yeah its kent, is that bad??

Yes. Remove it now, then search for the recent thread on the contaminated Kent carbon

I was just doing that actually. Dangit. Now I have to return it to big als. any suggestions for what to do? I took it out, should I change some water??

I would change 75% of the water pronto. Hopefully you have some made up already. Crap!!! Another victim. :(

What brand kits for the phosphate and nitrate?

API and Elos

no water made up. no reefers near by, looks like I'll get started. now I'm ticked lol

Just for reference, the params of the tank that SPS came from are 7.93 DkH - Hanna, 460 CA - Hanna, and 1500 MG - Salifert.

Steve