Water clarity/coraline bleaching issue Be aware

[spawn]

Okay so I'm keeping an sps dominant tank, it'll be 1 old year in may. Last October I started vodka dosing, because after months of not testing for no3, I tested & got a reading of 10 with an elos kit. So in dec. no3 had dropped to 2ppm with vodka & some very thorough water changes from the sump area of the tank. I followed the vodka dosing by genetics guide to the tea, & cut dose in half. Water was crystal clear, no3 was staying at 2ppm, but at this point a bunch of my coraline started to bleach. At that point I stopped dosing vodka daily, until about mid feb when the coraline was very purple again & I started to notice a bit of green hair starting. It was likely due to a bacterial die off from lack of vodka, so I went & bought 3 turbo snails, to replace the former 3 that I think had starved from lack of algae during the 1st round of vodka, & then started vodka again at my former maintenance dose of .03 ml per day on 55 gal. & up to Everything has been good up until this week. After my last water change on the weekend, which again was very thorough & from the sump, the water again is crystal clear & corline is starting to show white specs. I can only assume it's from the clarity of the water, & better light penetration due to the vodka dosing after the the deep cleaning. This brings to mind a possible warning about cleaning sumps, make sure to do it very regularly. I never thought that my water was not clear but the correlation between cleaning my sump & the water clarity is there, & I suspect the slight change in clarity due to both vodka & the water change from the sump as the reason for the onset of coraline bleaching(corals are fine though). I plan on reducing the vodka dose in half again & giving away the 3 turbo's as there is no more algae for them to eat in just a few weeks. Be careful how fast you change the clarity even if it's a slight change.

[Navarchus]

First of all it is a known fact that dosing vodka will suppress Caroline, and actually some people find it as an advantage more then disadvantage since Caroline when spread can consume quite a lot of your tank resources.
On a personal note:

Adding carbon source to your tank is not a kid’s game but a serious decision, which requires knowledge and understanding of the biological process and the water chemistry.
If you would like I can elaborate on this subject…

[Skimmerking]

A low K RATED BULB will cause coraline to bleach. like some 10K bulbs will cause it. it could be the clear water from the dosing and the bulbs too.

[spawn]

Oh please do... Elaborate for us,for those who are kids & carbon dosing on here. Since I want all 4 coral growth & coloration, coraline with SFA for No3
Adding carbon source to your tank is not a kid’s game but a serious decision, which requires knowledge and understanding of the biological process and the water chemistry.
If you would like I can elaborate on this subject…[/quote]

[spawn]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

A low Kelvin RATED BULBwill cause coraline to bleach. like some 10K bulbs will cause it. it could be the clear water from the dosing and the bulbs too.

I only have 1 10k bulb out of six in the tank.

[Aquattro]

Changes in water clarity can certainly cause bleaching, most noticeable after the sudden use of carbon. Anything that suddenly clears the water can increase light penetration, which in turn can cause corals to bleach.

[tinman]

Originally Posted by Navarchus

First of all it is a known fact that dosing vodka will suppress Caroline, and actually some people find it as an advantage more then disadvantage since Caroline when spread can consume quite a lot of your tank resources.
On a personal note:

Adding carbon source to your tank is not a kid’s game but a serious decision, which requires knowledge and understanding of the biological process and the water chemistry.
If you would like I can elaborate on this subject…

+1 please let us in on the gig i've been interested in the theory between this and pellets.

[abcha0s]

I'm running biopellets. I've done lots of reading, but there's always more to learn. Hoping this thread can take an academic turn. Navarchus, please share any pitfalls you are aware of...

[spawn]

I forgot to mention in that long 1st part, that today I checked my No3 & it had dropped to less than 1 on the elos kit.

[Navarchus]

First of all I didn’t mean to sound arrogant, if I did I apologize. I will also ignore the tint of cynicism I sense in some responses.

Regarding bio-pallets, I don’t have any experience using them, but some of my friend’s use it and are very satisfied with the results


For the heart of the matter:

When one decides to start keeping a low nutrient regime in his tan, beside carbon injection, he can practice many methods such as: RDSB, allege filter (wrongly considered by some as refugium), nitrate reactors / Denitrators, and even water changes….
The main purpose as you probably know is to export or eliminate the present of nutrients such as nitrate and phosphate from you system.
Usually it is done for two amine reasons, one in order to get rid of nuisance algae or in order to push you tank to the next level and get your corals to show vivid Disneyland colors. You see corals hosts the beneficial symbiotic zooxanthellae algae, the color of the zoo is brown, when there are a lot of nutrients in the system the zoo algae multiply and might take over the coral color. This is usually the case with sps corals, but for lps and softies (and clams) it is a different matter as they actually benefit from low levels on nitrate. Starving the zoo algae in these corals will end in fatal results for these corals.

Regarding the sps corals, the zoo as you probably know, is responsible to supply the coral with energy in the form of “sugar” from the photosynthetic process. The coral uses the energy to precipitate calcium and carbonates and grow….. Once you take the nutrients out of the equation and starve the zoo the coral may die unless it will get other source of food. Once he gets a replacement the coral can now grow back….but we want colors don’t we? So we need to keep the levels of ALK and CA in a low ratio so the coral will find it difficult to precipitate and will “invest” his energy producing color proteins.

The average hobbyist will choose dosing vodka instead of the other methods because it looks as a cost effective simple method that doesn’t require adding expensive equipment, media, or other stuff….all he is magically has to do is add the cheapest vodka and….puff…zero nutrients. ….but as you can see there is much more for adding vodka…if you get too low levels in a softies or lps and even a mixed tank you can kill some of them, in an sps system feeding the coral is crucial or they will die.

Adding vodka or any other carbon source will be beneficial for some bacteria that can utilize the carbon and “consume” the nutrients usually vodka will get our nitrate levels low and vinegar will do so for phosphate. Getting to much in or too fast will result in bacteria blooming, can cause massive beneficial bacteria death, can cause shock to corals and more, in some cases some “bad” bacteria can benefit from the carbon source and cause damage to you system. Any playing with adding Vodka can result in serious stress to your system so you shouldn’t just start adding and then stopping just to start again after few days.

Adding vodka is serious thing; I recommend using it in combination of other carbon source and dosing it via dosing pump and a sealed canister to prevent from the ethanol to escape. I recommend keeping monitoring the system and keep feeding the corals, to use a strong skimmer, adding beneficial bacteria on regular base in order to prevent bad bacteria settling in. in order to get good perfect colors you should use some amino acid and some elements as iron, potassium etc…..but that’s a different story…

I writing just out of my head,this is just the tip ot the iceburg sincr it is such a deep issue that I am sure after reading it all over again in the next day or two I will have more to say on that issue. (I did try to make a long story short )


Pardon any typos