SPS tank, colonies bleached looking...

[oneradtek202]

first, here are some comparison photos....


how it looked about a year ago




more recent




now some colonies are still very colorful and even more colorful than the first picture while a majority look pastel-ish.

ca-390 getting it up to 400
alk- 9
sal- 1.026
po4- undetectable by hannah
nitrates- waiting for salifert kit (havent tested in a long time, no need to i thought)
temp- its winter so 78-80


i was runnning about over 2x teh recommended amount of ROX carbon and so i corrected that about 2 weeks ago. now i run about a cup or less on a total aprox water volume of 150 gallons. i run GFO also and about 3 cups of that. i have a refugium and so 15-25 gallon changes every week'ish .

i have a heavier bioload, 4 anthias, 1 goby, 2 clowns, 1 tang, 1 hawkfish, 1 gramma, and a large melanurus wrasse.

i have a SRO external skimmer thats a beast and pulls out alot of stuff to compensate for the bioload.


what the heck is making my corals pastel like that and look bleachy?!!!

[DaddyJax]

A little bit of time and I would forgo the gfo and carbon all together.
What are you feeding your fish? Frozen, fresh or dried? How often? Btw, that is not a heavy bioload for your tank. It would be the the lower end of ideal for me.
If your skimmer kicks butt and you do regular WC's 10-15% along with a fuge you shouldn't need more filtration.

Do you use a 2 part or reactor for calcium?

[oneradtek202]

2 part and i would say a alk swing of 8.5-9.7 range.

i feed spectrum pellets daily and mysis with it too.

thanks for the reply!


on a side note, my lighting is 2x250 watt radiums with correct PFO m81 ballast and 2x54 watt t-5 actinic bulbs ...halide on for 8 hours and t-5 on for 3 for an evening effect

[DaddyJax]

Sounds good to me except the pellets. I have never been a fan of them of any kind.

[oneradtek202]

whys that?

[DaddyJax]

Pellets are dried and processed. I believe that it doesnt break down the same especially when some gets lost in the rocks. Its not easy for some micros or crabs to eat.
I like to think of it as fish fast food. You know how your bowels are after eating fast food....well, corals live off of fish bowels. This is my thinking!

[smokenax]

I think you are stripping your nutrients,some
Bioload will help darken your corals I would cut back
On the gfo and run half
The recommended dose of rox.

[BuckeyeTodd]

Feed more, I'd feed Rod's. I think my tank looks best with some detectable po4

[Bugger]

Its impossible to tell from the photos your only really showing us two corals the club finger. I bealive you should get the test kits first and try to resolve the calcium issue. Corals mature and look different from what they did as frags but high nataates causes as we all know browness. you'll figure it out

[MammothReefer]

Bioload seems rather low for a tank that size imop, well maybe not low but at least not heavy. I have more fish in my 65, and i'm running 0 nitrates / 0 phosphates. I can probably get away with feeding more to. I've been slowly upping it.

[toothman]

I would second the fish, bio pellets are tricky.

[ganjero]

Originally Posted by toothman

I would second the fish, bio pellets are tricky.

I don’t think is running bio-pellets. ?

How often do you feed? Has there been any changes in lighting (type, bulbs, height, etc)

Also, IMO 3 cups of GFO is a lot for the size of your tank and your bio-load, you might be starving your corals.

[oneradtek202]

i dont run bio-pellets. i run GFO and carbon. i feed only once a day, rarely twice. i think i am underfeeding. no changes in lighting, radiums for 4 years

[fishguy597]

I would do a search on the rox carbon. I've read on here that people are having problems when using it making there corals pale and dying. Take it as you will but they were saying the only change in their tanks was adding that carbon. you said you put in 2x's the recommended dosage maybe that's the problem.

[fishguy597]

Also, IMO 3 cups of GFO is a lot for the size of your tank and your bio-load, you might be starving your corals.[/QUOTE]

Not sure what type of gfo your running, but in my tank its 240 gal and they recommend to run 3 cups of granular . Ive only been running half of that. You might want to look at the brs reef calculator.

[ganjero]

Originally Posted by ganjero

Also, IMO 3 cups of GFO is a lot for the size of your tank and your bio-load, you might be starving your corals.

Originally Posted by fishguy597

Not sure what type of gfo your running, but in my tank its 240 gal and they recommend to run 3 cups of granular . Ive only been running half of that. You might want to look at the brs reef calculator.

I'm assuming you are addressing the OP, correct? I'm asking since you quoted me.

[OneReef]

I also was going to say it sounds like too much GFO could be causing the problem

[oneradtek202]

yea i was running that much carbon up to about a few weeks ago, then i was like holy heck i need to fix that! haha.

i will be doing a no3 and po4 test tonight, and well see where i stand in my nutrients. im thinking im stripping the nutrients out of the water too much too now. ill reduce GFO also.

im just not 100% convinced im ULNS, since i have a green bubble algae war going on everywhere.

[pascal32]

Originally Posted by oneradtek202

yea i was running that much carbon up to about a few weeks ago, then i was like holy heck i need to fix that! haha.

i will be doing a no3 and po4 test tonight, and well see where i stand in my nutrients. im thinking im stripping the nutrients out of the water too much too now. ill reduce GFO also.

im just not 100% convinced im ULNS, since i have a green bubble algae war going on everywhere.

LOL, let me know if you can tackle teh green bubble. I'm < 1 NO3, and .02 phosphate and still growing the stuff.

[TucanSam007]

My corals looked bleached when I changed too much carbon at once. Learned from that and now i only change around 1/3 at a time.

[FragIt Dan]

GFO, Hannah colorimeter test anything below ~0.03ppm PO4 can bleach your corals out, running that much GFO would be a likely culprit. I got a bit over eager with gfo and had the same thing happen. I would stop running the GFO for a week or two, feed some reef roids, or something else with phosphate, and give them some time to recover. This is assuming you haven't made any other recent changes like new halide light bulbs. Iodine might also help. I am under the impression iodine assists with coral bleaching due to excessive lighting, so it may be a completely different mechanism, perhaps others can comment on this. Dan

[fishguy597]

Originally Posted by ganjero

I'm assuming you are addressing the OP, correct? I'm asking since you quoted me.

Addressing the op and agreeing with you. sorry

[eja99]

Originally Posted by smokenax

I think you are stripping your nutrients,some
Bioload will help darken your corals I would cut back
On the gfo and run half
The recommended dose of rox.

Exactly what I was going to say.

I changed my Carbon (ROX) the other day and bleached a couple montis and an acro. I added about 1/4 of a reactor full on ~200 gallons total volume.

I think the combo of no nutrients and that much carbon is killing your sps.

[oneradtek202]

so here are my recent test results

po4 -nothing ( hannah with low range, it goes to the hundredths )
no3- nothing


also have some STN now on a few corals....i checked my alk in my DT the other night too and it was like 8! i don know how it got that low, but im hoping to have that up to 8.5 or so by tonight, will check tonight.

also my power heads need a little cleaning out too. barely blowing....looks like ill be hangin in my tank this weekend. i stopped running GFO, and my carbon is to the correct amount or lower now.

[DaddyJax]

I hope that the info given is going to help and keep us posted. I stick to my original statement and still recommend removing the carbon for a bit too.
Also, dont get too worried about the alk, take your time bringing it up. Alk swings all the time and you can wipe out your entire tank if you over dose or it gets too high. Sometimes a test kit can give an off reading.