Coral bleached, please help.

[Wiskey]

I posted this here as well because what is going on with my tank really has me worried and I would like to get as many opinions as possible.

After going BB, cooking my LR and getting the LR back in my tank, and playing with a little vodka I got a major bleaching event. To correct this I was slowly lowering my MH "on" time, I went from 9 hours down to about 5, but I was not going fast enough, and things got despriate, so I cut the MH off comleatily.

I lost a branch on one frag, and 2 corals started receading from their base, pylop extention got VERY poor, and everything got lighter, especially the corals directally under the MH.

This was a week ago. I have only been using my 110W of PC atinics for this week. My water is clearer than it has ever been and I am thinking this might have something to do with the bleaching.

After stopping the MH, the corals have started to darken up a bit, and all STN has stopped. Pylops on some corals are still not extending very far.

One friend suggested going to 2, 55W pc 10K, and 2, 55W pc 03 only, but I would really like to use the MH.

My plan is to cut the MH on for 15 min per day for next week, then every week up that 15 min, so in 1 month it will be at one hour per day. This will continue until I am running MH for 2 hours per day and I will stay there for a while and see how everything does.

Do you think the corals will adjust? Do you think I would be better off running the PC lights? (I would hate to have to use the MH for only 2 hours if I could run PC for 10 hours because I don't like how my tank looks under atinic only).

My tank is a 50 gallon (4 foot)
It is bare bottom
It has 1 250W XM 10K bulb (not running, installed 1 foot off the water) and 2 110W PC atinics running 12 hours per day.
I have a Turbofloater 1000 in sump skimmer running wet
The tank has 1 seo 1500, and 3 maxijet 1200s for flow, along with a return running at 300 GPH.

What do you think? Opinions please.

Thanks,
Whiskey

[Casey]

Post your water readings. Oh yea Whiskey,stop playing with the Vodka.

[Twitterbait]

Lets see the stats for your parms. I would also be interested to hear your placement of your return and the 3 PH that you have. I would prep yourself to frag all of the bleaching corals if they keep bleaching. Make sure you test your calc and alk

[Geoff]

i think you bottomed out your phosphate levels. there actually is a minimum amount. it is very difficult to reach if you have fish, but if you do silly stuff like trying to get your corals drunk than it can happen. i think the bottoming out phosphate levels caused the zoax of the corals to bale or die. this would cause problems obviously. over time, actually not long if you keep messing with the system. the phosphates level will reach a nice minimum and the zoax will start to match light levels. once the corals start to recolour nicesly you will fing that you can increase the light levels up to what they used to be.

this is what i think anyway.

G~

[skeety]

I'm with Geoff on this one.


But more important that your parms, or any other question is..

exactly what type of corals are we talking about here? I'm assuming SPS's, but I know what happens when I assume!

[Wiskey]

Oh sorry, yes the system is 95% SPS.

2 maxi jets are blowing across the bottom. One maxijet is on the front of the right panel the seio is on the front of the left panel, they point across in a X pattern each points to one overflow. The return points down in the back/middle of the tank.

Here is the problem, My nitrate is HIGH, since going BB and I have not been able to test phospate, even double sensitivity on the salifert kit (double sample and regents) I get nothing but PERFECTALLY clear.

Nitrate = 10
Phospate = undetectable (no matter what I do, with 2 salifert test kits)
CA = 400
Alk = 9-9.2 DKH

I breifly tried the vodka thing to try to get the nitrate down, and ran into trouble almost right away and stopped. I am running my skimmer to take out 1/2 gallon of water per day to try to get that nitrate level down, I almost stopped feeding, nothing seems to work.

Fish load:

50 gallon tank, 20 gallons in sumps total = 70 gallons, water goes through the sump at 300GPH, water goes through the skimmer at 290 GPH, the 10GPH bypas goes into a settling area. The water that goes to the skimmer is the water direct from the overflow.

1, Yellow tang (saved from a horrible fate {toilet}) 3 inches max with tail.
1, 6 line wrasse, 1.5 inches max
1, False perc clown 1.5 inches max
1, cleaner golby (0.5 inches max)

That may be a high fish load, (opinions on the fish load welcome) this nitrate thing really has me pulling my hair out. (as you see I am willing to try some off the wall things at this point, like vodka)

Geoff, I was accually thinking about dosing phospate for this exact reason (I dose it to my FW planted tanks all the time), do you think I pulled this off given my fish load? Do you think I would still have 10 nitrate if I had hit that low phospate?

Thanks,
Whiskey

[Geoff]

a nitrate level of 10 is not that bad. i do not think this was the cause at all. what was the level before dosing the vodka (that just sounds wrong ).

that fish load is a touch high, bit not by a whole lot. i do not think this is really the cause either.

i would not do anything at all, and let the tank settle itself out.

what test kit are you using for the nitrate? have you gotten a second opinion on this. (that just sounds wrong also. )

G~

[Wiskey]

Nitrate is tested by a salifert test kit, I have tried a second kit, the nitrate was 10 before I started dosing vodka, it did nothing, but I only used it for a week, at 0.35 ML per day.

I don't understand how phospate is undetectable but nitrate is sky high, I have heard that in order to keep sps you can't have detectable nitrate. I also don't have any algae issues, which is good, but really makes me wonder.

I blast my rocks daily, suck any deatris that settled anywhere ect,.. and nothing seems to drop that number.

So you think I should just leave it be? Not worry about the nitrate?

Thanks,
Whiskey

[512148048]

how often do you do your water changes may be that you do it too often and its causing a mini cycle do you have mechanical filtration like sponge filters or anything like that are you skimming? and you're system being 95% sps is its full to the brim or you jsut mainly have sps?

[Geoff]

i do not have a Salifert test kit for Nitrate. does it even register less than 10? or does it do 0 than 10? if 10 is the lowest rating than i would not worry about it at all. it sounds like your system is very well setup, so as long as you stay at 10 or less, you will be fine.

G~

[Wiskey]

Originally Posted by 512148048

how often do you do your water changes may be that you do it too often and its causing a mini cycle do you have mechanical filtration like sponge filters or anything like that are you skimming? and you're system being 95% sps is its full to the brim or you jsut mainly have sps?

I do water changes of 7 gallons every week using IO mixed to 1.026 per refractometer. I have no mechanical filter media, bio media, or wet/dry. I have about 60 LBS of LR for that purpose. I do skim with a Turbofloater 1000 insump rececuralting skimmer rated for a 250 gallon tank.

Thanks,
Whiskey

[Wiskey]

Originally Posted by Geoff

i do not have a Salifert test kit for Nitrate. does it even register less than 10? or does it do 0 than 10? if 10 is the lowest rating than i would not worry about it at all. it sounds like your system is very well setup, so as long as you stay at 10 or less, you will be fine.

G~

The salifert test kit has a low range and high range, the low range goes from 1,2.5,5,10 the high range goes 0,10,25,50,100. Do you think the nitrate will go away on it's own?

Do you think I should dose phospate to get it above that level you were talking about? Do you think I could possibly be below that level?

Do you think nitrate is ok at 10, and I should work to maintain it there, and set that as my baseline?

Thanks,
Whiskey

[yardboy]

If you are feeding your fish at all then lack of phosphate isn't an issue, I don't think.

[Geoff]

i am one of those that believe only bad things can happen quickly. i immediately stop doing anything that seems to be causing harm and either let things return to normal on its own, or do a major water change and let it settle out from there. i have screwed myself to many times by trying to correct a mistake with another quick fix. looking at your fish load they will provide the necessary phosphates needed to correct the problem. if you are really worried about it, give an extra feeding this week. that should be plenty.

as for the Nitrate levels. anything around 10 is good. depending on the age of the test, i think getting an accurate level of 10 and below is pretty difficult.

factors like the recession seems to have stopped help to confirm my thinking here. it sounds like you are on the hairy edge here on your system. it can happen with a BB, but this is one of the advantages of such a system. they are easy to push over the edge, but they are also easy to get back on the other side with a water change if necessary.

G~

[Wiskey]

Ok, great. I have been doing 7 gallon water changes every other day, totaling about 21 gallons this week since the resesion stopped, so at least I am on the right track.

On the lighting, do you think it would be a good idea to start from no MH (were I am now) and ramp the 250W MH up by 15 min per week, to 2 hours after 2 months? Should I go faster? Or should I go back to the 220W of PC light because I can have a longer full photo period?

Leave it alone a? Seems too easy .

Thanks,
Whiskey