Expelled Zooxanthellae

Piratefish said:
Were your SPS growing before the bleaching? Ca seem fine maybe alittle low with the Alk at 10 dkh but I doubt that would be the cause of almost total bleaching. There are many causes of bleaching, water temp swings, salinity swing, lighting swings, toxins, sediment in the water, high UV, Carbon dioxide and methane gas.
I know this doesnt help you but its all I know about bleaching. I would try to slowly remove and stop using some of the chems you are using.
Coral can recover from bleaching if you figure out the problem. Is your frog spawn white as well?
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Yes, my sps were growing very well before the bleaching. It's weird but acros grow really well in my tank, yet simple stuff like florida riccs I have a problem with. As for the frogspawn, I moved it to my Biocube to let it heal after the Koralia beat it up (and it's looking fine now).

The Ca is always a little low, which is why I dose with Kent's calcium supplement. I use Seachem reef salt which should be high in Ca, yet never is for me...

I guess I'll try removing some of the chemicals I've been using if you all think that may be the problem. What would you advise I remove first?
 
I keep the carbon in a mesh bag that is in my sump, and I change the carbon the first week of every month.

I didn't test the Purigen for chlorine. The Purigen directions said to soak it in dechlorinator for 8 hours. I did that, smelled the Purigen (as the directions suggested), could still smell a little bleach, so I soaked it overnight in Prime dechlorinator. After that, it smelled fine and I thought I was good to go. Are there chlorine test kits??
 
I don't understand why you're testing for chlorine if you're using RO/DI...In regard to your other response about the growth of your SPS compared to your softies...I had the exact same issue, my SPS grow at a signficantly higher rate than my zoas...I fixed it by, feeding the softies.SPS grow well, in nutriently deficient water...That's where they grow best...Softies are the opposite.I think you've cleaned the water so efficiently that it can only be called "wet"
I would stop doing anything to your tank other than water changes. There's nothing wrong with trying a different salt....I personally use Instant Ocean Reef Crystals (orange bucket)..I've never had an issue..My calcium is always right where it should be around 450ppm as long as I'm keeping up with water changes.
 
PRC said:
I don't understand why you're testing for chlorine if you're using RO/DI...In regard to your other response about the growth of your SPS compared to your softies...I had the exact same issue, my SPS grow at a signficantly higher rate than my zoas...I fixed it by, feeding the softies.SPS grow well, in nutriently deficient water...That's where they grow best...Softies are the opposite.I think you've cleaned the water so efficiently that it can only be called "wet"
I would stop doing anything to your tank other than water changes. There's nothing wrong with trying a different salt....I personally use Instant Ocean Reef Crystals (orange bucket)..I've never had an issue..My calcium is always right where it should be around 450ppm as long as I'm keeping up with water changes.
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The chlorine test would only to have been to see if bleach/chlorine remained in the Purigen after I renewed it; my RODI water is fine.

Referring to the SPS vs. Softies growth situation, I thought that might be the case. So, you'd recommend that I remove the carbon, the chemi pure elite, and the purigen?

As for salt, my Seachem is almost gone, and I have IO Reef Crystals in my pantry ready to go next.
 
The reason I thought she should test for chlorine is because when you clean the Purigen you soak it in chlorine and water. It does say to smell it for a chlorine oder but there can be chlorine left in it. Thats why I thought it might be good to test for chlorine.
I do think PRC is right about your water being TO clean.
 
Assuming that the Purigen did put chlorine into my tank, is there a test kit for chlorine so that I could verify this? And, if there is chlorine in my tank, how do I get rid of it? Is it safe to add Prime de-chlorinator to a reef tank?
 
Do you feed your corals at all? And have you changed your feeding habits in anyway? I know when SantaMonica changed his feedings in his tanks he lost quite a few corals because they were so used to being fed. I can't remember if they bleached though before they died.
 
BL1 said:
Do you feed your corals at all? And have you changed your feeding habits in anyway? I know when SantaMonica changed his feedings in his tanks he lost quite a few corals because they were so used to being fed. I can't remember if they bleached though before they died.
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No, I don't target feed my corals, and I haven't changed my feeding habits or the type of food I use. I feed about a third of a frozen cube of San Francisco Bay (alternating between normal brine/mysis cubes and the variety pack with squid, algae, etc.) every evening. I let the frozen cube sit in a measuring cup with some of my tank's water for about a minute until it dissolves and then dump it into the tank in increments over the course of about 2-3 minutes.
 
I just used a pool chlorine test kit to see if my aquarium had chlorine in it. According to the kit (although I don't know how accurate it is for aquarium usage), my aquarium is chlorine-free.

Also, I removed the Purigen.
 
I say make lemonade out of lemons and post those corals on Ebay as "albino sps"...very rare..$1000 per frag.

I think you're on the right path. Leave the carbon in there, take everything else out...maybe the carbon will help pull out whatever is in there.

before I spent a bunch of money on new corals, I definitely "test the waters" with a cheap frag.
 
did all the bleaching occur overnight? or was it slow
i had some of my coral bleach out and die in the matter of a day but i figured it was because my sand bed got stirred
you said you took out a powerhead did it by chance stirr your sand or did you mabey move some rock?
its hard to pin down, but if they all stay alive and pull threw they should startt returning to color, and if they never get their color back you do still have some really cool looking coral.
 
carter said:
did all the bleaching occur overnight? or was it slow
i had some of my coral bleach out and die in the matter of a day but i figured it was because my sand bed got stirred
you said you took out a powerhead did it by chance stirr your sand or did you mabey move some rock?
its hard to pin down, but if they all stay alive and pull threw they should startt returning to color, and if they never get their color back you do still have some really cool looking coral.
Click to expand...

Sorry about your corals. It's been pretty gradual over the last 5 days that my corals have gotten like this. And, no rock or sand was moved/stirred when I took the powerhead out.
 
Update:

All of the corals still look the same. The purigen and chemi-pure elite have been removed from my sump, and now I am just running carbon. I didn't dose my tank with baking soda or with Kent's calcium supplement this past week, in case they were the culprits (but they don't seem to be behind this).

I did a 7 gallon WC yesterday and used a new bag of Instant Ocean Reef Crystals instead of the SeaChem Reef Salt that I had been using. I just tested my water today to see if Alk and Ca were low, and they were actually on target (Alk=9dkh and Ca=400ppm). Seachem had never been able to keep my Ca and Alk up which is why I dosed, but the IO/RC water change seemed to have brought everything in balance w/o me needing to dose anything. I know SeaChem Reef Salt is supposed to be super high in Alk and Ca, yet I never got those readings (Alk=8dkh and Ca=380ppm straight out of the bucket). So now I'm wondering if the SeaChem salt is what caused this...?

I'm hoping that things start to perk up after the WC yesterday...
 
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