Can the change of flow cause a montipora to bleach out ?

[Marco V]

Can the change of flow cause a montipora to bleach out ? Here are my last test results


Temperature: 80.1
Alkalinity, KH: 8.9
Calcium, Ca: 465
Magnesium, Mg: 1,500

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

Lol no. Corals bleach out from light intensity. Try lowering the light brightness down if you can or move the coral down farther from the light.

 

[crister13]

It could be from insufficient lighting also.

 

[Gregcoyote]

It could be phosphate levels too. That coral doesn't like levels above .05 and many chemical test kits don't measure accurately down at those levels.

What kind of lighting?
Flow?
Filter?

Need more detail, bleaching is probably a lighting issue, but under certain circumstances at 80 degrees you are on the warm side of things. That higher water temperature can contribute to bleaching.

 

[Marco V]

I have 3 power heads in there ,
1050 x1
500 x2
It's under a 4 bulb t5 , for testing I'm using red sea and tpi. After moving it lower in the tank last night I saw white polyps coming out of the bleached part .

We've also been having more humidity than normal here in California the last couple of months and that's the coolest I can keep it with fans. At night it drops to 78 degrees.

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

Try a chiller and it is possible from high PO4 and not enough light. nitrates should be close to 0 also. Def test for thoes.

Also lots of powerheads in a tank create lots of heat. Could be too much of a temp shift too

 

[Rich42082]

My tank ranges from 79 to 82 with no problems. Might be something else.

 

[Marco V]

the bleaching has stopped spreading since i moved it lower in the tank. thanks fornthe replies , can the bleached portion ever recover?

 

[crister13]

Yes. A part of my montipora bleached when I got it 2 weeks ago and it's almost completely recovered.

 

[bskerrichard27]

Ihad one completely bleach thought it was dead for sure then last week after four months its started to come back

 

[Gregcoyote]

If they don't get overgrown with algae, they can come back. Some of them. I have a small frag of acro bleach and it stayed white, then about 3-4 months later, it browned up and took off growing again.

 

[Marco V]

Here are my test results for today

Temperature: 79
Salinity: 1.026
Ammonia, NH4: 0.25
Nitrate, NO3: 10
Nitrite, NO2: 0
pH: 8.2
Alkalinity, KH: 8.1
Calcium, Ca: 460
Magnesium, Mg: 1,600

for date: September 8, 2012

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

Mag should be lower like 1450. But yeah bleaching don't mean it is dead. It happens alot when you put an sps under MH lights when it was used to t5s or something like that. Move the lights away from the tank more and you can move the acros up more. Or you can gradually move them up but it takes months.

 

[Marco V]

How can I lower my magnesium ?

 

[bskerrichard27]

When mine got algae on it I used a toothbrush soft bristle to clean it off

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

Don't dose and use a salt that has a lower concentrate. Instant ocean is good and then if u need it then you can higher the levels by dousing

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

But at the same time a mag of 1500 doesn't allow hair algae to root on rock or anything. So actually it's a good thing.

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

By the way nitrate in your reef tank should be 0. Anything over 5 can reduce coral growth and make them not expand much.

 

[Marco V]

Yea I know , I think I had a star fish die.

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

Starfish are a pain. I'd get some harlequin shrimp for the starfish lol. Try using macro algae insump