Bleached Montipora

[dasjestyr]

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Calcium: 500
dKH: 8
Phosphates: 0
Salinity/SG: 1.025
Temp: 76.3F
Lighting: T5 HO, Aquatic Life, 4 bulb (2x10,000K, 2x 7,000K, Lunar LEDs)

I've had this Montipora Capricornis for about 6 weeks now. When I bought it, it was a tannish color but bleached within a couple days. I assumed this was an acclimation issue, but it has been 6 weeks now. The polyps are still visible, they haven't decayed or fallen out. It sits by itself on top of the highest rock and receives good flow. There are no other corals near it. Here's what else is in the tank:

Corals:
Blue Pulsing Xenia
Kenya Tree
Torch Coral
Frogspawn
Duncans

Fish:
2x False Percs
1 Blue Tang
1 6 line wrasse
1 Lawnmower blenny
1 Bi-Color Angel
1 Coral Beauty

I know some have yellow alert on the angels, but I got them a few weeks after the montipora, and I've watched them like a hawk. The tank is well fed and they do not nip at any coral polyps. They do nip at the stalks occasionally. But that doesn't seem to bother the duncans or the euphyllia.

As of recent, the kenya trees on both sides of the tanks aren't opening up much, even the little frags hiding in the rocks aren't opening, and the duncans don't open for long. I did a couple water changes that seemed to help a little. Found that my dKH was at only 5, so i started adding buffer to bring it up to 8. Been at 8 for a couple days now. So I'm wondering what this could be? Was it the dKH and I should just give it time now? Or is there something else I'm not thinking of? The water is a little on the cool side, but in range of suggested temps.

Thoughts?

 

[ccCapt]

Alkalinity being at 5 dKH was most likely the problem. Even tho it's probably not related, I would jack the temp up to 78-80 as 76 is too cold.

 

[dasjestyr]

Thanks. Sometimes I just need someone to tell me that my thought process is in the right place. I was thinking the same thing on the heat. Im just kind of skiddish right now with heaters. The last heater I got never turned off. I came home from work one night and the tank was sitting at 90deg D: so i threw that heater over the balcony. Luckily, all I lost was some inverts. I didn't have any coral at the time... thank god...

Just as an update, my kenyas are *trying* to open, but despite my previous comment, I caught my bi-color nipping the crap out of them. When this happened, obviously they closed up, but I noticed that about 20sec later, the kenyas on the other side of the tank did too, without nipping. So apparently that chemical then put off is pretty strong. Also, my duncans were trying to open up after I corrected the water hardness... but now they're closed again... probably the angel again. I don't have the stuff to make a fish trap right now, but i have a premade one on order. Time for the little bastard to go back to the store. Oh well... I knew what I was getting into. Probably trade for a copperband or a mandarin. Hopefully in the meanwhile, it doesn't teach the coral beauty to be a bastard too. So far she's behaving.

I noticed the bi-color doesn't eat mysis with all the others, but prefers flake. This might be why he's nipping everything when the coral beauty is not - guy is just hungry. I'm feeding more flake in the meanwhile to hopefully calm him down a bit.

 

[slitherbomb]

Did you ever light acclimate it? Most of the time, the stores do not give it adequate lighting so yours may have been too strong.

 

[dasjestyr]

My lights are a bit stronger than the store's, but when I was acclimating, i turned off my white lights (10,000K) for the first day and put them back on auto for the second day. Is that too quick? If it was light shock, is there any coming back from it? I don't think it's dead yet, polyps still intact, just white

 

[slitherbomb]

That probably was too quick. Depending on how strong your lights are compared to the stores, acclimating could take a week or longer. You probably can bring it back, but it needs to be fed daily so it can get it's energy.

 

[dasjestyr]

Feeding it what, just squirting phytoplankton right onto the plate?

 

[slitherbomb]

Marine snow would be a better choice. I think they sell bottled food for SPS coral.

 

[Sarcothelia]

How high up was it placed? If the store's lighting was dimmer and you placed yours near the top that'll do it. When I added LEDs to my tank the coralline near the top of my tank turned white within days.