SPS Bleaching issue - Advice?

[SixtyFeetUnder]

Recently (within the past week) i noticed two monitpora corals in my tank that have been acclimated and growing well begn to bleach. Within the past two days a few small pocillapora and Acros began to bleach as well and polyps hid.

 

I've checked the tank params - everything seems rather on par - 75 gallon tank

-alkalinity - 4.2 (may be a bit high?)

-Calcium - 420

-Nitrate - 0

-temp - 74 - 76 night and day

-SG- 1.024

-Lighting - 2 * 250 10K, 4 * 96 actinic. All the corals have loved the light to this point.

 

I think my problem may be one of two things, or a combo of both. I used a cycle of "Chemi Clean" cyanobacteria remover which threw my protein skimmer way out of cycle. It is creating massive amounts of microbubbles so i haven't been able to run it properly. I am doing a third partial water change today (in the last week) to try to remove excess chemicals so i can get my skimmer running normally (not overflowing the colleciton cup constantly). There is also one leather coral in the tank.

 

could the lack of chemical filatration for the past two weeks, or that in conjunction with the leather emitting toxins be killing these previosuly helathy corals? Any advice?

 

thanks,

 

bill

[jamal]

well adding carbon will help with the excess chemicals and it will prolly help your skimmer as well

[Rascal]

I saw the following review of that product on marinedepot.com:

Comments: Followed direction except did not aerate (thought power heads were enough), and 90% fish and many corals died . Perhaps aeration would have made a difference?

Yes, I would recommend this product to my friends.

 

With friends like that . . .

 

Others seem to have used it with no ill effects.

 

Do you know what is in it? I read on one of the boards that it was potassium permananganate (sp??) and it acts as an oxidizer, but I couldn't find anything from the company itself.

 

If I were you, . . . I would do lots of water changes. Carbon, polyfilter, and purigen wouldn't hurt either, but water changes are probably your best bet.

[flowerseller]

The water you remove while doing a WC, is it simply siphoned off or do you also vaccuum as you remove it?

If simply drawn off, is it really clear or is there a yellowish - brownish tinge to it?

 

FYI

if your system is not used to using a log of the chemicals listed in this thread, sudden use WILL cause you more heart ache than not using them at all. They are all fine choices, just not all at once or at full bore suddenly.

[Rascal]

if your system is not used to using a log of the chemicals listed in this thread, sudden use WILL cause you more heart ache than not using them at all. They are all fine choices, just not all at once or at full bore suddenly.

 

Good point.