Bleaching advice

[Dingo]

I brought in some frags from a friend with a very blue tank. I run blue as well but my kessil and t5 mix has higher PAR and a bit less blue than his tanks.
I had 4 acros bleach, they are: Princess peach, confetti acro, an unnamed JF Mille (very pretty in his tanks, purple skin with long gold polyps), and another unnamed JF acro (which I don't think will be recovering. Was pink skin with deep red polyps. Probably A. Microlades).
Ive been keeping acro dominant systems since 2007 but seldom had bleaching issues. Do I need to move them down and bring them up slowly or will they eventually recover themselves? Due to the size of the tank I really do not like messing around inside of it much and would prefer to leave them be unless experience from others tells me I must move them down. Please advise

 

[Spare time]

Usually the main thing I would think of doing is making sure they get supplementary energy (such as red sea's reef energy) to mimic what the zooxanthellae would be providing. I am not sure about moving them, but I am a strong advocate for adding something like reef energy when a coral is bleached to allow them to maintain their functions until they recover. Are the polyps still extended? If not, then lowering them might end up being a good choice.

 

[Dingo]

I will dose. Thanks for the reply.
Pe is present but just barely.

 

[ScottB]

Are your ALK, PO4 and NO3 numbers similar to their prior host water?

 

[Spare time]

I will dose. Thanks for the reply.
Pe is present but just barely.

You can even buy bottled zooxanthellae

 

[Dingo]

Are your ALK, PO4 and NO3 numbers similar to their prior host water?

I dont know. I haven’t checked phos and nitrate in a few years. I don’t think he checks either.
My alk is 8.5 and I have no idea what his is but I’m sure it’s not far off.
if the issue is chemical it’s not the ones listed here. Did a water change yesterday and things look better on 2 of the 4 pieces in question.
Dosed a bit of iodine to the tank and fed heavy today because phosphate looked low. Got a good feed response with tentacles from one of the acros so we will see how stuff looks tomorrow.

 

[Dingo]

 

[Spare time]

I dont know. I haven’t checked phos and nitrate in a few years. I don’t think he checks either.
My alk is 8.5 and I have no idea what his is but I’m sure it’s not far off.
if the issue is chemical it’s not the ones listed here. Did a water change yesterday and things look better on 2 of the 4 pieces in question.
Dosed a bit of iodine to the tank and fed heavy today because phosphate looked low. Got a good feed response with tentacles from one of the acros so we will see how stuff looks tomorrow.

Not knowing those could easily cause any coral to bleach as their zooxanthellae dies from a lack of nitrogen and phosphate. However, it shouldn't be immediate (overnight) as you would see the coral becoming pale or pastel (such as those famous "pastel" SPS systems that were popular at one point.

 

[Spare time]

View attachment 3062457

That looks as if they were stung (as corals stung by another often look like this from my experience). Maybe that is zooxanthellae being removed.

 

[Dingo]

That looks as if they were stung (as corals stung by another often look like this from my experience). Maybe that is zooxanthellae being removed.

That’s not stung brother. Had a pretty good response from many of the acros when I fed heavy zooplankton today. Also there’s nothing close there to sting. It’s an acro only tank with a few chalices growing out along the bottom.
I remember the zeovit days. Tanks looked super cool but all that razor edge stuff looked like too much work for me.
My mentor when I got into the hobby was Sanjay. I’ve always used his techniques, specifically heavy nutrients in and heavy nutrients out. These are not starving… if anything, they came from a guy who feeds his tanks less often so they would likely brown out a bit due to my likely over feeding.

 

[vetteguy53081]

That’s not stung brother. Had a pretty good response from many of the acros when I fed heavy zooplankton today. Also there’s nothing close there to sting. It’s an acro only tank with a few chalices growing out along the bottom.
I remember the zeovit days. Tanks looked super cool but all that razor edge stuff looked like too much work for me.
My mentor when I got into the hobby was Sanjay. I’ve always used his techniques, specifically heavy nutrients in and heavy nutrients out. These are not starving… if anything, they came from a guy who feeds his tanks less often so they would likely brown out a bit due to my likely over feeding.

Look at lighting which is the biggest culprit followed by nutrient deficieny and alk/CA imbalance

 

[Spare time]

That’s not stung brother. Had a pretty good response from many of the acros when I fed heavy zooplankton today. Also there’s nothing close there to sting. It’s an acro only tank with a few chalices growing out along the bottom.
I remember the zeovit days. Tanks looked super cool but all that razor edge stuff looked like too much work for me.
My mentor when I got into the hobby was Sanjay. I’ve always used his techniques, specifically heavy nutrients in and heavy nutrients out. These are not starving… if anything, they came from a guy who feeds his tanks less often so they would likely brown out a bit due to my likely over feeding.

I know its not a sting, it just looks like it; hence why I said "as if," (I had no clue the photo was taken during a feeding episode). I also didn't say that they were starving (in particular said I doubt it), but that not knowing nitrate and phosphate can lead to the issues you had (if the tank doesn't have a high input of nitrogen and phosphate to counter it). Corals feeding on plankton looks very similar to expelling zooxanthellae. Heavy in and out + low nitrate and phosphate is also how I like to run reef tanks

 

[Dingo]

Update: after a few days of heavy feeding and dosing a bit of iodine things look much better. I also allowed Alk to drop down 1dkh just in case it was alk burn.