Stylophora bleaching from the bottom?

[stewy14]

So that is normal for this kind of coral? The top part of it looks great, and the polyps are almost always fully extended.

honestly see this happen a lot

 

[thedon986]

He has zero nitrates and phosphates because the algae is stripping it out of the tank. The test kits are giving a false reading that there is no N & P when in reality there’s too much nutrients hence why he got an algae problem.

Too much N and P led him to this point, probably, but he is past that now because the hair algae sucks it up right away after feeding so water changes won't really help if there's no N and P to suck out of the water. Removal by hand or snails is step 1. Reducing feeding may help, but it may also bring on a dino bloom. I have been fighting GHA for three months. Low/zero nutrients and weekly 20% water changes have not helped. Manual removal and Microbacter Clean have though.

 

[Aidan_823]

Hi all,
I’ve got a stylophora in my tank that I picked up a few weeks back. I did notice that there were some faded spots on the coral when I bought it, but for the most part, it looked pretty good. I am noticing some bleaching of the coral, but it’s at the bottom as opposed to the top where the light is hitting it. Any ideas of what might be up? It’s one of the few SPS brags I have in my tank. And sits relatively high. I run about 75% strength on my blues and less than 5% whites. Everything else is soft coral or LPS. It almost looks like the polyps are peeling off. There’s good amounts of flow through my tank, but it’s not sitting directly in front of a powerhead or anything.

Something probably stung the bottom, you can cut the bleached part off and the rest will do great