Steve's LED help!

[AngieRN23]

Hi ~ new here and new to reefing. Bought a 32 g biocube and recently upgraded to Steve's Leds with the Bluefish controller. Recommended starting setting is 30%. Went and bought a ton of new corals to grow with much excitement - the next morning EVERY one of them were bleached white! Has anyone else have this happen? Will they ever come back?? I'm so disappointed. Any advice appreciated.

[jayball]

How long has your tank been set up, if fairly new was it live or dry rock, did you have corals before this? If your tank is established and you already had some coral you likely had the lights turned up too high and bleached them. Next time you add coral cut your intensity in half for a couple days (your blues only at regular intensity works the same) then ramp up to your normal intensity over time. Too much light for coral not acclimated to it can be one of the fastest killers out there. You should verify if it is bleached or actually dead(flesh is gone). Post pictures.

You should post the following tank parameters to help us help you:

Salinity
Alk
Calsium
Mag
describe set up
what other lovestock

make sure there is no ammonia. verify your other nutrient levels to make sure they are no tin an extreme range.

What kind of coral did you introduce? leathers and other soft corals are much more tolerant to everything than many hard corals, especially SPS.

[ReefWreak]

I'm sorry to hear about that.

I would recommend lowering the lights to 10-15% brightness and go from there if that is the only change that lead to the bleaching.

The corals can recover, but start them low, let them brown out again, and then once brown, you can start adjusting the brightness up SLOWLY (~5%/week) and probably 50% or so would be your max, certainly until you're more comfortable with your corals/new lights.

[AngieRN23]

My tank is 2 months old. It houses 3 clownfish, 2 damsels, 1 tang, 1 blenny, 1 dottyback. PH - 7.8, ammo .25, nitrite 1.0, nitrate 10.0, calc 440, alk 10, phos 0. Salinity- 1.020. I started with a mix of live and dry rock and live sand. Also used a few bottles of bio-spira with water changes. Use prime and stability. Have intank media rack running filter floss, nitrate pad, chemipure blue, purigen, and biomatrix. Center is a refugium with porous rock, cheato, and sea lettuce. 3rd chamber running biocube UV light and a pack of matrix carbon. One day of lights at 30% fried my zoa colonies and bleached my corals. I will attach pics. The corals — they will grow back???? All of them????

[ReefWreak]

Wow, the LFS really gave you the hard sell...

You shouldn't need to be dosing prime or stability, and once you exhaust the nitrate pad, and purigen products, I wouldn't recommend replacing them. I'd just pull them. Also, make sure to replace that filter floss every 3-5 days.

Most corals will grow back from being bleached, but of course it depends on the severity. I've had corals go totally white but stay white, then brown, then color up again over time. Some will bleach and die, their skeleton getting filled with algae.

Only time will tell. The best thing you can do is leave the tank alone, lower the lights to ~10-15%, and slowly slowly ramp them up again over time.

(and also get rid of that tang in the biocube )

[AngieRN23]

Were you able to see my pics? And I know - what started out as my daughter wanting a betta or goldfish in the bowl escalated to a couple grand shaft in the backside. I love it though but could totally cry now if all of this is gone. I’ve got hundreds in frags. . How do you know if they are truly dead vs will come back? The zoa colonies are literally losing polyps from the wave maker. Will they come back? I haven’t seen them open and even they are white at places. My dreams of this grand fish tank have really gone to heck quick.

[AngieRN23]

What’s with the tang? And why no purigen?

[mcgyvr]

No offense meant and we can help you
BUT
They see you coming from a mile away at that fish store with a huge flashing neon "SUCKER" sign blinking brightly above your head..

Chalk this up to a lesson learned and spend the next few months learning how to succeed at this hobby..
So far you are doing a great job at reaching those "beginner mistake" milestones.. <-- NOT a good thing..


First.. you said "the next morning".. Where the lights on all night long?
Second.. Its highly unlikely that one day of lights caused this problem..
Third.. What type of corals? Your pics aren't coming through.. By white I'm assuming SPS corals which would more likely be sent into RTN (rapid tissue necrosis) by a rapid change in alkalinity... What is the alk of the stores water?
Fourth... A tank should NOT have a nitrite level of 1.. That is a flashing light of trouble and indicate that the tank is still cycling/lacks a sufficient bacterial population..
Fifth..You got sold a crap ton of stuff that you shouldn't and absolutely do not and should not be using it all at the same time and expecting success..
Sixth...A tang typically requires a MUCH larger tank (75+Gallons 48" width,etc..) and while they can be small they grow fast.. No tang should be in such a small tank..

I could go on and on and on but lets give this a chance to sink it and give you time to work on this pictures but you messed up... and may have just wasted a ton of money due to your own lack of knowledge... again.. no offense.. just basically slapping you in the face to try to set you straight quickly..

[mcgyvr]

and while I'm really not a fan of this post for various reasons.. Its the best this site has to offer now..
Sit down and spend a few hours going through this.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1031074