Why the @$&% is my chalice bleaching?

[ScubaSteve]

I got a frag of a chalice from OA a few months ago. It's got to be my favorite chalice and I pined for months until OA finally decided to frag the mother in their display. When I got the frag it was a little rough as it wasn't too pleased with being cut up but with a few weeks o loving care under an overhang it bounced back and colored up like a champ. Over the course of about 7 weeks I slowly moved it back out into the light on the sand. It was happy as all hell and was growing at what I considered a good pace for a chalice for about 6 weeks. That is until about a week or two ago...

It started to look a little pale on one edge near one of the mouths that had been cut. So I moved it out of the direct light to see if it would bounce back. It got worse. So I moved it back to the overhang where I first put it. Check it this morning and it is seriously bleached! Still has some color but in some areas is pretty much see-through. WTF?

OA always had this colony on the sand under an overhang where is was happy, so I've been keeping it in similar conditions. I cannot for the life of me figure what is going on with this guy. I've never been able to get a feeding response from it to try and help it along that way.

Anyone have any suggestions? Or is this guy too far gone and I'm just going to have to watch it wither away?

[Borderjumper]

I had one chalice do that to me this summer, when my tank got hot. Overnight it went from red to almost clear.. Had all it's flesh, just clear. I put it way off to the side and it colored back up, but it took months.

[tlo]

Has there been any sudden changes in water parameters?? I find some chalices are as picky about water quality as sps.

[Borderjumper]

Has there been any sudden changes in water parameters?? I find some chalices are as picky about water quality as sps.
Agreed! And like sps Sometimes they just croak

[ScubaSteve]

Other than a bit of a drop in my calc a few days ago (since been corrected) the parameters have been pretty spot on. All my SPS are happy (except for my red planet who refuses to do anything other than show off a wicked shade a brown). My house is characteristically warm but doesn't really fluctuate in temp. The tank temp stays pretty constant.

[Zoaelite]

I went through an odd bleaching stage with many of my chalice colonies that I could never really quantize. Really similar to your experiences Kevin but with 7 or 8 whole colonies (and many of those were my nicer ones).

I'm leaning towards some sort of pathogen in the water, all my parameters were pretty spot on including temperature. I had one of the colonies die on me, 2 of them healed extremely quickly, 3 of them took about a month to regain color and my "optimus prime" chalice took a 5 month roller coaster ride to regain its color. It seemed to hit all over the map including Echinophyllia, Mycedium, Oxypora, Pectinia, Physophyllia and Echinomorpha.

Only suggestion I can make step up the target feeding regime and soak the food in the zeovit LPS AA supplement. I know you are good with keeping the parameters steady so keep up on it and hopefully it will come back for you.

Any photos?
Levi

[ScubaSteve]

Pathogen is my guess as well. I had something similar hit my candycanes back in the summer and I had no idea what. They still haven't fully recovered even. Should I leave this guy in really low light under the overhang and hope it pulls through or should I pull it out a bit to get a bit more light?

My chalice is, I believe, an oxypora? It's the same species as the ATL masterpiece chalice but has different colouring. I'll try to see if I can get it to eat. I've never used the zeovit LPS supp. Is it just for health or will it encourage a feeding response as well? The lack of a feeding response has always bothered me. Any suggestions on this?

I'll see if I can get home sometime in the next couple of days when the lights are on so I can get a pic of ol' bleachy (gonna be tough though with 18 hour work days for the remainder of the week :s ).

[Zoaelite]

Pathogen is my guess as well. I had something similar hit my candycanes back in the summer and I had no idea what. They still haven't fully recovered even. Should I leave this guy in really low light under the overhang and hope it pulls through or should I pull it out a bit to get a bit more light?

My chalice is, I believe, an oxypora? It's the same species as the ATL masterpiece chalice but has different colouring. I'll try to see if I can get it to eat. I've never used the zeovit LPS supp. Is it just for health or will it encourage a feeding response as well? The lack of a feeding response has always bothered me. Any suggestions on this?

I'll see if I can get home sometime in the next couple of days when the lights are on so I can get a pic of ol' bleachy (gonna be tough though with 18 hour work days for the remainder of the week :s ).

If it's the same growth form as the ATL masterpiece its certainly an oxypora sp, would love to see some photos. The supplement will help with regrowth of lost tissue, will make the chalice look plumper and it personally caused all my chalices to develop almost a pink sunscreen pigment. Hard to explain with words so these photos should help:

The prime chalice used to be completely blue:
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/7321/p1110944t.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p1110944t.jpg)

Same with this one aside from the green eyes:
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3245/p1120589.jpg (http://img97.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p1120589.jpg)

[whatcaneyedo]

Are you using any biopellets? One of my chalice (and several other LPS and soft coral) began to bleach this summer when I tried out the Vertex pellets for a month.

[ScubaSteve]

No, I'm not. I'm actually quite convinced that they're not the best thing for reef systems... maybe in time once they're better understood but right now I'm hearing waaaaay too many horror stories about them.

I also don't use them as I try to not keep my nitrates at exactly zero. My personal belief is that there should be some nitrates around (greater than 0 ppm but less than 5 ppm) the help facilitate growth and maintain coral health. I feel ULNS are too unstable as the corals are basically operating on a very lean diet... the littlest thing can just wipe them out.