Coral Bleaching

[reefburnaby]

Hi,

I am no SPS expert (just don't have the right hardware to do it right now, but I might try one just for fun), but I have had other corals bleach itself.

Usually, this is when the coral is stressed or the Zooxanthallae is being expelled (i.e. the zoos are dying). Things like disease, sudden temperature change, sudden light shock and such.

One method that I have been able to regenerate Zooxanthallae is the use of a carbonate such as acetate (from vinegar...acetic acid). Acetate is readily consumed by zooxanthallae and it helps produce lipids...which is one of the food sources for the corals. Acetate is also known as a fatty acid (in the same line as Selcon...but not quite the same stuff).

This is another one of my tricks/theories that I use. I feed a my tank 15ml of vinegar every two weeks. They seem to like it. I drip kalk...so I just dump it in with the dry kalk and mix it with water.

Hope that helps.

- Victor.