Does carbon bleach your corals ? (Kent carbon recall)

[daniella3d]

Hey casey, how are your corals doing? are they coming back from the bleaching? Mine is a mixed bag. Some are improving and some seem to be going worse and bleaching still.

What is strange is that the corals are bleaching where the light does not reach, from underneat, so I am not sure if I should increase the light instead because what is exposed to light seem to be regaining a bit of color.

I really don't know what to do now. Seem the coral are missing a lot of zooxanthellae.

Originally Posted by Casey8

No wonder my skimmer had pulled a lot of black colored in the first 2 days.

[Casey8]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

Hey casey, how are your corals doing? are they coming back from the bleaching? Mine is a mixed bag. Some are improving and some seem to be going worse and bleaching still.

What is strange is that the corals are bleaching where the light does not reach, from underneat, so I am not sure if I should increase the light instead because what is exposed to light seem to be regaining a bit of color.

I really don't know what to do now. Seem the coral are missing a lot of zooxanthellae.

I could say I am very lucky. All of them are slowly coming back to life, their color are getting back about half way now. At least I can easily recognize what they were before. Only one, and that is my favorite one, it seems to be struggling to survive. Most part of the coral is covered with brown algae, only 1 small branch is showing a very slight color under T5 lights. I didn't use any carbon right now even I have already switched to a new brand. I got scared from using any brand and I may just follow what some people are doing, no need for carbon in my tank for a while.
My skimmer is also getting back to normal color, it doesn't skim nasty dark color with some black small particles on the skimmer neck like last week. I felt very lucky to get this beast in time to deal with this disater.
As lampshade has said, and me too, no more Kent product for me from now on.

[Casey8]

Daniella, I have been reducing my MH lights only 2 hours a day. I used to let them run 12 hours, but now 10 hours. I am going to go back slowly to normal lighting starting next week. If you think your corals are doing better with more lights, I think you can do just like me, just slowly get back to normal.
My tank is a BB tank, I think when something goes wrong it is easier to deal with. Maybe I am wrong but that's what I thought. I can siphon the bottom of the tank many times a day if I want to, without worrying disturbing the sand bed. Water change is also easy for me too.

[daniella3d]

I think I will increase my lighting since what ever is exposed to the light seem to be doing better and coloring up faster.

If your coral are coming back and your MH is on 10 hours, I guess it is safe for mine to be on longer then.

thanks a lot

Originally Posted by Casey8

Daniella, I have been reducing my MH lights only 2 hours a day. I used to let them run 12 hours, but now 10 hours. I am going to go back slowly to normal lighting starting next week. If you think your corals are doing better with more lights, I think you can do just like me, just slowly get back to normal.
My tank is a BB tank, I think when something goes wrong it is easier to deal with. Maybe I am wrong but that's what I thought. I can siphon the bottom of the tank many times a day if I want to, without worrying disturbing the sand bed. Water change is also easy for me too.

[Casey8]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

I think I will increase my lighting since what ever is exposed to the light seem to be doing better and coloring up faster.

If your coral are coming back and your MH is on 10 hours, I guess it is safe for mine to be on longer then.

thanks a lot

You're very welcome. I hope all your corals will recover soon like mine. You never know, more than half of my corals were completely bleached have no life on them, but now they are all coming back to life. I call it a MIRACLE !

[daniella3d]

I have some that have melted so there is no coming back for them and of course my photosynthetic sponges are gone too but the rest of my acroporas seem to be coming back slowly. What a mess My first tank crash and it's not even my fault.

Originally Posted by Casey8

You're very welcome. I hope all your corals will recover soon like mine. You never know, more than half of my corals were completely bleached have no life on them, but now they are all coming back to life. I call it a MIRACLE !

[Casey8]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

I have some that have melted so there is no coming back for them and of course my photosynthetic sponges are gone too but the rest of my acroporas seem to be coming back slowly. What a mess My first tank crash and it's not even my fault.

One thing I have learned from this crash, I will never dose anything in the same day with my water change. Luckily enough I was doing water change and changed the carbon on different days, I had a chance to suspect about the carbon and pulled it out fast enough. Even so, it took me a day and a half before I decided to turn off the reactor. If I changed that carbon on the same day, I would have never suspected it right away and may have blamed for the water polluttant or something else. I would have killed all the corals if I continued to let that carbon sit in my tank even just for one more day. My tank was look like having a snow storm all over my corals in just 2 days, most of them were completely bleached. I was devastated didn't know what was going on my tank with no clue at that time. From now on, I will dose everything like calcium, magnesium, kalwasser, etc ... that is new in the bottle or container, one at the time and wait for a reaction before dosing another. If something goes wrong at least I know right away what is the cuprit.

[paddyob]

Recall posted on BAs site in regards to Kent carbon.

http://www.bigalscanada.com/recalls/..._Retailers.pdf