Well Poo My Stuff Bleached Again (had to change title)

Well, this whole time I have been blaming my bleaching episode on GFO. About 3 days ago, I decided I wanted to clear up my water so I decided I would run some carbon in a reactor to clear the water a big and eliminate some of the smell. (It wasn't horrible but my house smelled like a beach in the living room) I put the carbon in on monday night (about 2 cups on a 160 gallon system), started it up with a 250 gph pump and went to bed. I got home from work the next day and there was some definate bleaching of my undata and my efflo as well as a couple of other sps. I'm so mad right now. I have turned my LED's down and took the carbon offline. I will say I have done this several times in the past before getting LED's and this never happened to me. Even when I was running 400 watt mh over my tank, I could run carbon at any time and never have this big of an issue. I'm not sure what it is but it seems like the tank is much more sensative to water clarity with the LED's than it is without. So from this point forward, no more carbon either, unless it is absolutely necessary. If I have to run it for a day or two, I will dial my lights back a bunch to keep this from happening. On the bright side, I guess i can run GFO now.

 

You're washing this GFO/Carbon before putting it in right?

 

Of Course! Good call but yes I rinse with atleast a couple of gallons of tank water. (run it through into a bucket until clear) Even so, I've never had carbon do anything more than cloud the tank up though.

 

Really weird then, this is a crazy shot but maybe the water being not completely clear is somehow lessening the power of the LEDs therefor making them not bleach?

 

Wow crazy to think that just the water clarity would enhance the LEDs that much. It sucks you have to find that out the hard way.

 

Bad carbon?

 

Now that's a possibility but one would think it would affect polyp extension as well. I still have full polyp extension on everything except my pink bn. With this being said, every time I have had a bleaching episode, it has been from the same container. I'll try some different carbon next time.

 

Well we know that sudden intense light can cause bleaching which is why we acclimate corals to our lights. I think this is probably the case but it could certainly be bad carbon. I never thought of that before.

 

What kind of carbon? Did you check your pH while it was running?

 

Yeah, was it Kent's Reef Carbon?