bleached=dead?

[Pulse]

I bought some live rock and one had a coral on it that was pretty white, is there any way it can survive? I have head of some corals coming back from the brink, what are the chancesm, anyone have any experience?

 

[Len]

I'll be honest. If the coral is photosynthetic, completely bleached, and still alive, chances are it won't recover. Bleaching events are catastrophic (e.g. oxiditive stress due to high temperature or sudden shifts in light intensity/spectrum). Because photosynthesis constitutes the greater part of most hermatypic corals' nutritional requirements, and because plankton availabilty is minimal in our tanks, survival rates for bleached corals are poor.

You really can't do much for the guy. Heavier feedings and properly maintained chemical parameters (depending on the coral species) is about all you can do. Others may be able to offer additional advice from experience.

I'll have my fingers crossed for you.

[ July 20, 2001: Message edited by: Leonard ]

 

[fudge1]

Josh,

As long as it has bleached tissue and not bare skeleton,and provided optimal conditions are provided,they can and do recover quite nicely,and IMO predictably.

Ive seen quite a number of softies,lps and sps recover completely from bleaching.

If it is Sps,and you notice filamentous algea on the bleached portion of the piece,it has lost all its tissue and is completly dead.


Hth,Marc.

[ July 20, 2001: Message edited by: fudge ]

 

[Carpentersreef]

While I will agree that a completly white coral may not survive, if there is the slightest bit of color (probably at the base) there is still a chance that you can bring that coral back. I am speaking from experience. I was sold a coral that was displayed as a whiter, special variety, and bought it, based on past very good history with my LFS. At the time I bought it, the SPS coral had slight coloring at the base (maybe 10% of the whole colony). I have a calcium reactor, plus dose B-ionic, strontium and magnesium. The coral has always had polyps on the entire skeleton, but color has now started to return to the entire colony. I had the same experience with a Heliopora (blue coral), which has also started to "color up" fully.
I don't know if you have it, but buy it if you don't - Eric Borneman's book Aquarium Corals - Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History. pg 378 covers bleaching.
The best method, is of course, to keep optimum conditions at all times.

Mitch

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Bleached is not equal to dead. I have many corals recover from being bleached (a Rio zapped my tank in4/2000)
I also recovered a few solf corals and a few Montipora and Porites from uncure live rock.

 

[Rod Buehler]

I agree that many bleached corals will recover. Corals with tissue loss is usually a different story.