# Bleached corals, likely from too warm a temperature, will they come back?



## Greg_o (Mar 4, 2010)

A few weeks ago when the real heat started my 20 gal reef got hot enough to bleach many corals, mainly a large Hollywood stunner chalice that I've had over five years and a few sps, blue milli being the most impacted. (Actually a yellow candy cane was affected but bounced right back almost immediately.) 

Will these come back? I don't THINK they're dead, I've watched corals die and I usually see lots of 'stuff' being expelled from the polyps as they go, this isn't the case.

Is there anything I can do in the mean time to help these poor pasty white things?!


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## iGeeve (Aug 29, 2012)

In my experience... Don't overpower them with light while they colour back up.


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## Greg_o (Mar 4, 2010)

Great input, will lower light intensity.

Thank you kindly.


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## Patwa (Jan 30, 2014)

if you're doing a mix of whites and blues with your lighting, lower blues to 10-20% (or significantly less than what it was before the heat issue), and turn whites to 0%. Heck, you can pretty much always run whites very low or close to 0% (if you're using LEDs)

reduce lighting period duration .....e.g. if you had the lights on 10hr a day, drop to 5-6 perhaps

z


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## Greg_o (Mar 4, 2010)

Patwa said:


> if you're doing a mix of whites and blues with your lighting, lower blues to 10-20% (or significantly less than what it was before the heat issue), and turn whites to 0%. Heck, you can pretty much always run whites very low or close to 0% (if you're using LEDs)
> 
> reduce lighting period duration .....e.g. if you had the lights on 10hr a day, drop to 5-6 perhaps
> 
> z


Just have T5HO's.. Lessoned the photoperiod.

I'll try to keep this updated for those curious and for those that end up here through a search in the future.

So far I have very mixed results - most SPS are dead, with the exception of a Forest Fire Digi - it's colourless still but I can tell it is living.

Amazingly the GSP looks like it's nuked too.

Some other softies are alive but not happy at all (elegance, kenia tree, hammerheads, torch). Devils hand looks like toast. Candy Canes are hurting. Lobo is colourless but almost back to regular size. Large Bubble coral not affected at all. Generic brown palys not affected at all. No name mushrooms are way smaller but have their colour back.

Hollywood stunner appears to be slowly coming around (polyps have started to turn back to a muted green) but otherwise looks like hell.


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