There is increasing validity to the issue posed in this article. This year, there have also been studies out of Italy that corroborate this story. I certainly don’t think that sunscreens are the chief cause, but definitely are contributory. If you read the whole article, it talks about 4-6,000 metric TONS of this stuff washing off swimmers. It’s estimated that 27,000 metric tons of sunscreen are used annually. SOMETHING happens to this huge amount when it washes off. Just ask the dive boat captains that work popular dive and snorkel spots about the sunscreen slick on the water at the end of busy days.

Arcturus, this month’s green guide (www.thegreenguide.com) has an article about this and lists three sunscreens that are actually safe for the reefs, yet still provide excellent protection for your skin. I prefer Soléo Organics All Natural Sunscreen (www.soleousa.com).

I’m an extremely pale-skinned redhead and as such, even a few minutes of sun on a hot summers day leads to burns without sunscreen.

And wearing clothing to block the sun just leads to overheating and heavy sweating.

Owning a reef tank and successfully growing corals from all regions and types (soft corals, LPS, SPS) I have come to many conclusions about the abilities and limitations of corals, and have come to appreciate that they are capabable of withstanding dramatic temperature swings and varying conditions.

Sunscreen, however, causing wide spread reef bleaching is absurd.

“Bleaching” is as vague a sympton as someone sneezing or having a fever. It is a very broad response to any number of factors — there is no magic bullet to bleaching, and these articles need to stop suggesting that one thing causes it.

It really pisses me off.

by the way the fish in the pic is not healthy it looks half starved.

the bleaching of the reefs is more likely caused by polution water temperatures and storms. If one of many things is not correct they will bleach.