HELP NEEDED WITH ENCRUSTING MONTIPORAS

[stevieduk]

Just wondered if any one can shed any light on this problem i have with encrusting montiporas.
I can grow branching montis, I can grow plating montis, but i cant ,for the life of me , grow encrusting montis. My water is fine , ive tried them in high flow , low flow and no flow areas. I had them in high and low light, tried on the bottom of the tank, half way up the tank and on the top of the rocks.
What else can I do. , the polyps do not come out, well they are out when the lights switch on, but then retract and so over a few months they get weaker and weaker and then die while other montis next to them flourish. I don't want to kill any more until i solve the puzzle

 

[FartyParty]

I’ve got a sunset monti and it began encrusting after a couple of weeks, seems to be doing fine.
For flow, I have it in medium flow where the power head is on 100% blasting the rock directly behind it.
In terms of lighting, it exactly 12” of the bottom of a 50 gallon cube with two AI prime HD lights.

 

[TexasTodd]

What lighting?

 

[DSC reef]

Totally anecdotal but in our tank some encrusting montipora took forever to actually settle in, color up and grow. Jedi mind trick, true undata and tyree sunset, rainbow monti in particular seemed sensitive to alk stability/swings. Spongodes, mystic sunset, montipira caps grew like weeds. We ran halide/T5 combo lighting.

 

[stevieduk]

What lighting?

mars black box led s

 

[Gareth elliott]

If have par or lux meter can check for hot spots, my black there were some spots where the par was too high to grow anything but Pocilloporidaes.