Help plating montipora white spots over night!

[REEF24]

Hey r2r community. Im pretty sad about what’s happening to my green montipora plating coral.

It was gifted to me as a chip off the old block from a friends tank and it’s made its way to becoming a pretty decent size coral in about a year. Beautiful polyp development and structure. With that said this past couple weeks it’s been spotting over night and it’s like a knife through my heart when I find it.


The VIDEO shows the flesh flowing in the water.

Can anyone shed some light on this topic.


I hand dose ARF and bright well liquid Magnesium . But my phos and nitrates are always zero. I feed everyday but I guess I just gotta dump food in the tank to see a rise.

7/17/2025

1.026

Calcium 425

Mag 1230

Alk 11.5

No3 0 maybe 2

No4 0

Ph 8.6



9/11/25

1.025

Calcium 450

Mag 1200

Alk 10.5

N03 0

N04 0

PH 8.6



9/23/24

Kh 14.1

Calcium 430

Mag 1230

No3 0

No4 0

Ph 8.4



9/26/24

Kh 13

Calcium 420

Mag 1260

Help thanks!

 

[BonnieB]

If I’m reading your stats correctly, your Alk is too high, should be between 8-10 (preferably in the upper 8/9 range) and your magnesium is too low, should be between 1350-1400 (although many tanks like magnesium even higher). And yes, your NO3 & NO4 are bottomed out and even SPS need them for survival. That’s where I would start since you’ve had success with this monti for a year now!

 

[REEF24]

I’m dosing mag hoping it will go up, I’m also dosing AFR to keep the calcium normal but it boosts my alk to high.

As for the phos and nitrate, should I just abnormally feed for couple days and check again or should I add fish?

I have a 70gallon display but it’s not 4ft long. It’s like 3ft it’s a Red Sea e260.

2 clowns
5 chromis
Blue eye tang
6 line wrass
Bunch of crabs and snails.

What other fish should I add?

I’m just confused about that stuff that’s like floating off the coral. Does that look familiar to anyone?

 

[REEF24]

I guess you can’t see the video

 

[SudzFD]

I’m dosing mag hoping it will go up, I’m also dosing AFR to keep the calcium normal but it boosts my alk to high.

As for the phos and nitrate, should I just abnormally feed for couple days and check again or should I add fish?

I have a 70gallon display but it’s not 4ft long. It’s like 3ft it’s a Red Sea e260.

2 clowns
5 chromis
Blue eye tang
6 line wrass
Bunch of crabs and snails.

What other fish should I add?

I’m just confused about that stuff that’s like floating off the coral. Does that look familiar to anyone?

You might want to switch to a two part system for siding like ESV BIONIC. That way you can dose calcium without increasing alkalinity. They also have magnesium to dose.

For nitrates, I also had bottomed out nitrates. I started dosing monitor to keep them at about 5ppm. It’s helped a lot.

I too had a large plating green monti. Went through two tank transfers and was about 6”x12”. It wasted away suddenly even while other corals were doing great. I’m not sure why. Possibly chemical warfare, but really not sure.

That said, it was completely gone as far as I could tell but about two months later, I see it growing back in a few different areas. So these are strong hearty corals that can rebound. Hopefully yours will do the same.

 

[obanarama]

I've seen similar white areas - tho not quite as pronounced - on my monti cap when food sits on it. For me it was just a matter of ensuring that no fish or coral foods rest on it - and I increased flow over it to make sure. Once I did both the white areas went away after a week or two.

 

[REEF24]

My skimmer is running 24/7 so I’m going to switch it to a timer. How many hours off should I start with?

 

[REEF24]

My skimmer is running 24/7 so I’m going to switch it to a timer. How many hours off should I start with?

 

[Dburr1014]

I’m dosing mag hoping it will go up, I’m also dosing AFR to keep the calcium normal but it boosts my alk to high.

As for the phos and nitrate, should I just abnormally feed for couple days and check again or should I add fish?

I have a 70gallon display but it’s not 4ft long. It’s like 3ft it’s a Red Sea e260.

2 clowns
5 chromis
Blue eye tang
6 line wrass
Bunch of crabs and snails.

What other fish should I add?

I’m just confused about that stuff that’s like floating off the coral. Does that look familiar to anyone?

Looks like flesh.

Dose afr to keep alk stable not calcium.
I agree the alk to high especially for zero nutrients.

Is your flow great? Not good, great. Need high flow for large colonies.

 

[BonnieB]

I agree that you need to stop with the AFR because it is raising Alk and also with the small amount of coral your water should handle it at this point. Also, good flow (without blowing it to hell) will keep any settled food or detritus off and help bring it food at the same time. As far as your skimmer, I’d start with 8 hours a day and go from there. I would increase feeding, but not dramatically, to help bring N/P up but first do a couple of 20% WC a few days apart to try and stabilize the alk.