Monti Cap extremely dark, but slowly growing.

[atruex]

Interested in other peoples opinions.. I got another free frag of some red/green monti cap, and chucked them in near my other caps. Immediately noticed that the new one was way brighter and more colorful than the caps I have had for ~5 months.
Params:
Dkh: 8.5 according to Trident. 9.5 according to Hannah.
Calc: 436
Mag: 1361 (trident)
Nitrate: 22ppm (hannah)
Phos: 0.04 (hannah)

Had a par reading done recently. The cap is sitting around 200-250 par. Just looking for ideas at this point. Maybe my nitrates need to come down a bit?

 

[nothing_fancy]

I don't see a problem here, mag is a little low. Oddly enough I get the same results on dKH between hanna and trident. Almost exactly 1 off between them. You could try lowering the montipora a little bit away from 250 par. I have some of the same stuff, got a green one as a 5 dollar frag, grows like crazy, very green. I keep it shaded and off to the side. If you haven't done so and you're interested you could send a test out and see what's going on at a deeper level.

 

[atruex]

I don't see a problem here, mag is a little low. Oddly enough I get the same results on dKH between hanna and trident. Almost exactly 1 off between them. You could try lowering the montipora a little bit away from 250 par. I have some of the same stuff, got a green one as a 5 dollar frag, grows like crazy, very green. I keep it shaded and off to the side. If you haven't done so and you're interested you could send a test out and see what's going on at a deeper level.

Yeah, that's not a bad idea to try lowering it. I did recently send off an ICP test (I can't keep acros for some reason, but can keep digis just fine?) I didn't see anything to alarming. (I ordered iodine, and some replenish to start dosing)
I have been dosing mag every day.. my trident hasn't seemed to pick up the changes there (don't have a hannah mag checker). Maybe I need to increase my dosage.

 

[nothing_fancy]

Yeah, that's not a bad idea to try lowering it. I did recently send off an ICP test (I can't keep acros for some reason, but can keep digis just fine?) I didn't see anything to alarming. (I ordered iodine, and some replenish to start dosing)
I have been dosing mag every day.. my trident hasn't seemed to pick up the changes there (don't have a hannah mag checker). Maybe I need to increase my dosage.

Actually I would be careful about dosing mag, once you get a lot of it, its hard to get it out. I would dose no more than every 2 days and then test. I wasn't able to keep acro alive until I got into stability, so since you're using trident, you'll be able to dial that in. Another thing I would look at if you're having trouble with acro is how stable your salinity is. For a long time I bought SW at my LFS and eventually found out the salinity was very low. If everything else is looking good, definitely check salinity with a couple different methods.

 

[atruex]

Actually I would be careful about dosing mag, once you get a lot of it, its hard to get it out. I would dose no more than every 2 days and then test. I wasn't able to keep acro alive until I got into stability, so since you're using trident, you'll be able to dial that in. Another thing I would look at if you're having trouble with acro is how stable your salinity is. For a long time I bought SW at my LFS and eventually found out the salinity was very low. If everything else is looking good, definitely check salinity with a couple different methods.

Thanks for your thoughts. I have a mixing station set up in my garage, with automatic water changes (using DOS). But it would be a good idea to triple check my salinity. My only method of testing salinity at the moment is my Milwaukee refractometer.
For mag, I was thinking of getting an additional tester (beyond the Trident) do you have a recommendation?

 

[nothing_fancy]

Thanks for your thoughts. I have a mixing station set up in my garage, with automatic water changes (using DOS). But it would be a good idea to triple check my salinity. My only method of testing salinity at the moment is my Milwaukee refractometer.
For mag, I was thinking of getting an additional tester (beyond the Trident) do you have a recommendation?

Right on, so you're all good there. The Milwaukee is probably considered one of the best so you're probably good. I use one of those old school trop Marin float hydrometers to make sure my digital tester is still good. They're pretty cheap but in my case it let me know that my hanna salinity checker is always .001 high even when cal'd. I have the hanna mag checker, the first gen of those were messed up but the new ones seem to be pretty good. I use it rarely but just every now and again to check vs trident. That tester is a bit overly complicated though, I would just double check trident against salifert for mag.

 

[atruex]

Right on, so you're all good there. The Milwaukee is probably considered one of the best so you're probably good. I use one of those old school trop Marin float hydrometers to make sure my digital tester is still good. They're pretty cheap but in my case it let me know that my hanna salinity checker is always .001 high even when cal'd. I have the hanna mag checker, the first gen of those were messed up but the new ones seem to be pretty good. I use it rarely but just every now and again to check vs trident. That tester is a bit overly complicated though, I would just double check trident against salifert for mag.

Yeah, my trust in the hannah checkers has gone way down. With my DKH being so ridiculously far off (compared to trident, and ICP) I have a hard time knowing what to trust beyond the ICP at this point lol. I guess I could always order a kit of the "color compare" tests and give that a go.

 

[nothing_fancy]

Yeah, my trust in the hannah checkers has gone way down. With my DKH being so ridiculously far off (compared to trident, and ICP) I have a hard time knowing what to trust beyond the ICP at this point lol. I guess I could always order a kit of the "color compare" tests and give that a go.

Ya, with the digital stuff there's gonna be test error on occasion, but in my opinion there's a regular offset so I think a lot of people myself included just try to take an average. If I look at my trident and my dKH is 7.8 I'm actually happy because its probably 8.8 on hanna which means its probably more like somewhere in the mid 8's which for me is good. Sometimes If I really wanna dig in on seldom occasion Ill bust out hanna and salifert and check all three just for good measure. I think it becomes relative so long as it somewhere in the range you want and stays that way according to trident.

 

[unchaotic]

Digis are just a branching type of montipora so they're usually pretty easy to keep. Most of the stuff in my SPS tank is some type of montipora or stylophora so I'm no expert. I'm on my third and most successful attempt at keeping Red Dragon acro and I will say that Alk and salinity stability have been key to keeping it alive.

I have some experience with buying bright corals and watching them dull down. I chalk it up to lighting brightness/spectrum and nutrients. My primary LFS runs an Ultra Low Nutrient System and the SPS frag tank is getting blasted by Radions. My tank is lighted by some old Ocean Revive lights and I keep low nutrients through low input, I don't have a protein skimmer and I rarely feed the corals let alone dose aminos like the LFS (I have Red Sea AB+ in my Amazon cart). So far I'm starting to get some really good growth and my tank is favoring daytime pastels a little more than neon glow in the blues (I'm totally ok with this). One of the most notable changes to me was an orange monti cap that was absolutely blaze orange at the LFS, turned brown in my mixed reef, and is now a pinkish orange in my SPS tank. I think there is a lot involved with coloration of SPS and that's why you see so much variation when someone asks people to post pics of "such and such" coral.