Montipora Bleaching, Expert needed

[AquaBert]

Hi, I bought a monti 2 weeks ago and I think it’s fading fast. Not sure why. I have a nano tank (evo5) but need some advice. Below are the parameters swings from 11/01 and today, 11/11.
11/01. 11/11
Ammonia. 0.00. 0.00
Nitrite 0.00. 0.00
NITRATE. 9.1ppm. 9.8ppm
Phosphate 0.07ppm. 0.05ppm
Alk. 9.4 9.2
Calcium. 406ppm 399ppm
Magnes. 1380ppm 1305ppm (tested twice, looks like the softies are gobbling it up so I brought it up to 1345ppm and will does a bit more in a couple of days)
Salinity. 1.024. 1.024
pH 8.4. 8.6 (morning readings, refugium with chaeto in it. Will drop to 8.3 before the lights come on in refugium and returns to 8.6 by 8am when lights come off.
ROI water only
Temp always 77 degrees, +/- 0.3 degrees.

Dosing: AB+ daily (1ml) & seachem trace elements (twice weekly as directed)

Flow is def medium/low. Closer to medium.

Par: I’ve been acclimating for 2 weeks, bringing up the Par. Started at 75 Par then up to About 120 par at full spectrum and 130 par with blue/royal/violet during moon cycle.

I know the par is low but that wouldn’t cause bleaching….would it?

So frustrating, because I keep my parameters with little fluctuations. See pics of before and after below. I’m open to suggestions!

Pic on right is 1st day - pic in middle is today where it looks spotty.

 

[Lavey29]

How old is the tank? Low par like that can stress the coral and result in an infection thus bleaching. If it went from a good stable environment into a tank that does not have a favorable environment.

If you want SPS in your nano you will need a better light.

 

[AquaBert]

How old is the tank? Low par like that can stress the coral and result in an infection thus bleaching. If it went from a good stable environment into a tank that does not have a favorable environment.

If you want SPS in your nano you will need a better light.

The tank is 18 months since cycling. And I added my first softies and lps 15 months ago.

The light can be adjusted. I’m running it on avg about 30% if I bring it to 70% it will have the full Par it needs.

I guess I thought that by acclimating it, I had to lower the light intensity

 

[Lavey29]

The tank is 18 months since cycling. And I added my first softies and lps 15 months ago.

The light can be adjusted. I’m running it on avg about 30% if I bring it to 70% it will have the full Par it needs.

I guess I thought that by acclimating it, I had to lower the light intensity

Ok good, some people choose to low light acclimate. I never have, I figure if the frag came from 300 par, I'm putting it in 300 par for example. Your numbers are not bad I'd bump salinity up just a pinch maybe .025. Give it more light. It can still rebound for you. Use all blue and uv with low intensity red and green. Minimal white also. White is just for viewing pleasure only and to help par number but corals don't use it.

Do you have abundant coralline growing? This is a decent indicator that your tank is ready for SPS.

 

[AquaBert]

Ok good, some people choose to low light acclimate. I never have, I figure if the frag came from 300 par, I'm putting it in 300 par for example. Your numbers are not bad I'd bump salinity up just a pinch maybe .025. Give it more light. It can still rebound for you. Use all blue and uv with low intensity red and green. Minimal white also. White is just for viewing pleasure only and to help par number but corals don't use it.

Do you have abundant coralline growing? This is a decent indicator that your tank is ready for SPS.

Ok good, some people choose to low light acclimate. I never have, I figure if the frag came from 300 par, I'm putting it in 300 par for example. Your numbers are not bad I'd bump salinity up just a pinch maybe .025. Give it more light. It can still rebound for you. Use all blue and uv with low intensity red and green. Minimal white also. White is just for viewing pleasure only and to help par number but corals don't use it.

Do you have abundant coralline growing? This is a decent indicator that your tank is ready for SPS.

yes I have lots of purple and pink coralline. In fact I have an urchin that mows threw it haha.

yes I have lots of purple and pink coralline. In fact I have an urchin that mows through it haha.

I guess I would have to agree with you and bring my par up to where it was.

 

[Lavey29]

I guess I would have to agree with you and bring my par up to where it was.

Good, I started with the easy SPS frags to as testers. Try a monti digi, stylo, birdsnest, etc... they are fairly cheap and good to begin with. I've been giving huge colonies of those to my LFS now and starting over with more difficult acros now to see if I can grow them too. I had 38 frags at one point that have all grown into full colonies and mini colonies now with no real losses as they were maturing. I think you are on a good path for success but I tell you I was shocked to actually see how low my par was in my radion lights when I finally got a par meter. I run 100% intensity now and everything is thriving

 

[brandon429]

I want to track this thread for a bleach prevention thread I collect examples for

you are going to raise light levels vs lower them is that right?

 

[Paullawr]

I wouldn't blame the light. Have you checked for critters.

 

[AquaBert]

I want to track this thread for a bleach prevention thread I collect examples for

you are going to raise light levels vs lower them is that right?

Yes. I’ve gone and raised them to the 50% of max with now puts that coral at 175 par. I’ll let them sit there for a week or so then move it up to 225.

I want to track this thread for a bleach prevention thread I collect examples for

you are going to raise light levels vs lower them is that right?

 

[AquaBert]

I wouldn't blame the light. Have you checked for critters.

Yeah, I dip and inspect. I have another similar coral that is ok but has a lower light requirement.

 

[AquaBert]

Good, I started with the easy SPS frags to as testers. Try a monti digi, stylo, birdsnest, etc... they are fairly cheap and good to begin with. I've been giving huge colonies of those to my LFS now and starting over with more difficult acros now to see if I can grow them too. I had 38 frags at one point that have all grown into full colonies and mini colonies now with no real losses as they were maturing. I think you are on a good path for success but I tell you I was shocked to actually see how low my par was in my radion lights when I finally got a par meter. I run 100% intensity now and everything is thriving

I agree, I got an apogee and wow lol, super low. I think they were at 60 par. Crazy low.

 

[AquaBert]

Unfortunately it bleached…and I have another coral bleaching as well. I think I’m just going to keep the Evo 5 as a lps/softie mix. My pars are fine, my parameters are fine. The flow is ok. I don’t know why I lost the sps’s

 

[Lavey29]

Unfortunately it bleached…and I have another coral bleaching as well. I think I’m just going to keep the Evo 5 as a lps/softie mix. My pars are fine, my parameters are fine. The flow is ok. I don’t know why I lost the sps’s

I reviewed your posts again and see where you state that you dose trace elements twice a week. This is really not needed for a nano tank. No dosing is needed at all typically if you do weekly water changes on a nano. Perhaps you have an imbalance there now?

 

[brandon429]

By chasing what you were told was the right par without factoring the feedback from the coral. It wasn’t the right par for that area in the tank



what works in our tanks at home isn’t what we should advise the masses, but that temptation is strong. People usually always expect their outcomes to be the same ones others will see.

The absolute first step in bleach prevention (when working in other people’s reef tanks where we don’t control or know all the variables) is reduction of light power, not an increase, we have plenty of work threads for this that are searchable.

 

[brandon429]

You have about a ten percent chance of reclaiming the coral, it might not be dead, if you change course opposite from what you were told to do here

on searchable bleach prevention threads we:

remove all white spectrum

lower overall intensity

stop referencing par to keep sps alive and strong

you don’t need a par meter to run a reef tank they make you hyperfocus on the wrong thing


spot feed the coral with hq food, small particle food, and be changing tank water at an increased rate for the next two months. I’ve brought my montis back from total bleaching twice now after various system insults.

even when your tank is back strong: stop using the par meter to make changes. Don’t use it.



from outbound work threads on bleach prevention in other people’s tanks:

Unhappy with my tank, need some advice.

Isn’t a concern too much light rather than too little light? I’m not seeing any real signs of that here. You should see my tank. It’s blindingly bright in there.

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all those threads have one action in common

 

[Lavey29]

By chasing what you were told was the right par by Lavey without factoring the feedback from the coral.

he told you to do something that works for his tank, without any work links-he didn’t link any jobs to read where he was able to stop bleaching in someone else’s reef tank.

what works in our tanks at home isn’t what we should advise the masses, but that temptation is strong. People usually always expect their outcomes to be the same ones others will see.

The absolute first step in bleach prevention (when working in other people’s reef tanks where we don’t control or know all the variables) is reduction of light power, not an increase, we have plenty of work threads for this that are searchable.


untested advice from peers who only work in their own reef tanks at home bleached it.

Really? Light will not control an infection it may have developed from shipping stress will it? I've had bleaching infections and light had nothing to do with it. Simply cut the bleaching part off and coral is fine.

 

[brandon429]

I’m glad it’s only one small frag vs all of them. It was just too bright in that one spot apparently, relative to your alk and feed acquisition rates and blue spectrum balance.

 

[Borat]

In my experience no light is too bright for montipora, especially plating/encrusting.. Same applies to flow - no flow is too high.

I wonder if you are having some other issues, such as water quality and/or the fact that it's a softie tank (and so the chemicals released by soft corals could be negatively impacting the SPS). Also check potassium levels - plating montipora needs it badly.

 

[AquaBert]

Well I appreciate his advice but I’ll try your method. My par was super low tho, I just use it to make sure I’m in the recommended range (I.e - 0-75, 75-150 and 150+ lol. I’m not blasting them but I also don’t want to starve them!

Thank you for the articles also I’ll take a look at it!

 

[AquaBert]

I’m glad it’s only one small frag vs all of them. It was just too bright in that one spot apparently, relative to your alk and feed acquisition rates and blue spectrum balance.

So I have a question, if the seller says they keep them at 200 par but they are bleaching at 100 par, what should I do?