Montipora Browning and bleaching

Jeff Cole · Apr 30, 2018

Hoping the reef vetrans out there can help a newbie. Left for two weeks on vacation and had my tank sitter feeding pre measured doses of food to my tank while gone. When I left all corals we're in great shape. Upon return yesterday all was well except for my Montiporas at top of tank. One appears to be bleaching the other has a brown growth on it. Parameters are as follows
77 degrees
pH 8.2
Salinity 1.025
Alkalinity 8.8
Calcium 488
Nitrates 2
Nitrites 0
Ammonia 0
Phosphates 0
Magnesium 1400

Jeff Cole · Apr 30, 2018

Jeff Cole said:
Hoping the reef vetrans out there can help a newbie. Left for two weeks on vacation and had my tank sitter feeding pre measured doses of food to my tank while gone. When I left all corals we're in great shape. Upon return yesterday all was well except for my Montiporas at top of tank. One appears to be bleaching the other has a brown growth on it. Parameters are as follows
77 degrees
pH 8.2
Salinity 1.025
Alkalinity 8.8
Calcium 488
Nitrates 2
Nitrites 0
Ammonia 0
Phosphates 0
Magnesium 1400

Anybody.....

HB AL · Apr 30, 2018

Looks like you've had them a while, something definetly changed while you were gone. The brown spots might be algae growing over possible spots that died. They both seem to be suffering from the same condition. Anyway to give them a good iodine dip, even if you have to pull the whole rock and hold it upside down, only thing I can think of to maybe help them out.