Montipora help

[Top189h]

Recently, I had been having trouble with my new set up. I had a blue montipora (my first sps) that was growing like crazy the first few months I had it, but my some of my other corals were stagnant in growth. I ended up starting to dose reef energy and everything else took off. After about a month and a half, my monti quit growing and started turning pale. I quit dosing reef energy and it's color started to return in sections. On one edge it started turning green like algae was growing on it, so I fragged that piece off. The polyps haven't been open in about 2 weeks. I moved it down in the tank, but haven't seen any improvement. The tank is a 24x24x12 with an ic loop pro led on it set to 78% blue, 35% white 10% red and 10% green. Everything has seemed stable, .2-.4 for phosphate, .2-.5 for phosphate, 10.2 alkalinity and 7.8-8.1for pH over the last month. I'm not quite sure which direction to go, I want to try target feeding, but I feel like that would be worthless without it's polyps out. I'm half tempted to try reef energy again, but I can't help but think that the monti didn't like it, I've done an additional 5 gallon water change (with reef crystals) but that didn't seem to help any either. I've been looking for pests each morning but haven't seen anything.

 

[fishguy242]

hi,calcium,salinity levels,? canyou post some pics ,monti,full tank shot?how old is tank?

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

The alkalinity is high based on my experience. Also, seems like nitrates are a bit low and phosphates are a bit high, if I interpreted your text correctly. When alkalinity is that high, the skeleton can outgrow the overlying tissue, leading to a faded or bleached appearance.

Can you please post nutrient values? Do you have PAR values for the area where the montipora is located?

I've also had big issues with Reef Crystals, for what it's worth.

 

[4theluvofcoral]

Recently, I had been having trouble with my new set up. I had a blue montipora (my first sps) that was growing like crazy the first few months I had it, but my some of my other corals were stagnant in growth. I ended up starting to dose reef energy and everything else took off. After about a month and a half, my monti quit growing and started turning pale. I quit dosing reef energy and it's color started to return in sections. On one edge it started turning green like algae was growing on it, so I fragged that piece off. The polyps haven't been open in about 2 weeks. I moved it down in the tank, but haven't seen any improvement. The tank is a 24x24x12 with an ic loop pro led on it set to 78% blue, 35% white 10% red and 10% green. Everything has seemed stable, .2-.4 for phosphate, .2-.5 for phosphate, 10.2 alkalinity and 7.8-8.1for pH over the last month. I'm not quite sure which direction to go, I want to try target feeding, but I feel like that would be worthless without it's polyps out. I'm half tempted to try reef energy again, but I can't help but think that the monti didn't like it, I've done an additional 5 gallon water change (with reef crystals) but that didn't seem to help any either. I've been looking for pests each morning but haven't seen anything.

Do you have pics of it!? Love blue

 

[Top189h]

Thank you for the feedback, as for the tank, it has been up since March, but everything in it came from my 125 gallon which had been up for a few years. As for the chemistry, I'll have to ask my wife about the calcium ( she handles all of the testing) 1.026 on the salinity. I don't have access to anything to measure the par value. As for it out growing the tissue, it certainly was when it first started growing. The edges were always white.

 

[Top189h]

She said the calcium level is around 500, she also ordered a magnesium test kit since we've been out for a while. What other nutrients should I be trying or at this point could an icp test be needed?

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

She said the calcium level is around 500, she also ordered a magnesium test kit since we've been out for a while. What other nutrients should I be trying or at this point could an icp test be needed?

If it were my tank, I'd make sure I have some nitrates, in the 2-10 ppm range, phosphates below 0.1 ppm, and I'd reduce alkalinity to around 7-8 dKH. I would not expect any pests or issues requiring an ICP test at this time, although you can always do that if you want to.

 

[homer1475]

If it were my tank, I'd make sure I have some nitrates, in the 2-10 ppm range, phosphates below 0.1 ppm, and I'd reduce alkalinity to around 7-8 dKH. I would not expect any pests or issues requiring an ICP test at this time, although you can always do that if you want to.

I would 100% agree with this assessment. I find my monti's do not like high alkalinity.

 

[Top189h]

What could I do to reduce my alkalinity, I don't dose anything anymore and never have dosed anything but the reef energy? I also attached pictures, I think I lost the monti, he has never looked this bad.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

What could I do to reduce my alkalinity, I don't dose anything anymore and never have dosed anything but the reef energy? I also attached pictures, I think I lost the monti, he has never looked this bad.

He doesn't look dead yet. Definitely stressed. You can use a lower alkalinity salt (like Brightwell, I think?) or you can dose sodium bisulfate to reduce alkalinity. I think if you get the alkalinity lowered and stabile, you will see an improvement.

If the alkalinity uptake is very slow, you will have a difficult time maintaining lower alkalinity using Reef Crystals.

 

[fishguy242]

a few water changes,monitor params ,work on stability ,cal 450,alk8-9 jmo

 

[homer1475]

a few water changes,monitor params ,work on stability ,cal 450,alk8-9 jmo

This, but don't keep using reef crystals as it has very high ALK. I find my tank does best at 7.5, but anywhere between 7 and 9 is best. And if you ran a poll here(it's already been done), the general consensus is 8.5.

 

[Top189h]

A friend of mine has some tropic marin salt. He gave me enough to mix up about 30 gallons. I'm going to mix it all up and work on trying to change out a gallon a day to see if there is any improvement. He is also giving me some ocean magic and pns Yello snow to dose to see if that does any better than the reef energy.

 

[Top189h]

Just a quick update, I've managed to change out 5 gallons with the new tropic marin pro salt. I've also dosed the new additives. I finally saw a few polyps peaking out last night. My other corals are responding really well to it. So far, no major swings in the parameters, everything is basically the same other than phosphate coming down to .5 and my alk is now down to 9.8.

 

[Top189h]

After changing a total of 8 gallons one gallon per day, I ended up letting it sit for a day then did one 5 gallon change. My nitrates are down to about 0 and my phosphate is hanging around .5. My alk is still sitting pretty high at around 9.6. I'm not going to chase it anymore. My friend broke off a small frag of the monti to see if it does anything in his tank, and in the process, a piece covered in algae came off. I decided to put the small frag on a rock that is really close to the surface and within a day the algae was gone and it had color back. This made me decide to move the main frag up higher in the tank. Within a couple hours it started looking much better. Thank you all for the guidance and hopefully the main frag can overcome the algae like the little piece did.

 

[Uncle99]

Phosphate at .5 is way too high and will kill a monti.
I see a some green which indicates potential high phosphate.
The target range would be phosphate at 0.03-.1 max.
Coralline algae on the glass is a great indicator water chemistry is in line for SPS.

 

[Top189h]

I know the phosphate was an issue, but I didn't really expect it to be the root cause since the frag had been doing so well with it elevated. When I had my 125 up, I'm assuming the amount of live rock and refugium were able to keep things in check. When I was forced to downsize, my chaeto started dying off so I pulled it and attempted to grow hair algae in the back. Nothing grew. I'm assuming it can only run as much as the nitrate allows. What I can't figure out is why my phosphate isn't responding the way my nitrate has. I have ordered some chemi pure elite ( used to run it on the 125 before I tried chaeto ). I'm just going to give it some time to let everything get used to the new salt and levels it provides. I'm thinking next week I'll add the chemi pure and cross my fingers that it brings it down.

 

[Top189h]

Ended up doing one more 5 gallon water change and putting chemi pure elite in on Saturday. My phosphates are down to .04 as of today, and my alkalinity hit 9.4. I will be testing those two at least once a week just to make sure everything is staying in check. The color is getting darker and I'm seeing polyps sneaking out more frequently.

 

[Top189h]

Just wanted to say thank you all for the help, the monti is growing again, and vertically in places this time. I am unfortunately battling a bit of a bryopsis looking algae now. Dosing nopox and keeping everything in check seems to be helping. I also have brought back a pencil urchin that I had isolated as it loved to snack on my kenya tree. He is devouring the algae a rock at a time.