Montipora Looks like its bleaching?

[Bannanabread04]

Hello, just a question. I'm fairly new to the saltwater side of the fish tank world. but I don't know what could be causing this bleaching? at least this is what I understand what bleaching is. This Montipora used to have a green hump in the middle of it. but is no longer there. also it looks like the edges are losing even its brown color. After I noticed this I actually moved it down a couple inches in the water column. It was at a 230 par location (280 location in picture) in the tank and moved it down to 130 (between 220 and 185 in pic). From what I've read i thought montipora were a high light coral.

Current setup:
2x Ai prime HD
75 Gallon Aqueon tank
16 Gallon sump
Orbit 2 Cross-Flow Pump
Nero 3
Pic for reference:
(these par readings are from no flow readings)


Perameters:
Salinity: 35
Phosphate: .9 PPM
PH: 8.17
Nitrite: .006 PPM
Nitrate: 0 PPM (chaeto in sump)
Calcium: 560 PPM
Ammonia: .39 PPM
Alkalinity: 6.5dkH
Salt: Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt Mix

If you have any tips please let me know, or if i did the right thing by moving it down? thank you in advance!

 

[Tahoe61]

Nitrates are too low, and the alkalinity should slowly come up and let the Calcium drift down. Your chemistry is pretty wonky, for lack of a better word. Why does the tank stil have detectable Ammonia and Nitrites? How old is the tank?
Corals go south fast and take much longer to recover.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

there is no way that 2 primes on a 75 gallon is too bright for monti’s. If anything I would say the light is not bright enough. How did you measure the par? I find those values hard to believe. I think low light low nutrients and maybe low flow

 

[Bannanabread04]

Nitrates are too low, and the alkalinity should slowly come up and let the Calcium drift down. Your chemistry is pretty wonky, for lack of a better word. Why does the tank stil have detectable Ammonia and Nitrites? How old is the tank?
Corals go south fast and take much longer to recover.

The tank is ~4 months old. I did a full fishless cycle before I put anything in it. Not really sure why there is ammonia / nitrites, maybe still stabilizing? Might be something weird with the testing. I'm using hanna checkers, not sure how accurate they are. I'm not dosing any ferts at the moment.

 

[Bannanabread04]

there is no way that 2 primes on a 75 gallon is too bright for monti’s. If anything I would say the light is not bright enough. How did you measure the par? I find those values hard to believe. I think low light low nutrients and maybe low flow

I'm using the BRS par meter. There was no flow at the time of testing. MQ-510 Full Spectrum Underwater LED PAR Meter.

I just measured with the flow I have and those are the values in parenthesis.

 

[Tahoe61]

What are the parameters for tropic marin pro?

Just wanted to know what the parameters for tropic marin pro reef salt was? I was seeing some mixed info and wanted to know the consistent parameters, thanks :)

www.reef2reef.com

^ Values for what the salt should be mixing at. See chart.
Perhaps a decent water change will align the parameters.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I believe you but I’m sorry but I just don’t believe the par value and think low lighting is one if the issues.

 

[Bannanabread04]

What are the parameters for tropic marin pro?

Just wanted to know what the parameters for tropic marin pro reef salt was? I was seeing some mixed info and wanted to know the consistent parameters, thanks :)

www.reef2reef.com

^ Values for what the salt should be mixing at. See chart.
Perhaps a decent water change will align the parameters.

Weird. Didn't realize the calcium should be that much lower. Where else could I be picking up calcium from? Reef rock?

 

[Tahoe61]

Weird. Didn't realize the calcium should be that much lower. Where else could I be picking up calcium from? Reef rock?

I have no idea. Your Alkalinity should be higher. Have you done any water changes?
I agree that light is too low as well.
Sps are a challenge in newer tanks with parameter swings.

 

[Bannanabread04]

I have no idea. Your Alkalinity should be higher. Have you done any water changes?
I agree that light is too low as well.
Sps are a challenge in newer tanks with parameter swings.

Welp, doing about a 35% water change today the parameters ended up getting further from expected.

Salinity: 35
Phosphate: .55 PPM
PH: 7.91
Nitrite: .005 PPM
Nitrate: 0 PPM (chaeto in sump)
Calcium: 581 PPM
Ammonia: .21 PPM
Alkalinity: 6.7dkH

I've read some reviews here and there and apparently other people are also having issues with the salt, Alk and calcium. ill have to make a batch of salt and just test it out of the bin. but i have a feeling the results aren't going to be what they are supposed to be.

Should I add some sodium bicarbonate to get the PH and Alk up to remedy this in the mean time? or should I wait until I get some different salt?

Nitrates are too low, and the alkalinity should slowly come up and let the Calcium drift down. Your chemistry is pretty wonky, for lack of a better word. Why does the tank stil have detectable Ammonia and Nitrites? How old is the tank?
Corals go south fast and take much longer to recover.

I pulled most of the chaeo out of the sump and left a golf ball size clump in there. hopefully that leaves the corals with some nitrates.

there is no way that 2 primes on a 75 gallon is too bright for monti’s. If anything I would say the light is not bright enough. How did you measure the par? I find those values hard to believe. I think low light low nutrients and maybe low flow

I'm going to move the monti up as high as I can put it, and I turned the flow up a bit today as well.

 

[Mrjsmith33]

Your phosphates are through the roof at .9....even at .55 it is still to high.......i was at .67 and started to see negative changes but as i slowly brought it down i started to see polyps come out that had stayed in as well as other positive changes....with sps corals you should shoot below .1 ( .05 or below will be even better.you also need nitrates, you should not be at 0 ( shoot somewhere between 5 and 20).. your tank parameters are all over the place your calcium is high and you shouldnt have ammonia at all ....your tank is still new you get the parameter in check before you put in sps frags.....the light is the least of your concern at this point

 

[braaap]

What everyone has said. It isn’t the light. That much i am positive about.


Get your alk to around 9. Get your phosphates to .02-.08 or so. Get your nitrates up to 5-10. I run mine at 15. Get nitrite and ammonia to zero. So do water changes. 10-20% a day. Calcium to 380-450. Ideally 420ish.

I’d focus on nitrite/ammonia, alk, calcium, nitrate, phosphates in that order.

Water changes for nitrite/ammonia. Fix this before dosing anything.

Dosing for alk, nitrate. Calcium will drop with changes. Dose to balance if needed.

Phosphate removal products if the water changes don’t bring them down.

 

[Patx]

Total Hours of ligh ? (By Curiosity)

 

[Bannanabread04]

Total Hours of ligh ? (By Curiosity)

Start ramp @ 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM
Full brightness @2:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Ramp down @5:30 PM to 9:40 PM

 

[Bannanabread04]

Thanks for all your help guys, after banging my head against the wall for hours testing and trying to figure out why I have such high calcium it seems the batch of salt from Tropic Marin must have been a bad batch. The Alkalinity is 6.7dkH and calcium is 583 on a fresh 32 gallon mix. not really sure what to do for now other then change salt MFGs for now. (changed DI Resin as well) Hopefully ill need higher calcium salt in the future.

but after todays 15% WC the results are:
Salinity: 35
Phosphate: .05 PPM (tested on multiple test kits after getting varied results from Hanna) (thinking some of the previous results were skewed somehow.)
PH: 8.00
Nitrite: .005 PPM (nitrite has a tolerance of + or - 10 ppb on Hanna, pretty sure this is 0)
Nitrate: 0 PPM (chaeto in sump) (Turned down light cycle of chaeto by 2 hours to hopefully bring this number up)
Calcium: over 600 PPM (Hanna maxed)
Ammonia: .12 PPM
Alkalinity: 6.8dkH

After doing some digging I didn't realize how critical it was to get the Hanna checkers perfect while using, some people even suggesting that if you put the glass tube in there a different way then when it was zeroed you will get different results, wiping all finger prints from vials before & during testing, etc.... I also bought some standardizing fluid for the calcium to make sure the checker is correct.

I did add some Calcium Carbonate to the bulk water to try and bring the dkH up some. (slowly bringing it up in the display tank)

I do have a reactor in the system that wasn't mentioned before but I'm only running carbon in it for water clarity. I don't really want to run GFO if I don't have to, I want to be able to manage the phosphates "naturally" if I can.

I'm usually not a number chaser but this calcium had me going in circles.

If I said something wrong in this I'm sure you guys will let me know. Thanks again.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Start ramp @ 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM
Full brightness @2:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Ramp down @5:30 PM to 9:40 PM

Any reason to limit to only 3 hours peak lighting? I think most are at 8 hours peak on average, I have 10-12 hours peak on my tanks.

 

[Bannanabread04]

Any reason to limit to only 3 hours peak lighting? I think most are at 8 hours peak on average, I have 10-12 hours peak on my tanks.

I think the biggest reason right now was algae. I dont have many corals that would out compete the algae. As the tank gets older I may extend the peak hours. Everything excepting the monti is doing great. Which I know is a high light coral which could be contributing to its issues.

 

[Spare time]

Start ramp @ 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM
Full brightness @2:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Ramp down @5:30 PM to 9:40 PM

Keep in mind that prolonged high UV and Violet on these light can melt the lense.

 

[Spare time]

I would dose amino acids to help supplement the low nitrate.


As for the calcium and alk, see if a fish store near you can double check. Are you using distilled water for the Hanna calcium test?

 

[Bannanabread04]

Keep in mind that prolonged high UV and Violet on these light can melt the lense.

Oof, noted. I'll keep an eye on them.