Spongodes bleached from bottom up. Now totally bleached

[chickendirt]

I'm so stupid sometimes:rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

Got this coral about three weeks ago for $15. I don't dabble into SPS too much but this coral really caught my eye. It's just a cool color and looks like a ball of green snot from Ghostbuster or something. Few days ago notice the bottom was turning white. Intitially assumed it was due to not getting any light as the coral itself kinda bulges out a bit over the light. Had it under an AI Prime HD in decent flow.

Next day noticed that it had bleached 2/3 of the way to the top. Kinda started to get concerned at this point cause this was a rapid shift. The night before I added about 5 MLs of NoPox before bed as I was getting some hair algae and just dosed some reef energy. I got worried that maybe I bottomed out my nutrients as I was researching the issue online. I dosed about 3mls of Seachem Nitrogen just as a precaution. Mainly thinking that even though I still had hair algae the NoPox might have depleted whatever Nitrates that I had out of the water volume. So I never tested the nitrates.

To no avail I now have a totally bleached white frag.

Last night I did a water change of about 10 gallons and cleaned my FX6. I juat realized I hadn't checked my KH in a little over a week. I',m trying to switch over to Blue Bucket from Coral Pro. I don't like the high KH of coral pro cause I don't have any large colonies and the high KH doesn't leave much ceiling for error. In five gallon buckets I've been mixing 1.5 cups coral pro to 1 cup blue buckey to ease transition. My KH Mixes to about 10.7. Down from the 11.8 the coral pro is stuck at in my tank.

So today I tested my KH and got a reading of 9.3 on Salifert. I'm guessing my alk must have dropped most likely along with the NItrate drop off from the Nopox. Probably close to about 9ish for a few days.

Oddly my goniopora are just rocking along like nothing happened. Is it possible the spongodes is more sensitive to KH drops than Goniopora?

 

[KrisReef]

New corals have to adjust to the new parameters. My spongeies liked m dirty water and generally were rock solid once they were established. Having elevated dkh is not a problem if you have plenty of p & N to feed the growing coral. Using nopox is not recommended, hair algae is better Han coral death.

 

[Vivid Creative Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

Do a check for Monti Eating nudibranch (google image search) - the fact hat it went that it took a few days and it went for the bottom bottom up, sound like something those little jerks would do.

I have had to deal with them before, an to be honest, i didn't win. There appetite for sponges coral is off the chart.

If you have any other montipora in the tank - check them too,

 

[chickendirt]

Do a check for Monti Eating nudibranch (google image search) - the fact hat it went that it took a few days and it went for the bottom bottom up, sound like something those little jerks would do.

I have had to deal with them before, an to be honest, i didn't win. There appetite for sponges coral is off the chart.

If you have any other montipora in the tank - check them too,

Thats crazy!!! I’ll have to check. Looks like they are all white. Need to break out the reading glasses lol.

I dont have any Montipora or SPS. Have frags at this point. 2 goniopora, 4 Zoas and 2 Duncans.

It would be crazier if Ive had them with no
montis to feed them this whole time.

 

[chickendirt]

New corals have to adjust to the new parameters. My spongeies liked m dirty water and generally were rock solid once they were established. Having elevated dkh is not a problem if you have plenty of p & N to feed the growing coral. Using nopox is not recommended, hair algae is better Han coral death.

I think Im backing off the NoPox from here on out. Ive lost two Nems to it as well.

I’m currently plumbing a sump with a skimmer on the way. Only have five fish in the tank so not so heavily stocked but hair algae battle is ridiculous. Balancing out feeding the frags and this stuff popping up.

Hopefully the skimmer helps.

 

[Vivid Creative Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

Thats crazy!!! I’ll have to check. Looks like they are all white. Need to break out the reading glasses lol.

I dont have any Montipora or SPS. Have frags at this point. 2 goniopora, 4 Zoas and 2 Duncans.

It would be crazier if Ive had them with no
montis to feed them this whole time.

They can hitchhike in like anything else. If you recently added that Spongodes frag, AND you to discover them, its more then they came with that frag.

either way, they can survive for long periods of time without any sort of montipora present.

Fingers crossed its not nubis.