Weird slime on montipora

[Cobystolz]

I had a huge piece of plating montipora that recently just got covered in a weird slime. It started with a small patch and within a day I had to frag off some pieces to save what was left and then the next day there was nothing left to save and it smelled awful, like a rotten fish or something. The first picture is what it used to look like and then it went to the other pictures in less than two days. Any ideas what it could be and if it could spread to the other coral or not? I took it out as soon as I realized I wasn’t gonna save it

 

[USMC 4 LIFE]

Something is very off in your tank

Have you checked your parameters, if so list them, temp, salinity

 

[Cobystolz]

Something is very off in your tank

Have you checked your parameters, if so list them, temp, salinity

All the parameters are good, there is a few montipora eating nudibranch and I touched it trying to siphon them out. The parameters are nitrates zero, ammonia zero, alk 5.3, cal 400, MG 1360, ph 8.1 and temp is at eighty and salinity is 1.024-1.026

 

[rhastareefer]

That's pretty low for alk, also zero nitrate is not good.

 

[USMC 4 LIFE]

All the parameters are good, there is a few montipora eating nudibranch and I touched it trying to siphon them out. The parameters are nitrates zero, ammonia zero, alk 5.3, cal 400, MG 1360, ph 8.1 and temp is at eighty and salinity is 1.024-1.026

Sorry but there’s a lot wrong there.

1) Monti eating nudis are going to threaten the health of that coral until they are eradicated.

2) Alk is low as well. Get it up to 7.5 over the span of two weeks. Are you dosing daily or supplementing parameters with water changes?

3) You need to measure your salinity with a reliable tool. Hydrometers are notoriously inconsistent FYI.

4) Nitrates need to be at least detectable. I preferably keep them between 2-4ppm.

 

[Cobystolz]

Sorry but there’s a lot wrong there.

1) Monti eating nudis are going to threaten the health of that coral until they are eradicated.

2) Alk is low as well. Get it up to 7.5 over the span of two weeks. Are you dosing daily or supplementing parameters with water changes?

3) You need to measure your salinity with a reliable tool. Hydrometers are notoriously inconsistent FYI.

4) Nitrates need to be at least detectable. I preferably keep them between 2-4ppm.

I am working on getting rid of the nudibranch.

I am not dosing daily or doing water changes yet. I am using kalkwasser in the ato bucket though.

I measure salinity with a refractometer it’s just hard to tell and the tank is at our store and I only go in about once a week so I can’t check right now but that’s about what it was last time

Nitrates may be detectable at maybe 1 or lower but it was hard to tell. I don’t know how to raise them though because I only have a refugium that’s not growing chaeto just hair algae that I don’t like and a skimmer. That’s all my filtration in the sump other than rocks in the tank and some marine pure in the sump.
There is some pictures of the refugium and one of the tank. Everything else seems fine except maybe a little less colorful than I would hope but I thought that was because I don’t have much blue light in the tank

 

[USMC 4 LIFE]

Growing any algae is fine in a refugium. It doing its job well with your numbers.

Well you can raise your nitrates and phosphates by removing some hair algae from the sump. Just be careful not to disturb the area too much.

You’re going to have to keep parameters stable if you’re only monitoring it once a week. A doser would work.

As far as the nudis. Well you can dip your montis in Bayer every other week to give them relief or introduce a Wrasse that may or may not hunt for them (yellow coris wrasse). I say this because I assume running a qt tank is out of the question since you only monitor the tank once a week

Adding top off water to minimize salinity fluctuation is also an issue.

 

[Cobystolz]

Growing any algae is fine in a refugium. It doing its job well with your numbers.

Well you can raise your nitrates and phosphates by removing some hair algae from the sump. Just be careful not to disturb the area too much.

You’re going to have to keep parameters stable if you’re only monitoring it once a week. A doser would work.

As far as the nudis. Well you can dip your montis in Bayer every other week to give them relief or introduce a Wrasse that may or may not hunt for them (yellow coris wrasse). I say this because I assume running a qt tank is out of the question since you only monitor the tank once a week

Adding top off water to minimize salinity fluctuation is also an issue.

I would like to get chaeto to grow in the sump but it gets out competed or something. I do have the guys at the store let me know how things are going and sometimes I go in more than once a week. I did already want to get a yellow coris wrasse for that exact reason. What would I run a quarantine tank for? Coral or fish? I could do it at home but I would like to keep the stuff in the tank if possible since I can’t really have it be ugly at the store. Also what about the adding top off water? I have an auto top off that keeps water at one level consistently