encrusting monti color - Help!

[1DeR9_3Hy]

How do you know? what is quite well? With the amount of water changes and the small amount of small corals, the calcium depletion should be negligible. Don't add stuff if you are not testing for it.


Plastic is the first thing that will get covered. I don't see any on the filter tube or on the Koralia.

Something is way off balance, there are some other corals in your tank that don't look so hot imo. Hence more stuff is dying. Maybe you do need to add a small fish or 2...

I do have to say that you have a lot of light for that small tank, but that depends on the efficiency of the reflectors you have. What fixture are you using?

Sorry if this post comes over as a bit harsh but I'm trying to help and want to understand the full system you are running.

Waffleman

Harsh, dont worry about it

The koralia is rather new (it replaced some cheap powerheads), and I scrub the filter (tube and body) when i replace the carbon. If i could get a good macro shot of the tube you would be able to see how scuffed up it is.

I did some tests about a month ago every day for a week, and i found that 10/mls a day of each part A&B with C-balance kept the cal/alk steady. The demand may have gone up since then, but not by much. Ill retest when i add a few more frags.

Its a lot of light, and its getting raised about 4" today. Its actually a really inexpensive brand of lights, that many people knock...but i have had great luck with...so they will stay nameless for now

There a few stonys on the back of the right rock that i have not mounted yet, so thats part of the cal/alk consumption. Sidenote: I brought in 3 tubes of superglue gel last week, and all 3 tubes were hardened up....big lots "deal"...go figure.

 

[belgian_waffleman]

I get my superglue Gel at the dollar store. I haven't had any issues so far, I just picked up 15 tubes again...5 dollars worth

If calcium is kept around 400 ppm and KH around 8 or 9 you should be OK. I'm starting to think that your system is too clean... add a fish.

Waffleman

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

I get my superglue Gel at the dollar store. I haven't had any issues so far, I just picked up 15 tubes again...5 dollars worth

If calcium is kept around 400 ppm and KH around 8 or 9 you should be OK. I'm starting to think that your system is too clean... add a fish.

Waffleman

Thanks buddy Thats the funny part, i buy 10 packs (of 3) @ $1.50 a time from big lots without a problem...but this batch has all been junk. Hopefully this is just a fluke.

Im thinking the same about the fish....and the nearest LFS has many captive bred clowns that are small, and eating pellet. Thats what i need is a low maintnence fish....

 

[NeverlosT]

Im with the waffle. I had the same problem for quite some time in my DT. Too clean. I finally started using filter bags and leaving them in for days at a time, feeding the fish more, and adding fish, and I am FINALLY getting color back. Oh and I have two pokerstar frags, one I put about 3" under water with a 205W 14K halide 6" over the water, and the other about 15" down. The one up TOP is coloring up and growing, the one down bottom is just kind of hanging out and pale.

Anyhow, dirty that tank up.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Im with the waffle. I had the same problem for quite some time in my DT. Too clean. I finally started using filter bags and leaving them in for days at a time, feeding the fish more, and adding fish, and I am FINALLY getting color back. Oh and I have two pokerstar frags, one I put about 3" under water with a 205W 14K halide 6" over the water, and the other about 15" down. The one up TOP is coloring up and growing, the one down bottom is just kind of hanging out and pale.

Anyhow, dirty that tank up.

Walking out the door right now on lunch to the lfs, and i have my camera today...lets see what i can find.

 

[rigleautomotive]

low mag does this to my frag tank occasionally.I dose 2 part in it and the mag will fall to 1100 once in a while if i am not diligent with testing/adding etc... When it gets this low it will make some of my encrusting montis turn almost white.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Thanks for the tip, ill try and bring that test in again.

Im back from the LFS, there tanks were pretty well picked over. Plenty of clowns, but the guy who knows my face was not working today so i would end up paying full price...ill wait.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Ive been thinking about the fish addition, and while i do want a fish i dont want to take care of it in this tank lol...im looking into either:

sodium nitrate (seems like its easy to over dose, expecially on nano's)
AA's (seems to be only anecdotal evidence that this indirectly benefits corals)
Coral foods like H20 frozen coral food, Coral Frenzy, or oyster eggs...any input on one of these approaches would be appreciated.

 

[rigleautomotive]

Ive been thinking about the fish addition, and while i do want a fish i dont want to take care of it in this tank lol...im looking into either:

sodium nitrate (seems like its easy to over dose, expecially on nano's)
AA's (seems to be only anecdotal evidence that this indirectly benefits corals)
Coral foods like H20 frozen coral food, Coral Frenzy, or oyster eggs...any input on one of these approaches would be appreciated.

I found that in my frag tank that has a very low fish load,(one small tang) adding some food helps with coloration.I add oyster eggs twice a week along with flakes daily and cyclopeeze occasionally.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Just finished another battery of tests:

Cal: 440
Mag: 1300
pH:8.1
Alk:2.5 meq/l
temp: 79.7

Is 2.5 meg/l low with a pH of 8.1?

 

[rigleautomotive]

Just finished another battery of tests:

Cal: 440
Mag: 1300
pH:8.1
Alk:2.5 meq/l
temp: 79.7

Is 2.5 meg/l low with a pH of 8.1?

Your numbers seem fine except for the alk.I wouldnt worry about your ph as much as your alk being at the desired level and stable .its at the bottom of the range there and if you dial in the test kit noise you may be at a dangerous #.I was hoping i would have seen a terribly low mg reading and that was the issue that caused your color loss.What kit did you use for mg.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Your numbers seem fine except for the alk.I wouldnt worry about your ph as much as your alk being at the desired level and stable .its at the bottom of the range there and if you dial in the test kit noise you may be at a dangerous #.I was hoping i would have seen a terribly low mg reading and that was the issue that caused your color loss.What kit did you use for mg.

Yeah i was hoping for something obvious as well....someone mentioned low potassium, what are the odds of that?

All tests were done with red sea kits. The calcium kit reads as much as 200 pts either way compared to the lfs kits, but at 440 its either 420 or 460...so thats fine as well. The mag however has always been spot on when compared to other kits.

I added 2ml of alk buffer, ill retest in a little bit and see where im at.

 

[rigleautomotive]

Potassium ,I doubt it.I know i have never added it and many very sucessful aquaculture facilities and vetran reef hobbiests have great colors without ever adding it or testing it.RHF believes there is enough in the salt mixes and its rarly low enough to cause issues along with the test kits being very inaccurate so i tend to ignore it.The zeo heads will disagree.

However I have had terrible results with red sea mg kits and get readings of 1800 when my salifert and elos kits say its 1300.I also sent a sample to a lab to verify my #s and found the red sea kits to be off by several hundred ppm.this was 2 kits purchased seperatly and from different locations.maybe they are fine now ,this was about 1 year ago.

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Thanks for the heads up on the kits, im heading to the LFS again today (they got there shipment yesterday), ill take some water for testing.

Maybe i will find something to add some movement (and nutrients) to the tank today...

 

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Yay, a good trip to the LFS...I got:

1 TR pajama cardinal
1 TR occy clown
1 Koralia 1

I traded in a pocci that i fragged and kept the smaller piece, a kenya tree and some pulsing xenia that i needed to get out of the tank before it took over.

So as of now, i have 3 zoa's (mohawks, green bay packers, pink palys) and 13 sps frags and one 8 headed acan.

Id call it sps dominant