Monti Turning White

[Alex114]

I have a forest fire Montipora, very new frag and had been doing well up until yesterday. I was doing maintenance and the water felt very warm. My heater said it was at 79-80 but the thermometer said 84-85. It couldn't have been like this for more than a few hours because I had checked the temp earlier that day. I let the tank cool overnight and this morning back down to 80 but the very tips of the Montipora have turned white and the polyps seem to be flaking off on the ends. Everything else seems to be doing ok thankfully. Is there anything I can do to help the coral at this point? Or will it recover on its own?

 

[Oldreeferman]

If your using a digital temperature sensor that has been checked for accuracy then the waterheater is fubar or the house was hot. At this point all you can do is provide stability in water temps from here on, 85 is a serious knifepoint where temps are concerned. It will either recover or not but hopefully it will since it was a short term event. I had purchased several digital probe thermometers to make sure all were accurate as ive had 1 go bad & read way way low & i installed heater cut offs so that only a power outage could allow things to overheat. If your heater was at fault be sure to place a heater controller between it & the outlet. Give the coral ample time at least several weeks min. Won't hurt anything to let it set in tank, I had a coral once that went 3 months withdrawn then all the sudden opened up and i have no clue why except maybe lighting changes i did so. Temps are a scary thing to have to deal with in this hobby especially in Summer.

 

[Alex114]

A heater controller sounds like a great idea. I know it wasn’t the room temp because the 10 gallon tank right next to this one did not change temperature at all. I’ll be sure to watch the temp more closely though for the next few weeks. Thanks!

 

[rocklobster1]

Maybe the nitrates/phosphates are low?

 

[Alex114]

Just checked, ammonia/nitrite are 0, nitrate is about 5.0-10.0 ppm, and phosphate is about 0.25 ppm. I do have a hard time matching the color of the liquid to the color key though (colorblind lol) so not sure how accurate the phosphate is. Definitely not 0 or much higher than .25 though