Montipora bleaching

[CoralKingdom]

So over the past week or two my orange monti cap has begun to bleach a bit at the base (and possibly the tips, although it looks more like new growth there).
My first thought was nudibranch's since I did purchase two monti frags from someone in the past month ( I didn't have a quarantine tank set up then so I just dipped them and shook them in the water a bit, nothing fell off and I didn't see any nudi's or eggs on them so I put them in the tank) but, since the only corals effected is this monti cap and another green monti cap on opposite side of the tank from the new frags I had purchased I think it might be another issue.

Monti tank stats:

20 gallon long,
temps between 78 and 82
salinity 1.025-1.026
Calcium ~420
Mag ~ 1250
alk ~ 7-8 (was around 5 before last week, just bought calcium/mag/alk test kits and started dosing kalk water and mag (after first raising the alk a bit)
PH I don't really know because I can't tell with the test kit I'm using, getting a monitor soon, but it appears to be around 8-8.2
Possibly could be lack of flow and detritus building up or too much flow (using a K3 may be overkill but all the corals seem to love it and it's on the other side of the tank so I don't think it's too direct) the dead part was in the back corner of the tank so I couldn't really tell till I took it out.

And lastly, I just realized that there was some electrical current coming from the lights, unplugged them from the timers (2 prong) and straight into the outlet and that fixed that problem.

Have about 15 different types of Montipora (90% of the corals in the tank) and I would hate for everything to have moved over 700 miles last month and survived perfectly fine just for some little white bugger to eat them all up...

Anyway.... Here's the current damage, just set up a 30 gallon sump/fuge and now I can get a closer look at it.
http://i.imgur.com/Z1yVElh.jpg

 

[AmherstReef]

Dealing with the same thing on my orange cap, it's Nudibranchs

 

[CoralKingdom]

Dang. Well I turned the lights off for a few hours and still couldn't find any. Dipped the colony and broke off two pieces and nothing moved besides a few pods. I'll continue the hunt though.

 

[trueblackpercula]

Looks like bugs

 

[noy]

I just dealt with a nudi problem and it was painful. I started out like you - tissue loss on a confusa and not noticing anything. Once they get established - you will see them fairly easy. If you look up close - its not bleaching but its tissue loss - the tissue would have been eaten away by these guys.

I ended up having to take every monti out of the tank and keeping a quarantine for 4 weeks. I lost 2 prized pieces but saved everything else.

Keep a close eye on everything - they are very hard to spot - they look like white spots on the coral and you really have to look closely because they're fairly small. If you give an extended dip (10 min) - they will fall off to the bottom. The eggs are a whole different story - you will need a toothbrush to scrub them off.

 

[CoralKingdom]

I just dealt with a nudi problem and it was painful. I started out like you - tissue loss on a confusa and not noticing anything. Once they get established - you will see them fairly easy. If you look up close - its not bleaching but its tissue loss - the tissue would have been eaten away by these guys.

I ended up having to take every monti out of the tank and keeping a quarantine for 4 weeks. I lost 2 prized pieces but saved everything else.

Keep a close eye on everything - they are very hard to spot - they look like white spots on the coral and you really have to look closely because they're fairly small. If you give an extended dip (10 min) - they will fall off to the bottom. The eggs are a whole different story - you will need a toothbrush to scrub them off.

How small is small? I looked at the coral in and out of water with a magnifying glass and all that came off was a bit of detritus (in the rock) and nothing moved.

Anyway since all signs point to nudibranches and my quarantine tank is just a 10 gallon with no real filtration I'm wondering if that would be ok for the coral to have them for for extended period of time, I did just buy two nano koralia powerheads, and I think the lighting would be alright, but would they be ok without a skimmer? Never really done any long term QT before.
I was also thinking of taking all the montipora (besides the encrusting ones) off their rock/frag disks and putting them on egg crate or something in the QT, I saw in a thread somewhere else someone did that and he would switch out the egg crate when scrubbing the corals (I guess the nudibranches laid eggs on the egg crate instead of corals?)

 

[rovster]

I disagree, nudis are easy to spot, at least they were for me. Does not look like nudi damage there. I vote chemistry related.

 

[CoralKingdom]

I disagree, nudis are easy to spot, at least they were for me. Does not look like nudi damage there. I vote chemistry related.

Part of me agrees with you too.

OH, forgot to mention but I had two tiny pieces of cat's paw (fragged it after it STN'd when I moved) that started to STN again, one of them had fallen into the rockwork and I noticed it was bleached, the other one in a higher flow area might have had a slight amount of die off but I'm not sure. Weird that it would die off like that when EVERY other coral was perfectly fine.

I also have had amazing growth this past two to three weeks for all my encrusting Monti's and my garf bonsai which was brown from lower placement is now coloring up more so that throws some more confusion into the mess. My alk was low about two weeks ago but since I just got the test kit for it I don't know how long it was like that.



I guess I'll keep hunting for nudibranchs and hope it's something else. :worried2:

 

[rovster]

Nudis are about the size of a monti polyp, babies are smaller, I've seen some full grown that are about the size of 2 monti polyps! Usually with nudis, the monti will look healthy, and have jagged edges. They literally look "eaten" or munched on, LOL! The nudi's usually are not far away from the damage either. Not saying its not nudis, but based on my experience, it looks like something else! And yes, I have first hand experience with nudis, I'm not just spitting out what I've read, LOL!

 

[CoralKingdom]

Just searched for them again before the lights come on... Nothi- WAIT one second.

Found this white speck, this is the closest shot I can get with my macro lens and it hasn't moved in 3 hours, but I'm guessing it's a nudi

 

[rovster]

That could be a nudi. Not necessarily but it looks like one. If its nudi, in time they will be easy to spot unfortunately. That said, there is a bunch of other white specs in the pic, it might be just a collection of white specks. Get a wood skewer and try to get it. Nudi's will stick to the skewer, LOL. I've skewered many of them in the past. They really don't move a lot, unless you see one on the glass. You will see their "frills" swaying in the current.