Montis dying.... salt issue?

SDguy

SDguy

Fish heads unite!
Premium Member
I hate, really hate to simply "blame it on new salt"... but I'm running out of ideas.

I don't have many montis in my tank. I had a few setosa frags. Poof... RTN.

Now my hologram colony is brown, polyp-less, and RTNing. Monti cap still looks ok, though it's pretty ravaged from the get go since I use it as a shelf for my euphyllia :o. Sunset monti looks OK...not terribly happy though. Two recent changes to my system were new reflectors, plus new bulbs (250W 14K MH), and salt. I'm trying the OceanPure Pro because it was on sale. Someone PM'ed me a while back after I mentioned this, telling me there was a bad batch of this salt, causing RTN, but I never saw the thread he was talking about. The setosas RTNed before the light change, though.

Could salt be the culprit?

Levels haven't changed:

Alk 9dKH
CA 500ppm
Mg 1450 ppm
Temp 76F

The reason I'm especially nervous is because my recent frags of my aussie echinata also RTN'ed within the last week :(
 
Yes, salt could be the culprit. Offhand though, new reflector and new bulbs could have a dramatic impact on par. Any chance this is basically an adjusting to new lighting issue?
 
Like I said, the setosa RTNed prior to the bulb/reflector change, So I don't think so. Regarding the hologram colony though, I can't say for sure.
 
The frags, yeah, but they are on a rack, out of direct light, while the colony, which has been doing very well, it right under the light, so I'm going to have to say it's not the change in lights for that issue.
 
Wow this sucks Peter! It could be the salt or numerous other things. I hope you things turn around for you. Also do you dose potassium?
 
No, I don't dose either of those. I never have.

I do 30g water change every 1.5-2 weeks (150g tank), so I would think that's a pretty good schedule, and I'm unlikely to be defficient in one of those elements?
 
I dont know. I had something kind of odd happen a few motnhs ago though....neer did put my finger on it

3 different colonies of setosa all went on me in a 4 week period. Managed to save a small piece of one of them which is growing like it should now. At the same time, a large colony of rainbow rtn'd, and two other encrusters went shortly after. I managed to save a small piece them all thankfully.

Nothing changed that I could put a finger on. not lighting, salt, out of ordinary swings......nothing. There are 30 other montipora and a couple hundred acros in that system.

so....I didnt help you at all specifically. lol

I think sometimes we dont ever get to know the why

good luck with whatever is ailing you going away
 
I read in your build thread that you recently changed to OceanPure Pro...and I was going to say something but didn't...

I used Oceanpure Pro for a couple years and had the same problems with my monties; they would simply not grow or slowly wither away. I changed to Tropic Marin a couple months ago and low and behold, monties started growing.

So yes, I believe it's the salt.

You know Ali right? (Amazing Reefs and Aquariums). Well he switched from using OceanPure Pro in his shop months back because he was having the same problems amongst other issues with the salt.
 
99% of the tank looks great, so, yeah, I know, tough to blame anything at this point :(
 
I suggest going back to IO salt. I've never had any good luck with ocean-pure pro salts. They work just fine in fish only tanks and okay with soft corals, but I've always had less than pleasing results with the OP/P. As far as the acro frags, I think you did the right thing by setting them out of the light to start healing. I'd just blame it on the salt.... sometimes all you can do is try something else and hope that it works.
 
The monti is gone, and now my purple acro elegans is looking like crap.

yay reefing :rolleyes:
 
Electricity? (I know I sound like a broken record...but) A few years back I had a heater that was leaking electricity into the tank..first things to show signs of stress were the montis...later my acros. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me until I eventually zap'd myself when my elbow with hand in the tank accidentally grounded out against my pendant. I read somewhere that electricity actually stimulates growth in corals, however the bi-product in high concentrated amounts will kill them, which is why it will work in the ocean on those electrified matrix's, but we can't do it in our tanks.

http://www.greengeek.ca/biorock-process-grows-coral-reefs-with-electricity/
 
No, not electricity. With my poorly manicured hands, I'd get zapped every time my elbow touches the reflectors when I'm in the tank :lol: Actually, thinking about it, the only submersible anything with a cord are two nanostreams. Everything else is external.

So, since I'm not above documenting the bad, not just he good, here we go...

The monti (BTW check out the horribly pale color of the sunset monti on the very bottom edge of the pic) :
IMG_9370.jpg


The elegans:
IMG_9369.jpg


And the "super tight PE-less I'm about to RTN on you any day now" echinata:
IMG_9392.jpg
 
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