My Journey Through Dull Montipora Coral

[Mrtakeoff53]

Hey Everyone,

I wanted to share and document my trials through dull and fading mdontipora in my tank. Specifically, I have Red Cap Montipora, Green Montipora Spongodes and ORA Purple Montipora Digitata. The purple monti has faded, has closed polyps and is not looking too good. The red cap and green spongodes are dull, minimal growth but have no tissue loss. If you care to throw your $0.02 into the mix to help me see what might be wrong, feel free. This is more of a documentation of what I've done, what works and what didn't to help anyone else looking for long term solutions to problems that should be faced slowly and with a purpose. Reef tanks are beautiful, but should be approached and changed with a purpose and slowly. This is my journey.

Tank Stats:
-50 Gallon Starfire cube 24x24x20. 60 Gallons total water volume.
-Temp: 78
-Salinity: 1.026
-pH: 7.8-8.0 (low I know. I have 5 kids. A CO2 scrubber is on the horizon)
-Alk: 10.5 dKh average since it was set up 5 months ago. High 12.0. Low 9.2 I run it high due to the low pH in my house but check it weekly religiously because I know it is on the high end.
-Calcium: 468 average over 5 months. High 500, low 420
-Mg: 1400 average. 1500 high, 1260 low
-Nitrate: 2.4 average. 5 high, 1.0 low
-Phosphate: 0.1-0.2
-Ammonia: 0
-Potassium: 410 ppm-This is a common source of poor montipora health and dull colors. Salifert test kit shows 410 ppm so this has been ruled out.

Husbandry:
- Weekly 10-20% water changes. They are never missed. Only RO/DI water is used with zero TDS. Filters are 5 months old.
- I run Cheato and Sea Lettuce in my fuge to control Nitrate, phosphate and reduce CO2 to increase pH.
-Tank monitored and controlled with Apex. Temp, and pH are monitored. Apex controls almost all my equipment.

Supplementation:
-GAC in a filter bag in a high flow area of my sump. Water was VERY yellow. GAC has removed this. No noticeable change in montipora health was noted after its addition. 2 weeks ago.

Equipment:
- MaxSpec Gyre 150 for flow set at about 60%, 7 sec on, 7 sec off 20 hours a day.
- Hydor Koralia rated at 1350 gph. 20 min on, 5 min off set at about 150 degree offset to the gyre to increase randomization of the flow throughout the tank 24 hours a day.
-Syce (sp) return pump getting me about 5x turnover through the sump
- Protein skimmer with airline hose going outside rated for 65 gallons.
- Kessil A360We controlled by the Apex. 0700-2000 light cycle. Ramp up from 15% intensity/10% color at 0700, to 70% intensity at 40% color from 1300-1600 and then back down to off by 2000.

Inhabitants:
- 1x Small Blue eyed bristle tooth tang for algae control.
- 2x Black Photon Clownfish (I love these guys!! They are AWESOME!!!)
- 1x 6-line wrasse for pest control
- 1x Royal Gramma. He was so shy at first. I didn't see him for 2 months after I got him. He's so full of life now! My kids LOVE this fish!!
- 1x Emerald Crab
- 10x Trochus Snails (Amazing snails)
- 12x margarita snails for algae control. They love to climb out of my tank! The kids find them and throw them back in.
- 50x Cerith snails
- 10x blue-legged hermits...they do as well eating algae as they do knocking over my frags..
- 3x stylophora (green/rose/purple) all doing VERY well and growing like crazy
- 1x Hammer in the corner in med light/flow doing very well
- 1x JF Sungod Lepto...doing ok in the corner of the tank. It's color is AMAZING
- 1x Crimson Stylocoeniella doing GREAT

Problem children:
- 1x Red Cap Montipora. 1/2 way up win the tank under the light. It's been in the same spot since I got it. I have had it about 2.5 months. It was doing great. Full of color but no growth. Now it's dull with minimal growth I can't figure out why.
- 1x ORA Purple Montipora. It was doing great when I got it. Amazing growth but brown in color on the polyps. Recently it's lost some tissue, the polyps have receded and it's on it's last legs.
- 1 x Green montipora Spongodes- Dull color slowly fading. I've had it 2 weeks.
- 1 x Red Pocillipora -98% of the polyps are gone and it's almost white. It never really started growing. I'm hoping it was polyp bailout and I'll find it growing all over here soon, but that's more of a pipe dream I think...It's still in the tank and will be there as long as there is a polyp alive on it.

What's I've done so far:
- GAC- See Above. No improvement or deterioration in health.
- Tested, tested and tested. All parameters are stable and are as listed above. Potassium is normal at 410 ppm.
- Water changes. The coral seem to color up with a water change but them quickly fade again. Maybe trace elements are low...

What I will be doing in the future:

Always: Maintain stability and make changes slowly.

1st: The tank was doing very well when I was feeding more. I ran into a BAD GHA and Cyano outbreak at about the 3 month point. I reduced feedings, did a hydrogen peroxide treatment on all my LR and added the macro algae in the sump. I'm on the upswing from this mess and will slowly start feeding more in case there were too few nutrients for the corals. I'm sure I messed up the tank a little with this treatment but the algae was out of control. I won't be doing it again. Cyano is gone and the algae is under control now.

2nd: Dose trace elements. I hate dosing what I can't test for. I might do an ICP test and go from there to see if I'm deficient in any trace elements.

3rd: Adjust the lighting the corals get by moving them to brighter/dimer parts of the tank. the other collars are happy with their locations so I'l leave the Kessil alone.

Again, this is going to be a learning experience. Throw your $0.02 in if you wish. Much like a tank build thread, this will be a learning thread so see what works and what didn't. I hope you enjoy and learn something along with me!

Happy 4th of July Everyone!!! The kids need attention...pics to follow later.

-Danny

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Pics

Pics

Here are pics of the Red Cap, Green Spongodes, and Pocillopora. The Red Cap looks better here than it really is.

 

[outssider]

1....Alk has nothing to do with ph (assuming it's in the 7-12 dkh range) your ph at 7.8 - 8 is an acceptable level. ph is a function of co2 but I think you figured that out already so no need to run the dkh high although that's not your problem as far as color goes.



2... Pocillopora can be a real pest when it spreads all over your tank...when it's happy, it will spread.....


3.....I would be carful about adding trace elements you could be adding something the corals don't like....



4....the Monti's may be fading because of the decrease in nutrients. I understand your wanting to decrease the nutrients because of the algae problem. I've done the same thing and watched some corals fade. I don't like algae problems so I do run a low nutrient tank and colors do suffer a bit but everything grows and seems healthy..

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Thanks for the tips! I agree the Alk doesnt need to be so high. I tested it today at 11.0. I’ll probably bringnitndown to about 9 slowly over time.

The only reason I think it MIGHT be trace elements are that the color comes back after a water change and then fades again quickly. This lends me to think the trace elements rise with a water change and are the quickly used and then fall back below a good level. Thoughts? All the other parameters are stable and a water change doesn’t change these levels much.

It’ll be interesting to see how my corals react to higher nutrient loads. You might be right. My recently increased CUC is mowing down the algae so I’m not too concerned about it.

 

[Sam2832]

My Journey Through Dull Montipora Coral

You mentioned other corals doing fine, do you mean other sps or lps/softs?
I have a few montis under radions g4 at 65% and when i give frags to a friend who have the g2 they fade away and change their coloration.
The only real trouble i ever had with these was montipora eating nudibranch.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Other SPS and some LPS. I have 3 Stylophora a Bird’s best and a hammer coral doing very well. No softies are in my tank.

 

[outssider]

you say that when you do water changes the colors temporarily come back then fade again with time. This is why your adding trace elements. So when you add these trace elements does the color return ?

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

I haven’t added any trace elements yet. I’ve already increased my feeding schedule slowly. I did a water change yesterday (20%). The colors are much brighter today. I have also increased feedings slightly too to see if that helps (step 1). I’ll monitor color after the feeding increase. Next week when my trace elements order gets here I’ll see if the color has faded like usual. If so, I’ll add trace elements. If not, I’ll hold off and see how the increased feeding schedule does. I’m trying to be fairly methodical so I know what worked and what didn’t.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

The color on my Montipora have faded again. Additional feedings have resulted in a PO4 of .25 and NO3 of 5 now. It doesn’t appear the corals we’re starving for food. My Jedi Mind Trick continued to fade even further. I moved it to the back of my tank in case it was getting bleached with too much light. My KZ trace element complex arrives today from BRS. I’ll start out with a 50% recommended dose and see what happens. Yesterday’s water test resulted in the following:

Alk: 10.3
Cal: 480
Mg: 1400
PO4: .25
NO3: 5
Salinity: 1.026
K: 400

 

[thepotoo]

Subscribed. I am pretty sure I have the exact same issue. My K also tests fine. I maintain my alk at 9, tested weekly, and it barely moves, so I don't think that is the problem.

I started running UV two months ago and it did not make a difference.

I have moved corals to lower PAR (100) and higher (600), left them alone for a month, and that didn't really seem to matter, either.

I coughed up the $50 to have my water tested and all my levels were fine. My next test is to dose iodine and see if that helps, I have read that it's unstable and might not not stick around. Lots of threads suggest a connection between I and K with montipora coloration. Not sure why I would need to dose I when most other people don't seem to, but it's an easy enough test. This would rule out anything water chemistry related, leaving only flow or pests.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Update: I added the trace elements and it seemed to just make things in my tank mad. After 3 days of dosing and zero change, I stopped. I don’t want to hurt the good corals.

I’ve kept the feeding schedule higher and haven’t noticed any algae issues. My NO3 and PO4 came up a bit but it’s still manageable.

I increased my light intensity to 80% intensity. I did some research and it seems my PAR values for my Kessil A360WE were lower than I expected. I’ll be renting a PAR meter here soon to verify.

The outcome is that trace elements did not help. I won’t be continuing the dosing. The lighting and higher feeding has actually resulted in increased coloration of the Red Cap Monti and and Neon Spongodes Monti. Yesterday, after several days of gray coral and algae growing on the Red Cap, the color returned. I had pretty much given up hope of it coming back. The algae on the coral is reduced today and it has some shades of red back. I am under the impression it needed more light and food. It was getting hit pretty hard with flow too so I moved it a bit and it seems to be liking its new spot. I’ll continue to monitor it. The Jedi Mind trick is still bleached but has slight coloration and a few polyps on it. It’ll stay in the back of my take for a little while longer to continue to adjust to the tank. Hopefully it comes around. They are so beautiful.

Things have turned around a bit with my Montipora so it looks like I’m on the right track. My Stylophora have reduced PE lately. They might not be liking the changes as much. I’ll keep things slow and stable and see if I can get everything healthy again.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Subscribed. I am pretty sure I have the exact same issue. My K also tests fine. I maintain my alk at 9, tested weekly, and it barely moves, so I don't think that is the problem.

I started running UV two months ago and it did not make a difference.

I have moved corals to lower PAR (100) and higher (600), left them alone for a month, and that didn't really seem to matter, either.

I coughed up the $50 to have my water tested and all my levels were fine. My next test is to dose iodine and see if that helps, I have read that it's unstable and might not not stick around. Lots of threads suggest a connection between I and K with montipora coloration. Not sure why I would need to dose I when most other people don't seem to, but it's an easy enough test. This would rule out anything water chemistry related, leaving only flow or pests.

I hope this thread helps you. If it ends up saving even 1 coral for someone else, it'll be worth it. Let me know how the iodine supplementation works. I have so few corals they can possible be using up enough I that my water changes can't keep up. We'll see...

 

[BradR]

For me some montipora do way better at dkh 8 to 9 than above 9 without changing anything else

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Update: things have gone from bad to worse. All my SPS are STNing and even my LPS aren’t doing well. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Hydrogens peroxide treatment to help combat GHA destroyed the stabilization of my tank and sent it into a tailspin. I can’t get any coral growth from anything in my tank they all just slowing recede or just maintain where they are. I’m pretty frustrated to say the least. I’ve stopped trying to fix it because I feel like I just make it worse. I’m going to maintain my tank parameters, keep it stable and enjoy my fish. When my corals all either die or start growing again, I’ll keep on my path to filling it out. I’ll update this again if I start to see any growth. Lesson learned, just let the ugly stage be the ugly stage and don’t mess with the tank...

 

[thepotoo]

I did not end up dosing iodine. I realized that I had two montis of the same type, one in high flow/light and the other a couple inches below it that was paling out. I cranked up the flow (the absolute lowest for anything is now ~10 cm/second) and within a week everything was colored back up.

I guess for me it really was that simple...

How much flow are your corals getting?

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

A ton of flow. Polyps are dancing in the flow when extended. I have a gyre 150 operating at about 60% on a 50 cube. Blows sand off the bottom pretty well. I also have a hydor koralla moving 1300 GPG and another moving another 550 gph to avoid dead spots. I wish it was that simple...

 

[thepotoo]

Damn, good luck with this. It's strange how different problems can have the exact same symptoms.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Well it’s official, my tank has finally come out the backside of this downturn. I literally just stopped messing with things, tried to maintain stable parameters and ended up changing salt. I was using Liveaquaria salt and went back to my tried and true Instant Ocean Reef Crystals. Literally 3 days after switching salt, I have SPS PE again and the STN stopped. I thought it may have been a fluke. I kept doing my normal maintenance routine and now about 3 weeks later, all my corals are growing again, my Montipora (the only one remaining) is getting color back and has white growth tips starting. Could it have been the salt all along? I’m 90% sure it was but who knows for sure. I just stopped messing with stuff, let the tank be and maintained the best husbandry practices I could. I also slowly lowered Alk to about 8.5-9 dKh and it’s been steady there. Hope this helps someone!