Orange Monti white overnight?

[drew2007]

Looked fine yesterday and now its white. Tried to get a good pic of it. Best i can do. What would cause this? All other corals look healthy. It sits about 12-13" from the lighting. I dose 20ml alk daily and 10ml Ca daily. Using BRS dosers and RKL. Spread out 5ml every hour. Here are my parameters...

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Ph - 8.1
Alk - 8.3
Ca - 420
Mg - 1380
Temp - 78.5

 

[robs.mark]

Any LPS near it?

 

[drew2007]

Any LPS near it?

There is lps but not close enough to do damage.

 

[Chris Lakies]

Your alk has been steady?

 

[MHG]

Mine did that after a month... Nothing near it just got pail, then RTN then gone...Most people said they like dirtier water... Dont know if I agree but oh well...

 

[drew2007]

Your alk has been steady?

Has been hovering around 7-7.3. I just recently upped my dosing to increase slowly. Wasnt a huge change. Went from 10ml to 20ml a day. Want to keep it steady at 8-8.3. All other sps are looking great.

 

[robs.mark]

7-7.3 isnt a problem anyhow, i run my alk at 7 all the time with no issues.

 

[drew2007]

7-7.3 isnt a problem anyhow, i run my alk at 7 all the time with no issues.

Hmmm maybe i shouldve left it. Maybe raising the alk did it. I dunno.

 

[JSeymour]

Raising the alkalinity by 1.0 dKH over the course of a day or more, shouldn't cause any major issues. If dosed too quickly, the pH could swing wildly though. Preferably, you don't want to change the pH more than 0.5 a day, 0.2 is even better. This is because your pH swings between day and night already due to CO2 levels. Combine this 'natural' change with the dosing change, and your pH may have shifted quite severely. Montipora and Seriatopora seem especially sensitive to this IME.

If some of the flesh is still there tomorrow, it will likely be fine. Just remove the dead areas to help prevent nuisance algae from growing on the bare skeleton and impeding it further.

 

[drew2007]

Raising the alkalinity by 1.0 dKH over the course of a day or more, shouldn't cause any major issues. If dosed too quickly, the pH could swing wildly though. Preferably, you don't want to change the pH more than 0.5 a day, 0.2 is even better. This is because your pH swings between day and night already due to CO2 levels. Combine this 'natural' change with the dosing change, and your pH may have shifted quite severely. Montipora and Seriatopora seem especially sensitive to this IME.

If some of the flesh is still there tomorrow, it will likely be fine. Just remove the dead areas to help prevent nuisance algae from growing on the bare skeleton and impeding it further.

I did notice a swing in ph. Went from 8.1 to 7.8. But i thought maybe my probe was freaking out. It seems to flucuate slightly all the time. There is still some orange flesh left. I moved it down by the sand thinking maybe it was too close to the light.

 

[JSeymour]

I did notice a swing in ph. Went from 8.1 to 7.8. But i thought maybe my probe was freaking out. It seems to flucuate slightly all the time. There is still some orange flesh left. I moved it down by the sand thinking maybe it was too close to the light.

If your pH went down after raising the alkalinity, then your probe has some issues. The addition of alkalinity should increase the pH. Try calibrating your probe, and checking it compared to a test kit w/ a reference sample, like Salifert or against a fellow reefer's/LFS new, freshly calibrated pH probe. I think your probe might be bad. How long have you had it?

 

[drew2007]

If your pH went down after raising the alkalinity, then your probe has some issues. The addition of alkalinity should increase the pH. Try calibrating your probe, and checking it compared to a test kit w/ a reference sample, like Salifert or against a fellow reefer's/LFS new, freshly calibrated pH probe. I think your probe might be bad. How long have you had it?

So far it shows steady 8.1 ph the last 2 days. It was a brand new probe. I put it in a week a week and a half ago. I checked with salifert ph and it looks to be 8.0 on that test. I dose using brs 2 part recipe.

 

[JSeymour]

Oh ok, so it went from 7.8 to 8.1, not the other way around. Makes more sense now.

 

[drew2007]

Now all the flesh is gone. Its completely white. I guess its dead?

 

[marlinman86]

I had this same thing happen to me and my orange monti when I first got it. First did u start it for a week on the sandbed? Two how many watts are ur leds and what k? Third how high up is it in the tank? IME I had this happen to me, placed it where I wanted it and it turned white overnight. Real sensitive towards leds. Seemed like it took mine a while to adjust and get used to the leds. I'm 14k. Gave it a couple weeks on sandbed and it recolored the white areas up then slowly moved it up in the tank 14 inches off sand. A month later that thing is deeply colored and has a hearty white edge and is growing seems weekly changes. Leds have been a ***** for me and I have a nuvo 38 with skkye light 30 or 33 or whatever it is. I did retrofit a skimmer and phosban reactor on it running carbon though. I thought that with the lumens my light was puttin off and what the coral could handle it would be fine. But it just needs a good introduction period before it wants to decide to wether or not its gonna get along with ur light