Any hope for this Montipora spongodes

[Nick Steele]

Okay so this Montipora spongodes has been in tank for a month and it started to bleach last week. It started bleaching at the top left corner and over a week it got to this point.

Here it is when it started to bleach.

Here it is today top pic no PE but good PE after feeding reef roids

Tank parameters have been steady at
Alk 10.9
Ph 7.7
Calc 480
Mag 1200
Nitrate 5
Phos .03

here is a full tank shot for placement also it’s under an ai 16hd light about 6” under water and 14” under the light.

 

[C. Eymann]

Alk is too high for your levels of NO3/PO4, getting alk burn for sure.

 

[Nick Steele]

Alk is too high for your levels of NO3/PO4, getting alk burn for sure.

It did fine for 3 weeks and then started though. Those have always been my levels and I thought it should be fine.

 

[Scorpius]

Slowly lower the alkalinity to around 8-9 dkh. Get the magnesium up to 1400. Might want to mount it lower in the tank till it recovers.

 

[Bpb]

yep get the Alk down to 8. That frag can absolutely recover. A new frag doing ok for 3 weeks might as well be 3 hours. Alk damage in sps corals can take about 3 weeks to start showing.

 

[Nick Steele]

Just wanted to update for anyone who was curious as to what the outcome was.

I left everything the same for two days while trying to think and research what I should do going forward. Over these few days some color was slowly coming back. My fiancé then asked if me changing the lights had anything to do with it I totally forgot I had changed from my regular light schedule to the ab+ schedule (at 100% intensity) for a day or so and just didn’t like it so I switched back.

I’m glad to report I am seeing good tissue growth although it’s went to a deep green base with green polyps.

 

[Backreefing]

Cool it recovered

 

[Nick Steele]

Cool it recovered

Yeah I’m stoked!

Also curious to see if the colors change even more over time or possible stay where it is now. I loved the bright green but the green polyps are definitely different.

 

[Softhammer]

That’s not cool though asking for advice and then immediately refuting it, especially coming from very very experienced reefers. This is going on way too much around here.

 

[Nick Steele]

That’s not cool though asking for advice and then immediately refuting it, especially coming from very very experienced reefers. This is going on way too much around here.

If it kept getting worse I would have went with lowering my alk but it started to regrow tissue rather quickly after changing lights back to lower intensity. Plus I found some builds that run same parameters I do and have montipora. So with the quick rebound I’m leaving it be for now.

 

[E13MentX]

I would try to cut the dead part off (cut into the healthy tissue to make sure you got all the dead parts off). To see if you can save the rest. In my experience they have been pretty hardy