Forest Fire digi color

DVal · Jul 17, 2021

My Forest fire digi frag has good orange polyps but the base is lacking a good green color. Rather pale/almost white. It's been in my system for 7 weeks. Sitting at around 200 par.
Dosing BRS 2part Alk daily, KZ coral vitalizer 3x/wk, phyto 5x/wk.
Parameters:
Alk: 9
Phos: .03
Nitrate: 6
Calcium: 470
Mag: 1395
pH: 8.4

Does this seem to be a par issue? If so, sounds like it needs to be increased? Or is this potentially because it's a newer frag?

vetteguy53081 · Jul 17, 2021

Mag and calcium elevated a little but could also be shading
Alk 8-11 and ca 440….. mag 1300
Salinity 1.025 and temp 77-79 under moderate light and water flow

DVal · Jul 17, 2021

Thanks. The Mag and calcium aren't even dosed at this point. That's all from salt mix.

Uncle99 · Jul 17, 2021

Phosphate is low to me at 0.03ppm. It may be actually zero. Mine was 0.03ppm and ICP found zero.
I dosed phosphate up to 0.08-.1ppm with a 5ppm nitrate, two weeks later, better PE and colour.

DVal · Jul 18, 2021

Uncle99 said:
Phosphate is low to me at 0.03ppm. It may be actually zero. Mine was 0.03ppm and ICP found zero.
I dosed phosphate up to 0.08-.1ppm with a 5ppm nitrate, two weeks later, better PE and colour.

I usually run about about .06 phos. I've got a little hair algea outbreak currently. I think that's why my phos is lower than usual

JWsticks · Jul 19, 2021

Digi are very resilient and will grow like a weed given the proper environment. Most will pale out when given too much light and too little nutrients.

I think your phos is a bit low given the color. I've given my digi 100 par and the color remains but sticks are very skinny possibly due to lack of low too.

elorablue · Jul 19, 2021

Forest fire "body" is green and bubblegum is purple? Is that correct?

thepotoo · Jul 19, 2021

I had a similar issue a few years ago -- suggestions for other threads were check potassium, dose iodine, and check PAR.

For me the issue was low PAR. Once the frag was moved up 175 PAR, the skin colored up nicely and growth took off.

JWsticks · Jul 19, 2021

elorablue said:
Forest fire "body" is green and bubblegum is purple? Is that correct?

Forest fire - green skin
Bubble gum - blue skin and green tips if you give it high par

DVal · Jul 20, 2021

thepotoo said:
I had a similar issue a few years ago -- suggestions for other threads were check potassium, dose iodine, and check PAR.

For me the issue was low PAR. Once the frag was moved up 175 PAR, the skin colored up nicely and growth took off.

Moved to 175 or an additional 175? If so, what was your total?

thepotoo · Jul 21, 2021

DVal said:
Moved to 175 or an additional 175? If so, what was your total?

175 total. For whatever reason, my montis seem to do better in lower light -- I have another frag in around 350-400 PAR and it's definitely not growing as fast (the acros around it are actually growing faster).

Experiment with different flows and light levels and the skin color, tissue thickness and polyp extension will tell you what makes them happy. Takes about 2-4 weeks for them to settle in so don't move them often. Bad water chemistry will obviously make it impossible for them to be happy anywhere so fix that first if it's not already good.

C. Eymann · Jul 21, 2021

JWsticks said:
Digi are very resilient and will grow like a weed given the proper environment. Most will pale out when given too much light and too little nutrients.

I think your phos is a bit low given the color. I've given my digi 100 par and the color remains but sticks are very skinny possibly due to lack of low too.

I do agree that M. digitata is very resilient, however bubblegum and forest fire are not M. digitata, they are M. samarensis and M. altasepta and do seem to be more finicky than run of the mill monotone Green, pink, purple M. digitata.

jda · Jul 21, 2021

There are lot of fakes of both. If you are otherwise doing things right and the colors are still not good, then make sure that you got them from a trustworthy source before you chase much. There is much forest fire here in Denver that is just orange digi... and you see it online and here too.

If it was from a good source, then I agree with above that these are not quite as easy as other flavors of montipora... they are in a class with the German Blue ORA Digi which is more like a medium-trickiness acropora than a normal digi. ...still not too hard, but not weeds.

Even with all of this said, 7 weeks is not very long to see how this is going to turn out.

DVal · Jul 21, 2021

jda said:
There are lot of fakes of both. If you are otherwise doing things right and the colors are still not good, then make sure that you got them from a trustworthy source before you chase much. There is much forest fire here in Denver that is just orange digi... and you see it online and here too.

If it was from a good source, then I agree with above that these are not quite as easy as other flavors of montipora... they are in a class with the German Blue ORA Digi which is more like a medium-trickiness acropora than a normal digi. ...still not too hard, but not weeds.

Even with all of this said, 7 weeks is not very long to see how this is going to turn out.
[/QUOTE

Thanks. I got it from Tidal Gardens.

Reefcowboy · Jul 21, 2021

In my experience they take a while to develop the greens.
I've had a frag come in looking like a regular red digi and stay that ways for a fee months. Slowly tips got small green spots and developed to the nicer green.

My halide gives it a bit too much light where when I mount it lower in the aquascape it gets darker more vivid colors

JWsticks · Jul 22, 2021

Reefcowboy said:
In my experience they take a while to develop the greens.
I've had a frag come in looking like a regular red digi and stay that ways for a fee months. Slowly tips got small green spots and developed to the nicer green.

My halide gives it a bit too much light where when I mount it lower in the aquascape it gets darker more vivid colors

Most of the time the green will come if the water quality is OK. I've gotten green with 0.30 P04 and 2 NO3.

If you blast them with enough light. The entire body will be neon green. > 400 PAR will do the trick.

This is the mother colony I've sold during my tank tear down.

JWsticks · Jul 22, 2021

C. Eymann said:
I do agree that M. digitata is very resilient, however bubblegum and forest fire are not M. digitata, they are M. samarensis and M. altasepta and do seem to be more finicky than run of the mill monotone Green, pink, purple M. digitata.

Learn something new everyday.

Do agree monotone colors are the easiest to keep and grow like a weed.