Monitors health

[Nathaniellund17]

I have a montipora that I’ve had for about 4 months where the color has been slowly going out over the last few weeks. Not sure if the best thing to do is to move it to a new location… I’m afraid moving it might break the growth at the base and stress it out even more. It appears the parts that are fading still have polyps from the pictures.

It’s in a 180 gallon display with the following parameters:
Salinity - 1.026
Alkalinity - 9.0
Calcium - 450
Magnesium - 1425
Phosphate - .05
Nitrate - 9.0

 

[Nathaniellund17]

One other item to post, lights are xr-30s with a PAR level just above 300 at this location.

 

[Pod_01]

The parameters you have at glance look good. From my experience I observed that montiporas struggle when PO4 is decreasing especially at the 0.05 ppm level and below.

Your value is borderline and I had lot more success with PO4 in the 0.07-0.12 ppm range. Also use of GFO or other types of PO4 removers made my montiporas unhappy.

I would keep it where it is. Generally I do start most of my corals on sand and move them to final location over a week or four.

If you are not carbon dosing you could try some carbon dosing to feed the bacteria and in turn corals will consume the bacteria so that could be another food source for the corals. For example I am dosing 0.3ml of TM NP Bacto Ballance.
Extra fish feeding might help or once a week coral food like Reef Roids or FM Coral dust.

As for light montiporas are adaptable, I seen some few inches from the water surface and I have one located on the sand:

Good luck,

 

[Dburr1014]

I have a montipora that I’ve had for about 4 months where the color has been slowly going out over the last few weeks. Not sure if the best thing to do is to move it to a new location… I’m afraid moving it might break the growth at the base and stress it out even more. It appears the parts that are fading still have polyps from the pictures.

It’s in a 180 gallon display with the following parameters:
Salinity - 1.026
Alkalinity - 9.0
Calcium - 450
Magnesium - 1425
Phosphate - .05
Nitrate - 9.0

Looks like the lights are completly blue.
You may as some white(red) for the redish coral. That should bring out some of that color.

 

[Nathaniellund17]

Looks like the lights are completly blue.
You may as some white(red) for the redish coral. That should bring out some of that color.

Thanks for taking a look. This photo was taken at night with some filters. During the day, I do have my white lights up to 100%. Here’sa picture from the day.