Monti caps grow down. Any advice?

[sawdonkey]

I've had standard red cap,bright green cap, light green with blue polyps, and a Reef Tech Starburst for about a year or so. The thing is, all o them grow downwards and don't spiral up. My red cap just encrusted and has wrapped all the way around the bottom of the rock it's on. The growth edge of the green cap with blue polyps grows down and almost looks like it's dripping. I'm glad everything is growing, but I'd lime my caps to grow up and spiral.

I run two evergrow it2060 led fixtures that I've replaced most of the white with blues (still six whites per fixture). Even before is switched out the whites, the caps were growing down.

I ran two WP 40s for a long time and replaced one with a WP 60 a few months ago. Six foot tank.

Thoughts? Lighting? Flow? Something else? All other sps is growing normally.

 

[Eienna]

I'm wondering if the montis you got might be encrusting rather than plating....

 

[sawdonkey]

I'm wondering if the montis you got might be encrusting rather than plating....

Nah, I saw all of the mothers except for the reef tech, and everyone knows that's plating.......or supposed to be plating.

I'll snap some pics tomorrow.

 

[CoralHut]

I would say flow and possibly combination of lights and flow. Corals tend to encrust a lot more if they are getting blasted with flow which means their vertical (or horizontal in your case) growth has to be much stronger to sustain the barrage. They will eventually spiral. I also know if corals receive high amounts of light and high amounts of flow they will tend to flatten out because they don't need to reach for more light and because they need the extra strength to grow outwards against flow. When I have had Montipora caps before under LEDs they would only spiral after starting to become shaded. Try shading one a little bit with another coral or even another montipora.

Another way I always got them to spiral is to mount them hanging off the edge of a rock like they would in the wild. With nothing to grab onto they expand outwards.

 

[sawdonkey]

Thanks coralhut. My montis are on the lower half of my tank (30 in deep) so I'm not sure that they're getting too much light. Maybe my light cycle is too long. I ramp up my LEDs starting at 11am and they hit full power around 3pm. The begin to ramp down around 7pm and are off by 11pm.

They aren't necessarily encrusting, they are in the water column, and they just grow down. The growth edge curls under.

Any other ideas?

 

[mberthiaume3205]

check your potassium levels, when montipora starts to fade or slow in growth its generally a lack of lighting or potassium.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Can we get a picture of your montis? I'm thinking they sound like the encrusting variety. My encrusting montis curl under when there's nothing left to encrust to.

 

[sawdonkey]

Can we get a picture of your montis? I'm thinking they sound like the encrusting variety. My encrusting montis curl under when there's nothing left to encrust to.

I'm not at home, but this should give you an idea:

Reef Tech heading down:

Reef Tech close up

RR Nauti Spiral heading down:

Here, you can see my red cap, my green with blue polyps, my bright green cap, and my Purple Haze (whigh I know is encrusting)

FTS from a few months ago....Montis are mostly in between the rock columns:

Thanks for your help guys.

 

[Pife]

I think all you need is time. They will get there.

 

[SamsReef]

if you have a downward laminar flow where the corals are...then it will slope downward. the best spiral plates will be formed with wavemakers. in absence of wavemakers, you can also create random flow or alternating flow like a MP60 alternating from opposite ends.

 

[sawdonkey]

if you have a downward laminar flow where the corals are...then it will slope downward. the best spiral plates will be formed with wavemakers. in absence of wavemakers, you can also create random flow or alternating flow like a MP60 alternating from opposite ends.

I have a jaebo WP40 on one end and a jaebo WP60 on the other. (Aka...lots of flow)

 

[BristlePad]

So weird how some do this... It's certainly not the species as the nauti spiral is supposed to spiral hence the name. Mine spiral out but my buddy ricks grew like this--he thought it was the lightn( 8-48in t 5s) which I agreed with at the time, but Your under LEDs are doing the same thing. My guess is it's he flow, if you put them on the fronts of your islands , they will have really good flow right over the polyps, as opposed to sitting in the eddies behind the rocks. I'd order a hot new jaebo RW off of eBay and put that right in the middle of your islands and blast flow right over those caps aiming it at the front of the tank. If you notice the one green cap that is slightly exposed to good flow in your FTS has a turn upward growth pattern to it.

 

[reggaedrummin]

Mine started with a downward curl but eventually turned upward. As previously stated,I think it's a matter of time. Also, it doesn't appear to be a factor here but mine turned upward very aggressively on one side adjacent to my Duncan's. They are both fairly passive coral and are growing out of each other's way to avoid each other

 

[CoralHut]

Based on pictures looks line they need more time. They encrust heavily ro support themselves in high flow. May also be flow is not random enough as aforementioned but I think just give it time.

 

[sawdonkey]

I have completely changed my scape, and my montis still grow down. I think it's my lights. I moved a large piece of red cap and threw it in my sump. It is under a a regular household led flood light. It is already turning up at the edges.

I have two evergrow IT fixtures and I'm only running 6 whites on each (they are pretty blue). I did this so I could run the white channel higher without washing out the blues. I peak the blue channel at 95% for about four hours and the white-ish channel peaks at 85% for about three hours. The rest is ramp up and down.

Do you think my lights are too strong? I've. Been pretty successful at keeping sps until I realized I had aefw recently. I've also never had great polyp extension on some off my acros and some of my digis. Thoughts?

 

[Keithcorals]

Flow flow and flow are the reason they will grow down they grow with the flow and downward flow creates downward growth. I've even managed to get a red planet to grow at around a 45° angle towards the bottom of my tank. Every coral I've ever had grow down like that once moved to where there is no downward flow change directions within a week or two the new growth would start to head up. I've kept the same Corals and lowlight and high light it can have some affect but never anything close to the downward growth I get with downward flow.

 

[sawdonkey]

Flow flow and flow are the reason they will grow down they grow with the flow and downward flow creates downward growth. I've even managed to get a red planet to grow at around a 45° angle towards the bottom of my tank. Every coral I've ever had grow down like that once moved to where there is no downward flow change directions within a week or two the new growth would start to head up. I've kept the same Corals and lowlight and high light it can have some affect but never anything close to the downward growth I get with downward flow.

Thanks, I have a rw20 on one end of my tank and a wp40 on the other. Should I move them lower in my tank and point them slightly upward? They've always been pointed horizontally.

 

[Keithcorals]

Thanks, I have a rw20 on one end of my tank and a wp40 on the other. Should I move them lower in my tank and point them slightly upward? They've always been pointed horizontally.

Having them lower may help to get more upward flow or possible having them on a more random setting as well

 

[sawdonkey]

I'm still having this issue. All of my montis are still curling under. I completely rescaped my whole tank about six months ago and no change. I've got tons of flow, and I've mixed it up a few times. Meanwhile, the red cap I threw in my sump that is growing under a household led flood light, is spiraling up nicely.

I have four ocean revive T247s, and I've had them tunes up pretty high (85% blue / 60% white). I'm going to turn them down to about 70%/30% and see what happens. I'll just have to make sure my acros stay colored up. I'm just convinced this issue is not flow because I've tried mixing it up many ways. Right now I'm running an RW20 on else, a WP60 on pulse, and a WP40 on high down near the sandbed behind my rockwork.

Any thoughts?

Here's a FTS and one where you can see the caps growing down.

 

[Triggreef]

I'm digging the triggers in the reef!

I think the caps just aren't to the right size to spiral yet. In my tanks they don't start spiraling until about 7 inches around or so. It looks like yours are just getting there so I would think you'll begin to see it soon.

Great work, Beautiful tank!

PS I also have that "nauti spiral" monti, "speedball" or something from JF. It seems to be the slowest growing monti I ever saw. Of course mine started as barely a chip from JF so maybe it will speed up as it goes. I think it's more encrusting than plating though.