Montipora Help!

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Tidal Gardens
Hemmdog said:
That’s not “terrible” but it is pretty high. Few things you can do, dose nitrate or get a fish and feed good frozen or fresh food.
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Went to the LFS and all they had was Seachem Flourish, think tomorrow I'm gonna head to Lowes and pick up some stump remover and make my own batch of nitrates. Any recommendation on what number I should be shooting for. Was thinking 2.5ppm
 
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Brandon Rush said:
Thanks again for the help I'll update here in a few days with my results. Wish me luck...
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Bear in mind Brandon you may not see changes in under two weeks so be patient, get your levels where they need to be and report back.

On a side note, and I don't recommend this to you but I find anecdotal evidence can be useful generally, is that Acropower brought my monti colors back in almost two days but this solved what was missing in my tank. Mine alone. Others may have experienced something similar but right now just follow the advice of patience and levels.

If you think you've been patient, double that time. Only thing happen fast in this hobby are Aiptasia, cyano and empty bank accounts.
 
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Saintnovakai said:
Bear in mind Brandon you may not see changes in under two weeks so be patient, get your levels where they need to be and report back.

On a side note, and I don't recommend this to you but I find anecdotal evidence can be useful generally, is that Acropower brought my monti colors back in almost two days but this solved what was missing in my tank. Mine alone. Others may have experienced something similar but right now just follow the advice of patience and levels.

If you think you've been patient, double that time. Only thing happen fast in this hobby are Aiptasia, cyano and empty bank accounts.
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[emoji23] I appreciate the help, and definitely gonna tackle it slowly.
 
So haven't even added nitrates and today my Monti is opening up...any thoughts? Should I still proceed with dosing nitrates?
15619052028441141092012568153756.jpg
 
Brandon Rush said:
So haven't even added nitrates and today my Monti is opening up...any thoughts? Should I still proceed with dosing nitrates?
15619052028441141092012568153756.jpg
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Did you change anything outside of the water change?

My suggestion is test and note down everything right now and use it as a baseline.
 
ReefBot Lab, Automated Water Tester
Saintnovakai said:
Did you change anything outside of the water change?

My suggestion is test and note down everything right now and use it as a baseline.
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That's what I'm getting ready to do, nothing but the water change. Testing nitrates now
 
Saintnovakai said:
Did you change anything outside of the water change?

My suggestion is test and note down everything right now and use it as a baseline.
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So after getting my hands on a solid nitrate test kit it looks like the issue is exactly the opposite of what I've been thinking. My nitrates were testing in the 20's. So this makes sense now that after a water change I'm getting a temporary relief, then after a couple days it closes back up. I think I'm grab some red Sea N03 P04 and try and slowly work on bringing them down.
 
Brandon Rush said:
So after getting my hands on a solid nitrate test kit it looks like the issue is exactly the opposite of what I've been thinking. My nitrates were testing in the 20's. So this makes sense now that after a water change I'm getting a temporary relief, then after a couple days it closes back up. I think I'm grab some red Sea N03 P04 and try and slowly work on bringing them down.
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Get a scrubber my friend. All natural, self regulating and all the benefits of running a fuge. Will take about the same time to break in as the Nopox I think.
Let's hear what others say. Get ready for a few more SMALL water changes throughout the week to get nitrates to about 10 then you may wanna hold it there.
 
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Saintnovakai said:
Coral QT tanks usually have some reef janitors in them. Some kind of wrasse for bugs etc, a tang for algae, etc etc but it's your tank. What I would tell you to do next is test your phosphate. For Montipora if your phosphates are bottomed out, they pale right out.
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I would not say that is a true statement if you are trying to prevent the transmission of ick into your DT. You've got to be fishless if you are QT in for ICK and other nasties that require a fish host.

If you are QT in for other pest yes it may make sense to keep some utilitarian fish in there. In a smallish QT you should be able to visually monitor for those and then remove and dip the infested coral if needed.

I have been running a fishless invert QT tank for a while now. I keep if very simple. Lights, power heads for water movement, a hang on back filter with a bit of carbon and some floss for lage particles and a heater. In my opinion a skimmer may be overkill there. With only a couple snails a shrimp and some corals that is not going to be a whole lot of stuff to skim out. I'd say the most it is probably doing is providing some gas exchange which would could also do by pointing a power head at the surface of the water and causing some agitation.
 
aarbutina said:
I would not say that is a true statement if you are trying to prevent the transmission of ick into your DT. You've got to be fishless if you are QT in for ICK and other nasties that require a fish host.

If you are QT in for other pest yes it may make sense to keep some utilitarian fish in there. In a smallish QT you should be able to visually monitor for those and then remove and dip the infested coral if needed.

I have been running a fishless invert QT tank for a while now. I keep if very simple. Lights, power heads for water movement, a hang on back filter with a bit of carbon and some floss for lage particles and a heater. In my opinion a skimmer may be overkill there. With only a couple snails a shrimp and some corals that is not going to be a whole lot of stuff to skim out. I'd say the most it is probably doing is providing some gas exchange which would could also do by pointing a power head at the surface of the water and causing some agitation.
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I stand updated and revised. Didn't calculate the possibility of the tank crew having ick. If they don't it's fine but it's always a possibility.
 
Brandon Rush said:
So haven't even added nitrates and today my Monti is opening up...any thoughts? Should I still proceed with dosing nitrates?
15619052028441141092012568153756.jpg
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If your corals are opening up and you haven't done anything, I would say you continue doing that same thing... which is nothing.

Keep it as simple as possible. The more we try to fiddle around with thing the worse we make them some times. Corals love stability of all else. They are resilient creatures.
 
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Saintnovakai said:
I stand updated and revised. Didn't calculate the possibility of the tank crew having ick. If they don't it's fine but it's always a possibility.
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The problem is it becomes a cycle. The fish you but in there may not have ick, but you may drop a new coral in the system that has ick cysts on it. Once they release they will attach to the fish make more ICK which will then encyst of the the corals again. Best was to prevent transmission of ick from inverts into you DT is to keep them in follow tank for approximately 74 day (keep in mind the clock doesn't reset each time you add a new invert to the system each particular invert is on its own clock for the most part).

After an ICK scare with my purple tang, all inverts, snails, shrimp, crabs, clams, corals go into my fallow QT for a minimum of 80 days. Last thing I want is to introduce a new strain of ICK to my system. No way to treat it, with out pulling each fish out, which is easier said then done.
 
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Shorten the lighting duration (can keep your same profile but reduce the overall time to 12 hours). Your corals can only use so much light; once they hit that saturation point, they will also close up to minimize the amount of light being received (a self preservation mechanism). The extended photo-periods do more harm than good.

Your phosphate levels are fine; higher than I prefer to run but I'm often up that high (and occasionally even higher) with an acropora dominant system and everything continues to grow and look good. I'd stick to water changes over a "magic bullet" product at this point because your tank is young.

If you aren't already, keep a journal of your test measurement results; identifying a trend is much more valuable than making decisions off a single undesirable measurement. Image below shows my phosphate levels for the last seven or eight months; outside of running some GFO in January (and discontinuing a couple weeks later), I've changed nothing. I travel a lot; the large deltas in levels is likely due to the difference in how my wife and I feed the fish. AVOID SNAP CHANGES UNLESS YOU HAVE SOMETHING AT LETHAL LEVELS!

48145514457_a6f9458fc2_b.jpg
 
Tank looks awefully clean. Regardless,,,,,, these things must be happening to keep Monti happy:
Moderate water movement- Lights on 12 hrs with blue at 75% and whites 20-25%, a little nitrate and phosphate (not Zero), assure no monti eating spiders orr nudibranch and placement- mid to top of tank. Bottom no good as par is low at bottom
 
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