Montipora Opinions please!!!!!

[oceaninabox]

I have an area of one of my tanks that has a variety of montipora frags. Most are your normal rainbows, supermans etc... I have noticed that some of my frag plugs that I started with frags have encrusted the disk, but appear to be losing the intense blue color they once had. The lighting is the same 400w I have always run. Th3e growth is there, but the coloration is what concerns me. I also noticed that a few frags actually have a little tissue loss. I thought it may be a preditor but havent seen any nudis or anything like that. Two questions I pose to you guys is this. I dont have a lot of flow on that side of the tank and wonder if that would be part of the problem. And the second thing is I dont spot feed them. I just do a general feeding when I feed the rest of the SPS. Any ideas??????

 

[paintballer768]

You shouldnt really need to spot feed them honestly, if any fish in there, their detritus should do the trick. The flow Im guessing could be it. If you havent moved em or changed much and just sudden coral loss, make sure your water is spot on. Im sure your stuff is top quality

 

[bamachamp92]

i dont think spot feeding is nescessary with montis but if you dont have enough flow going to them to get food to them on their own it might be a problem, i like mine to get enough flow to move the polyps around, but not to much to make the polyps retract and they seem to be doing really good

 

[Reef Pets]

I purchased some monti (rainbow) from you on eBay and I also have some Superman Monti. The same thing happened to me. The polyps would hold nice color but the base of the coral started turning brown...... I have never had this happen either so I moved the coral around, different light and different flow. Once I put the monti's as high as possible in the tank and dirrectly under the light (400 watt MH) that the color came back within about 5 days. Now they are glowing with a bright blue base and look great. I thought it would be way too much light but so far the Monti's are loving it.

Dont know if this is your situation but it helped in my case.
Gary

 

[oceaninabox]

Thanks Gary!! Im thinking flow is the problem.

 

[Kigs!]

Aren't most wild superman/rainbow montis known to lose their color in captivity anyway?

 

[Ian]

Aren't most wild superman/rainbow montis known to lose their color in captivity anyway?

Thats my guess... They're probably wild colonies...

 

[oceaninabox]

Actually they are not. They are aquacultured and several of my other colonies are doing just fine. For example I have a superman colony that is the darkest blue you have ever seen with beautiful bright red polyps. The apitomy of a superman. Seems mostly it is my rainbows....Go figure!!!

 

[coral88]

How old are your bulbs ???

 

[mpoletti]

Just curious. What is your mg and po4?

 

[bluegrass]

Plus one for the wild montis that start out colorful needing to get absolutely blasted with high light to keep that original color. Can't speak much about the amount of flow coming into play.
Good luck