Montipora Setosa lighting...

alexytman · Dec 24, 2018

I have just gotten a setosa at my local LFS, it is orangish and pink in white light. After around just over a week, it has begun to turn very slightly white, almost like a fine powdery pink look (was more orange than pink before). This color change is on the top half of the coral that is exposed to the most light (other parts of coral is slightly shaded), I placed it horizontally, hoping for some lateral group from the rock. I placed it at the tallest point of my rock. Why is it turning pinkish white at the surface with most light? according the tidal gardens they LOVE light. Are my lights bad? but the sps is like 2-3 from water surface.

My numbers are:
0 NH/NO2
NO3 1-5.
Alk 12-13
Cal 460
Mag 1360

divewsharks · Dec 24, 2018

alexytman said:
I have just gotten a setosa at my local LFS, it is orangish and pink in white light. After around just over a week, it has begun to turn very slightly white, almost like a fine powdery pink look (was more orange than pink before). This color change is on the top half of the coral that is exposed to the most light (other parts of coral is slightly shaded), I placed it horizontally, hoping for some lateral group from the rock. I placed it at the tallest point of my rock. Why is it turning pinkish white at the surface with most light? according the tidal gardens they LOVE light. Are my lights bad? but the sps is like 2-3 from water surface.

My numbers are:
0 NH/NO2
NO3 1-5.
Alk 12-13
Cal 460
Mag 1360

What kind of lights do you have?
Did you acclimate the coral to your lights?

alexytman · Dec 24, 2018

divewsharks said:
What kind of lights do you have?
Did you acclimate the coral to your lights?

It's only a za1201wifi, it's not a strong led so I doubt it can burn it. But if it's not enough light my corals don't normally discolor that quickly.

divewsharks · Dec 24, 2018

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alexytman said:
It's only a za1201wifi, it's not a strong led so I doubt it can burn it. But if it's not enough light my corals don't normally discolor that quickly.

It does sound like the coral may be bleaching a bit. I’m not familiar with that light; but if significantly different from where it came from, it very well could be needing time to adapt to the change.
My setosa are not in high light locations in my tank. I have a colony growing down on my sandbed. I run kessils.

alexytman · Dec 24, 2018

divewsharks said:
I

It does sound like the coral may be bleaching a bit. I’m not familiar with that light; but if significantly different from where it came from, it very well could be needing time to adapt to the change.
My setosa are not in high light locations in my tank. I have a colony growing down on my sandbed. I run kessils.

Does that mean I should move it down? Or should o wait and see

HB AL · Dec 24, 2018

I would move it down a bit and wait a few weeks and see. I have on up high that started as a 2 inch frag and friend gave me and 2+ years later it's the size of a softball, it's under kessils and once around a years ago I had around 6 tips white out and die, don't know why as it's never moved but it grew over the dead spots in a couple months. Best pic I could find.

alexytman · Dec 26, 2018

HB AL said:
I would move it down a bit and wait a few weeks and see. I have on up high that started as a 2 inch frag and friend gave me and 2+ years later it's the size of a softball, it's under kessils and once around a years ago I had around 6 tips white out and die, don't know why as it's never moved but it grew over the dead spots in a couple months. Best pic I could find.

Thanks, so far I have moved it down to mid level in a shaded ish area and the polyps are finally fully extending. Hopefully the bleaching will stop too.

alexytman · Dec 26, 2018

HB AL said:
I would move it down a bit and wait a few weeks and see. I have on up high that started as a 2 inch frag and friend gave me and 2+ years later it's the size of a softball, it's under kessils and once around a years ago I had around 6 tips white out and die, don't know why as it's never moved but it grew over the dead spots in a couple months. Best pic I could find.

Also, since I'm getting new Monti's in my larger tank. Do you have any advice for montiporas and sps in general? Also have u ever experienced any pests like Monti eating nudibranches. I heard they're small and hard to see.

Paul Howard · Dec 26, 2018

I am surprised no comments on dKh 12-13??

Foothill Corals · Dec 26, 2018

I would start by slowly dropping the alk to 7-8.

divewsharks · Dec 26, 2018

Paul Howard said:
I am surprised no comments on dKh 12-13??

I completely missed it. Was looking at nitrate and lighting.

I would say, one doesn’t need to drop it all the way to 7-8dkh. I run mine at 8.5, but have seen many awesome tanks sitting at 10-11.

Just as long as it stable.

HB AL · Dec 26, 2018

alexytman said:
Also, since I'm getting new Monti's in my larger tank. Do you have any advice for montiporas and sps in general? Also have u ever experienced any pests like Monti eating nudibranches. I heard they're small and hard to see.

I keep things really simple in my tank, my sump has a skimmer and crushed coral, a bag of phosgaurd and a bag of carbon. As for advice on montis and sps, I have a broad spectrum of corals from softies to acros, I keep my alk between 7 and 8, calcium around 450, magnesium around 1450 all the different corals do fine at those levels, and I hand dose! I have a lot of live rock in the tank and a lot of of fish(14). I don’t do water changes, so I supplement trace elements and such with Redsea ABCD colors. I feed my fish 8 cubes a day of various Hikari. I dose nopox daily and it keeps my nitrates between 5 and 10. My 5 Kessil 160’s are on for 14 hours, most of the time at 50/50 for color. This all works pretty well for me.

alexytman · Dec 26, 2018

divewsharks said:
I completely missed it. Was looking at nitrate and lighting.

I would say, one doesn’t need to drop it all the way to 7-8dkh. I run mine at 8.5, but have seen many awesome tanks sitting at 10-11.

Just as long as it stable.

Sorry I run it stable between 12 and 13 for almost a year now. Its because I use red Sea coral pro salt as my LFS only carry a few salts.