Montipora starting to turn white

Cranstons12 · Nov 2, 2023

Does anyone know whats going on with my montipora? Friday it was fine and i noticed it turning white on monday. I havnt gotten my water tested in about a month but my other corals r fine. I have an orphek atlantik v4 compact on slow aclimation. Since i got the coral 6 months ago its been growing perfectly fine. I hope its not bleaching or have an infection. Tia!

UMALUM · Nov 2, 2023

Cranstons12 said:
Does anyone know whats going on with my montipora? Friday it was fine and i noticed it turning white on monday. I havnt gotten my water tested in about a month but my other corals r fine. I have an orphek atlantik v4 compact on slow aclimation. Since i got the coral 6 months ago its been growing perfectly fine. I hope its not bleaching or have an infection. Tia!

Picture sucks and with the lack of info provided its anyone's guess really. If it were me I would dip it and see what if anything comes off. Lugols if you have it can help with some pests and also bacteria issues. You can also flip him when the lights go out to see if anythings living under there that's not supposed to be. If your water comes back good and you don't have M.E.N. then there's a good chance it's just a bacteria issue.

Cranstons12 · Nov 2, 2023

UMALUM said:
Picture sucks and with the lack of info provided its anyone's guess really. If it were me I would dip it and see what if anything comes off. Lugols if you have it can help with some pests and also bacteria issues. You can also flip him when the lights go out to see if anythings living under there that's not supposed to be. If your water comes back good and you don't have M.E.N. then there's a good chance it's just a bacteria issue.

Water test is coming sunday. When i dip it do i just take the whole rock and put it in a separate tank with water from my display? And also for how long? Sorry ive never had this issue so dipping is all new to me

UMALUM · Nov 2, 2023

Cranstons12 said:
Water test is coming sunday. When i dip it do i just take the whole rock and put it in a separate tank with water from my display? And also for how long? Sorry ive never had this issue so dipping is all new to me

I guess if it's attached to the rock then yes you can. You will probably see some beneficial stuff floating as well to so don't freak out just pods and what not. More important than the time is to get the right amount of iodine to water so not to kill the monti. I usually don't dip anything for more than 5 minutes myself as a small amount of water can change temp really quick and cause more damage. If I'm not mistaken lugols calls for 40 drops to 1 gallon so you can do the math on that.

Cranstons12 · Nov 2, 2023

UMALUM said:
I guess if it's attached to the rock then yes you can. You will probably see some beneficial stuff floating as well to so don't freak out just pods and what not. More important than the time is to get right about of iodine to water so not to kill the monti. I usually don't dip anything for more than 5 minutes myself as a small amount of water can change temp really quick and cause more damage. If I'm not mistaken lugols calls for 40 drops to 1 gallon so you can do the math on that.

Okay. Thanks man appreciate it! Ill do it tomorrow!

UMALUM · Nov 2, 2023

Cranstons12 said:
Okay. Thanks man appreciate it! Ill do it tomorrow!

Might take 2 - 3 days to see improvement but if it doesn't get worse then your headed in the right direction.

threebuoys · Jan 27, 2024

Cannot see the photo well enough to assess. I had something similar happen to one of my montis earlier this year. When my alkalinity measurements dropped to the bottom of the recommended range, I increased my sodium bicarbonate dosing. The increased dosing didn't seem to help. Then, I realized my reagent was out of date . When I got some new reagent, I found that the increased dosing had in fact raised my alkalinity to the top of the scale, much higher than what the corals were accustomed to. I've gotten alkalinity back under control and the montis are coloring back up. My red monti did not lose any color, but does show a growth ring where the problem occurred. The green montis lost much more color, show the same growth ring, but are now recovering their color.

I have no idea if my interpretation of what happened makes any sense, given the range of factors affecting coral. But, I like to think I solved a problem!