Purple monti going south. Help

Nicolas Sabrun · Jan 27, 2018

I am having problems with my purple cap. It started with one white spot but now it appears to be bleaching white area showing up. Any ideas what could be the issue.

Thank you for the help

My parameters are fine

Alk 8
CA 450
Mag 1380
Nitrate 5
Phosphate 0.04

Sorry for the bad pic. I also attached my ati icp from 2 weeks ago.

Reef Jeff · Jan 27, 2018

How long have you had this? Did you use a coral dip before you added the Monti to the tank? Hard to tell from the picture, but could be a pest eating away at the tissue. Montipora eating nudibranch or other pest like a flatworm, etc.

Your water parameters look good. What does your lighting consist of? How much water flow do you have? File looks good...nothing in that to indicate the cause of this.

BoomCorals · Jan 27, 2018

Reef Jeff said:
How long have you had this? Did you use a coral dip before you added the Monti to the tank? Hard to tell from the picture, but could be a pest eating away at the tissue. Montipora eating nudibranch or other pest like a flatworm, etc.

Your water parameters look good. What does your lighting consist of? How much water flow do you have? File looks good...nothing in that to indicate the cause of this.

Wouldn’t be flatworms, aefw don’t eat montis.

Nicolas Sabrun · Jan 27, 2018

Reef Jeff said:
How long have you had this? Did you use a coral dip before you added the Monti to the tank? Hard to tell from the picture, but could be a pest eating away at the tissue. Montipora eating nudibranch or other pest like a flatworm, etc.

Your water parameters look good. What does your lighting consist of? How much water flow do you have? File looks good...nothing in that to indicate the cause of this.

I looked at it with a flashlight and I didn't see anything

As for the setup, it is 72"x18"x21" 120g. I have to pp8 on each side at 75% alternating. 2 return from dc10000

For light. 3 mars aqua 165w with lenses off. Blue at 60% white at 35% there about 6 " above the tank.

The monti has been in for 6 months. I had growth until now but slow.

All other coral are fine except for a birdnest on the other side stning.

Reef Jeff · Feb 5, 2018

How's your monti doing? Any changes?

Nicolas Sabrun · Feb 6, 2018

Reef Jeff said:
How's your monti doing? Any changes?

Thanks for checking in.

The purple monti seems to be recovering. The white spot are slowly coloring back up.

One of seasons greetings monti frag rtn yesterday so I am still trying to figure out what s going on

Reef Jeff · Feb 6, 2018

Glad to hear the Monti is recovering. So sounds like you ruled out a monti eating pest. Your nutrients were in the ballpark so that should not be the cause.

Lighting?...Did you change anything?

I don't have any ideas on the RTN for the season's greeting monti. Hopefully someone else can chime in with ideas.

PanchoG · Feb 6, 2018

I have two purple montis and I can tell you they love light. If you can move it up or increase the power would help. One thing intrigues me is your Nitrate reading, seems to be to high at 5. My tank is only at 0.1 is your reading correct?

Reef Jeff · Feb 6, 2018

PanchoG said:
I have two purple montis and I can tell you they love light. If you can move it up or increase the power would help. One thing intrigues me is your Nitrate reading, seems to be to high at 5. My tank is only at 0.1 is your reading correct?

Even if running an ULNS System .1 is considered low. Most ULNS systems try to keep at least .25 NO3. 5 ppm is fine, although I prefer 1-2 ppm. 5 ppm is not a problem in a mixed reef.

Cnidoblast · Feb 6, 2018

To be honest your risking a crash if your nitrate is below 1 in a mixed reef system - for a soft coral system like mine I try to keep 5 or 10 ppm because of gsp and zoanthus

PanchoG · Feb 6, 2018

I always try to keep them almost at zero in the 3 years I have they have never touched 0.3 but everything is running good and no casualties. For what I have read the nitrate level in the ocean is 0.2

Scorpius · Feb 6, 2018

ugh... here we go again with people posting random "hey your nitrates are too high/low/etc".

Some of the best tanks out there run anywhere from barely detectable to over 50ppm nitrates.

The OP doesn't seem to have any algae issues I can see so lay off of him. If anything his two corals pictured look hungry more than anything.

I've been at the receiving end of this advice and it always made me want to change things which never ended well.

Nicolas Sabrun · Feb 6, 2018

Reef Jeff said:
Glad to hear the Monti is recovering. So sounds like you ruled out a monti eating pest. Your nutrients were in the ballpark so that should not be the cause.

Lighting?...Did you change anything?

I don't have any ideas on the RTN for the season's greeting monti. Hopefully someone else can chime in with ideas.

In regards to light, I haven't changed anything. They are actually on the low side I am getting about 200 par at the surface with a seneye if I remember correctly. The 3 black box are without lenses so they are not as strong but still pull some decent light. I will need to check again with the seneye to where I am at

I was not able to dip it since it is encrusted pretty well to the rock.

The only thing that I changed was going from ESV 2 part to ATI essentials about a month before the white spot started to show.

I think it could be the reason. I am not aware of any livestock piking on purple monti.

The other thing I can think of is that my urchin may have pass on top of it and gave it a good clean but I doubt it.

Nicolas Sabrun · Feb 6, 2018

PanchoG said:
I have two purple montis and I can tell you they love light. If you can move it up or increase the power would help. One thing intrigues me is your Nitrate reading, seems to be to high at 5. My tank is only at 0.1 is your reading correct?

My readings are correct. They are from ATI. ICP. testing which is probably more accurate than my red Sea or salifert test kit. Both shows 2.5.

I am definetly nowhere near 0.1

I am more concerned about my PO4 level than nitrate honestly but both go together. If you have N03,you have PO4 and vice versa. Don't take my words about this though, I am still a newbie on the whole chemistry.

Nicolas Sabrun · Feb 6, 2018

Scorpius said:
ugh... here we go again with people posting random "hey your nitrates are too high/low/etc".

Some of the best tanks out there run anywhere from barely detectable to over 50ppm nitrates.

The OP doesn't seem to have any algae issues I can see so lay off of him. If anything his two corals pictured look hungry more than anything.

I've been at the receiving end of this advice and it always made me want to change things which never ended well.

I completely agree. I had a 20g sps before. I was trying hard to keep everything near 0. The result was bleached and pale coral. Skip a water change and color were coming right back.

I don't have algae issues except for a slim green film on the glass that I have to clean every 2 days. No cyano or GHA.

I do have a refugium which could be helping with it.

I know that my PO4 is a bit high which I try to keep low. Overfeeding could be the problem specially with 3 tangs in there that constantly beg for more.

I started feeding last week reef roids with polyp booster once a week. I think you are right about my corals being hungry.

Nicolas Sabrun · Feb 6, 2018

To all, I am not an expert and still learning, but I stopped chasing numbers. I am more looking into stability and check for any deficiency via ICP. I believe keeping nitrate and phosphate near 0 is not mandatory. Why fight your tank to get it to 0 and dosed a lot of supplements when all it wants to do is stabilize?

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that having high N03 and PO4 with GHA all over is a great either. I am just saying having some of it doesn't necessarily hurt. Keeping browning and algae in check.

Scorpius · Feb 6, 2018

Nicolas Sabrun said:
I completely agree. I had a 20g sps before. I was trying hard to keep everything near 0. The result was bleached and pale coral. Skip a water change and color were coming right back.

I don't have algae issues except for a slim green film on the glass that I have to clean every 2 days. No cyano or GHA.

I do have a refugium which could be helping with it.

I know that my PO4 is a bit high which I try to keep low. Overfeeding could be the problem specially with 3 tangs in there that constantly beg for more.

I started feeding last week reef roids with polyp booster once a week. I think you are right about my corals being hungry.

.04ppm phosphate is not high if you include the error of our test kits which can be .05ppm+/- your reading.

Reef Jeff · Feb 6, 2018

So like I said before, if your PO4 is around .04 and NO3 is 2.5 or even 5 you are in fine shape as far as nutrients.

Interesting about the urchin. I wouldn't rule that out. I never had one in my reef, but I suppose it could cause a pattern like that on the Monti.

I'm not familiar with the supplements you mentioned, but as long as your alkalinity and calcium are in the right range and stable, I doubt one supplement over another would be the issue. Large alkalinity swings can definitely cause issues with hard corals.

Based on the PAR you mentioned it sounds like you could definitely turn your lights up. Monti's do like a lot of light. I have 2 Metal Halides and supplemental blue LED's on mine and he's colored up nice.