What do i do now?

[melypr1985]

So lets start with this. I had ick and flukes in my tank and dosed prazi in the dt while i set up the qt for the copper. The flukes were BAD so i felt it nessesary to get the meds to the fish fast.
By that evening and even worse the next morning my montis had started paling. Now they are turning white or loaing tissue like the picture. My birdsnest is fine. My polclipora looks like crap as usual..... so its fine too. (Bought it looking like crap so no suprise) I will say that i had to take out all my rock and most corals to remove all the fish. I had to do this twice in one week. Everything else in the tank is doing fine. It seems to be just my montis. So what do i do now? Ive done 3 water changes of 10 gallons each. 1 each time i took the rock out and replaced it. And another today. I added extra carbon in a high flow area and my skimmer has been working in overdrive until 30 minutes ago when i unplugged it because it started making weird noises.
My levels:
Alk: 9.8
Ca: 480
Mg: 1640
Ph: 8.0
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0

Thanks for your help. I never suspected trouble from my montis. I love them and dont want to lose them.

 

[melypr1985]

Now its letting me post a picture for you.

 

[melypr1985]

no ideas? should i break off the white pieces? What about the corals that are just fading out completely? Would dipping them in Coral revive help at all? I know there arn't any pests eating them, but it couldn't hurt right?

 

[ahmed.boomer]

Coral Revive would help kill any infection that the tissue may have gotten. It wouldn't be bad to do. Sometimes I leave the bleached area for encrusting corals, as they encrust back over it. This is plating though, so I'd cut it. You can glue the smaller fragments to frag plugs and see how they'll do. Parameters look alright, but magnesium seems to be a tad high, but shouldn't be killing anything. I've heard of people going all the way to 1750ppm for a couple days to kill bryopsis without any negative effects on the corals.

 

[ritter6788]

Check your source water. My montis start looking like that if I let my RO/DI go too long without changing.

 

[melypr1985]

Thanks! I'll cut it and dip it in the AM. I'll wait and see what happens after that.

My RODI is brand new and tests at 0 TDS. I've been checking every couple of days since it's new just to be sure. I did switch salts when i set up the QT and got the RODI unit. I won a free bucket of Fritz Pro salt. So now i make my own. Maybe that's the culprit? Its the only other thing that changed besides the prazi and removing the rocks to get the fish out.

 

[dh350twin]

Prazi will lower the oxygen levels in the tank. Do you run a skimmer? Also my montis always look better with a little bit of nitrates and phosphates. If you have no detectable nitrate or phosphate then your alk is a little high should shoot for 7.5-8 good luck.

 

[melypr1985]

Prazi will lower the oxygen levels in the tank. Do you run a skimmer? Also my montis always look better with a little bit of nitrates and phosphates. If you have no detectable nitrate or phosphate then your alk is a little high should shoot for 7.5-8 good luck.

I do and was running it. It started making a strange noise so i unplugged it until i can clean it tomorrow. i know i have phosphates, but it's from over feeding. So the phosphates are there, just really low. I dont have a test for it so i can't verify what it is currently. I'm not sure how to lower my alk and mag. Any suggestions for that? Thanks

 

[dh350twin]

I do and was running it. It started making a strange noise so i unplugged it until i can clean it tomorrow. i know i have phosphates, but it's from over feeding. So the phosphates are there, just really low. I dont have a test for it so i can't verify what it is currently. I'm not sure how to lower my alk and mag. Any suggestions for that? Thanks

You really need to not turn off the skimmer unless you can add oxygen via air pump and air stone. Lowering mag is hard. Other then water changes. Alk can be lowered by stop dosing it.......if your dosing it at all. Other wise find out what your salt mix mag and alk is straight out of the bucket if they are high switch salts.

 

[melypr1985]

You really need to not turn off the skimmer unless you can add oxygen via air pump and air stone. Lowering mag is hard. Other then water changes. Alk can be lowered by stop dosing it.......if your dosing it at all. Other wise find out what your salt mix mag and alk is straight out of the bucket if they are high switch salts.

Well the prazi has to be out of my system by now. With the carbon reactor and extra bag of carbon in the sump and the 3 water changes its going to be low enough to not make a difference at this point. I'm afraid that it started this mess. So I'm not concerned with the skimmer being off for 12 hours... at least as it pertains to oxygen in the water. I can lower the temp some which will raise the oxygen levels.

I dont dose anything anymore and havent since i set this tank up. I will make sure to test the Fritz salt in the AM as well. I meant to do that actually and kept forgetting. Geeze... what a bonehead i am lol.

 

[dh350twin]

Well the prazi has to be out of my system by now. With the carbon reactor and extra bag of carbon in the sump and the 3 water changes its going to be low enough to not make a difference at this point. I'm afraid that it started this mess. So I'm not concerned with the skimmer being off for 12 hours... at least as it pertains to oxygen in the water. I can lower the temp some which will raise the oxygen levels.

I dont dose anything anymore and havent since i set this tank up. I will make sure to test the Fritz salt in the AM as well. I meant to do that actually and kept forgetting. Geeze... what a bonehead i am lol.

Lol.....that happens to us all.....a lot. Goodluck I hope those montis recover.

 

[melypr1985]

Lol.....that happens to us all.....a lot. Goodluck I hope those montis recover.

lol glad i'm not alone in that!

I hope they do too. I have some really nice ones. I'll take all these suggestions and put them in play. I figure doing it all can't hurt. I'll update when i know something. Thanks to you all for the help.

 

[dh350twin]

lol glad i'm not alone in that!

I hope they do too. I have some really nice ones. I'll take all these suggestions and put them in play. I figure doing it all can't hurt. I'll update when i know something. Thanks to you all for the help.

Don't do to much to fast. Carbon was a good idea and water change as well. I wouldn't do anything else right away. Take your time and figure out the salt

 

[melypr1985]

Don't do to much to fast. Carbon was a good idea and water change as well. I wouldn't do anything else right away. Take your time and figure out the salt

Of course. I always want to get it all done all at once. It probably stems from only being able to work on the tank while my 2 year old sleeps (that's just 2 hours to get all my chores done). Thanks for the reminder... i totally need them! I'll make sure to take it slow.

 

[chris31759]

I would probably ask Humble Fish(parasite disease expert) and Twillard(knows everything) what to do. I know I inadvertently added 1 cap full of prazipro to my 90 gallon DT and it messed up my skimmer and ticked off my corals for a couple of days. I did a 30% water change to bring everything back under control. I am sure I over reacted. I would probably at least change out the carbon again. Good luck. I have seen Monti's recover but that edge looks kind of rough from the photo.

 

[melypr1985]

Thanks chris. I have been talking to humblefish, twillard is a good one to speak to also. Good advice!

 

[melypr1985]

So this Fritz Pro salt tested at 11dkh for ALK and 1640 for Mag. I didn't test the rest yet mainly because my 2 year old woke up and ran straight towards the chemicals. Typical So this is obviously what's throwing my numbers a little outa whack. Let's just say that I don't have the ability to switch salts at the moment and have to make do with what I have. Does anybody have suggestions on how to make it work? Lowering the MG and ALK? My first thought is dilution but I don't see how that would work at all. I may not be creative enough to figure it out.

Edit to say: I ran the tests twice and they came out the same each time. Using Red Sea kits