Monti cap frag bleaching. How can I stop it?

[Bishop]

I got a small monti cap frag over the weekend. Put it under my dual 150w MHs close to the top of the 36g tank.

Within 2 days the center turned bright white. A superman monti I had gotten from the same guy turned half white with what looked like a small amount of brown dust where over the white part.

 

Thinking that the only possibility is bleaching from to much light, I put the superman at the bottom of the tank. I put the monti cap in my 20L with quad t5 24w. 2x actinic and 2x 18000k. Thought it would be good at the top of this tank since there is alot less lumen going on than the MH was putting out.

 

This morning before work, I noticed the superman had gone completely white overnight. Now, after working all day. The monti cap went from 25% white to about 50% white and what appears to be a slime or mucus coming from where the white zone is. I'm guessing this is from expelling algae.

 

What can I do to stop the bleaching? Can I leave it in the dark for a couple day and hope it stops? I've never had bleached coral so I have no idea what the problem is or what to do about it before it's lost. If it does fully bleach can it recover or is it dead? I can care less for the superman but I really want to save my purple rimmed monti cap.

 

Thanx.

[rrcg50]

I got a small monti cap frag over the weekend. Put it under my dual 150w MHs close to the top of the 36g tank.

Within 2 days the center turned bright white. A superman monti I had gotten from the same guy turned half white with what looked like a small amount of brown dust where over the white part.

 

Thinking that the only possibility is bleaching from to much light, I put the superman at the bottom of the tank. I put the monti cap in my 20L with quad t5 24w. 2x actinic and 2x 18000k. Thought it would be good at the top of this tank since there is alot less lumen going on than the MH was putting out.

 

This morning before work, I noticed the superman had gone completely white overnight. Now, after working all day. The monti cap went from 25% white to about 50% white and what appears to be a slime or mucus coming from where the white zone is. I'm guessing this is from expelling algae.

 

What can I do to stop the bleaching? Can I leave it in the dark for a couple day and hope it stops? I've never had bleached coral so I have no idea what the problem is or what to do about it before it's lost. If it does fully bleach can it recover or is it dead? I can care less for the superman but I really want to save my purple rimmed monti cap.

 

Thanx.

move it to the sandbed. give it good flow and just wait it out. if it still is bleaching then frag it to save it

[Bishop]

move it to the sandbed. give it good flow and just wait it out. if it still is bleaching then frag it to save it

 

 

Problem with fragging it is that it is already a frag and anything that I can frag from it now would only be about a 1/4 inch piece and not sure if this would work. If it bleaches any more, I'll not even have that much.

[GokesReef]

Sounds like you shocked it with the light. Do some reading into light acclimation.

 

When I put my sunset monti in, I think I did the same... had it too high in the tank. It faded, never bleached, and the polyps barely extended. A month later (never moved it), its got good extension and is starting to get a deeper orange to it. Mainly, stop messing with it, though

 

(also, use something to blow the dust off it, montis are pretty vulnerable to stuff settling on them if they don't have proper flow)

[Genj]

Yeah, I did exactly the same thing with mine, and I'm 80% certain it's light shock, and 20% something else. I dipped them today in an attempt to stop the dead tissue from killing the rest of the frag.

[Bishop]

My monti may just be a gonner. The good side is that I think I see what may be the ever so slight pinkishness of the polyps on my superman monti. This makes me feel things could go good. Hopefully this would mean my purple rim monti cap could also make it. I read that it can take months for a bleached coral to heal. To me, months would be much shorter than never so I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, monti cap polyps are so small i can't even see them especially now that it's bleached.