It's official - I'm having Montipora Meltdown. Help?

[BlueThumb]

It's official now that nearly all my Montipora are not doing well and some are STN'ing to the point of no return. The first to go as a Setosa (complete melt down), then my orange digitata, and now my superman. The latter two are hanging in there but certainly not looking good. My spongodes and caps are OK but have had better days.

 

I was having a lot of alk issues but has been stabilized for a few days yet nothing is recovering. Usually when I get my DKH at a stable 8-9 everything perks up again and begins to grow and color up again. This time there is something more serious going on as things are not recovering and in fact starting to die off. Are there critters that target Montipora specifically...like how Acros have red bugs. I know amphipods are supposed to be reef safe but they are definitely feasting on the dying flesh of my poor montis. Are they making things worse by preventing the coral from healing?

I used to feed phytoplankton every night but stopped as I was having water quality issues. Do I really need to dose phyto to grow my "food chain". I Know lots of good tanks that don't feed anything to their SPS, including not even having fish to create fish waste for corals.

 

Lastly, the strange (but fortunate) thing is that all my other coral are seemingly fine, this includes acros, millepora, stylophora, and porites.

 

Anyone ever suffer from Monti melt-down? What did you do about it?

[Grumblecakes]

Check at night for montipora eating nudibranches. They were wrecking my montis until i dipped them all. i lost a colony from dipping but i saved the other 5. If you do have them dont waste your time with things like iodine or revive. get on ebay or amazon or something and get potassium permanganate. Two dips and i a haven't seen any since. It nukes your rock too so if you can remove the colonies from the rock work.

 

this article was very helpful for me: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/eb/

[BlueThumb]

How did you visually locate the nudibranchs? I haven't seen any but I'll keep looking at night with a flashlight. I do have some problems with small starfish (I forget their name) that do occasionally target my coral, especially the monti caps...leaving track marks wherever they go. Fortunately they come out during the day and and can manually remove them with tweezers.

[Grumblecakes]

they are very very hard to see in areas where they've already eaten the coral. i look for little fuzy grains of rice if that makes sense.

[franklypre]

They are snow white little nudi, google them, usually if you have them they attack caps first. They will be in the shade during the lights on period usually.

[Asureef]

It's official now that nearly all my Montipora are not doing well and some are STN'ing to the point of no return. The first to go as a Setosa (complete melt down), then my orange digitata, and now my superman. The latter two are hanging in there but certainly not looking good. My spongodes and caps are OK but have had better days.

 

I was having a lot of alk issues but has been stabilized for a few days yet nothing is recovering. Usually when I get my DKH at a stable 8-9 everything perks up again and begins to grow and color up again. This time there is something more serious going on as things are not recovering and in fact starting to die off. Are there critters that target Montipora specifically...like how Acros have red bugs. I know amphipods are supposed to be reef safe but they are definitely feasting on the dying flesh of my poor montis. Are they making things worse by preventing the coral from healing?

 

I used to feed phytoplankton every night but stopped as I was having water quality issues. Do I really need to dose phyto to grow my "food chain". I Know lots of good tanks that don't feed anything to their SPS, including not even having fish to create fish waste for corals.

 

Lastly, the strange (but fortunate) thing is that all my other coral are seemingly fine, this includes acros, millepora, stylophora, and porites.

 

Anyone ever suffer from Monti melt-down? What did you do about it?

How are you maintaining your alk?

If it's only been stabilized for the last few days then you're likely still seeing the results, recovery time can be pretty lengthen from weeks to months. If it's a water quality related issue then your acros will likely follow suit, sometimes they will not show signs right away.

[BlueThumb]

I think you are right. I've been checking for pests for many days now and I haven't seen anything, neither day or night.

 

I'm fairly convinced my alk swings are what's hurting my montis as I've read/heard they are one of the more sensitive SPS regarding this. I'm just now adding a cooling fan over my overflow to increase evaporation - thereby increasing my kalk dossing via my ATO. In another post I made on this forum, others (with better results than mine) believe that heavier dossing could fix the problem. If not, I think I'm going to have to add another dosing pump and dose something like Reef Builder (carbonate/bicarbonate blend) to better maintain my alk over the long-run.

[blasterman]

I know a few guys who have insanely overgrown monti dominated tanks, and they all consistently claim they have the best luck with dKH a bit on the low side (7-8dKH), never higher, and calcium on the high side, ~450. Mag needs to be consistent as well.

 

A couple of month ago I had a orange cap and an orange digi, both growing wonderfully, suddenly start to RTN for no reason. Water params were spot on. My green digi continues to grow and encrust at a terrifying pace. A rare blue digi I added a month ago is also growing fine. I added potassium to my tank (salt substitute from a grocery store) and this stopped the orange digi from getting worse, but I lost the cap. I guessed at this remedy, but it seemed to help.

 

The orange digi isn't getting worse, but it's growth is slow...nowhere near the green or the blue. I know a lot of hardcore acro growers that have given up on orange digis because they don't have luck with them.

[BlueThumb]

I get all my montis from a local hobbyist who also has monti dominant tanks, which are all amazingly colorful and healthy. I think you may be onto something as he runs everything about in the NSW range, which puts him at 7-8 DKH.

 

Two days ago he gave me a free replacement frag of setosa as it grows like a weed for him...but it died within 48 hours of being in my tank. I did everything you're supposed to do to acclimate new corals to your tank but it literally shed all it's flesh in 48 hours. I've never seen anything like it. I would have thought I dropped it into a vat of acid...which my tank is not at 8.1 pH. The setosa changed from orange to bright pink almost immediately and began to shed within the first 12 hours.

 

I'm starting to think my Acros are engaging in unseen chemical warfare and weaker montis can't tolerate. For example, my orange digitata is one first corlas I put in my tank and was healthy and growing for a long while. As I increased my acros and other SPS he began to slow down and recede. At this point he's alive but slowly fading away.

 

I'm thinking I may add UV sterilizer or ozone generator to try to disarm some of the chemical warfare that may be going on in my nano.

Thx for the help.

[ZephNYC]

I'm thinking I may add UV sterilizer or ozone generator to try to disarm some of the chemical warfare that may be going on in my nano.

Thx for the help.

 

Uv wont help with that and im HIGHLY against ozone is reef systems that are not NPS based and have heavy feedings. Just use heavy carbon.

[Asureef]

I get all my montis from a local hobbyist who also has monti dominant tanks, which are all amazingly colorful and healthy. I think you may be onto something as he runs everything about in the NSW range, which puts him at 7-8 DKH.

 

Two days ago he gave me a free replacement frag of setosa as it grows like a weed for him...but it died within 48 hours of being in my tank. I did everything you're supposed to do to acclimate new corals to your tank but it literally shed all it's flesh in 48 hours. I've never seen anything like it. I would have thought I dropped it into a vat of acid...which my tank is not at 8.1 pH. The setosa changed from orange to bright pink almost immediately and began to shed within the first 12 hours.

 

I'm starting to think my Acros are engaging in unseen chemical warfare and weaker montis can't tolerate. For example, my orange digitata is one first corlas I put in my tank and was healthy and growing for a long while. As I increased my acros and other SPS he began to slow down and recede. At this point he's alive but slowly fading away.

 

I'm thinking I may add UV sterilizer or ozone generator to try to disarm some of the chemical warfare that may be going on in my nano.

Thx for the help.

 

 

What type of lighting are you using?

[blasterman]

The bio warfare scenario might not be out of the question. With my green monti, and it's offspring growing at daily visible rates I'm having a hard time introducing acros.

[Chadf]

The bio warfare scenario might not be out of the question. With my green monti, and it's offspring growing at daily visible rates I'm having a hard time introducing acros.

 

Acros kill montis.

[The_Midnight_Cicada]

Acros kill montis.

 

Dearly noted.

[BlueThumb]

I'm running LEDS, mostly stock JBJ, which work well enough for my acros and millis to grow reasonably well. Also I've put some good distance between my acros and montis, but given it's a nano, I'm not sure it matters much.

 

I recently added a cooling fan above my overflow and it is greatly increasing evaporation, and thus increasing my kalk dosing. I've stabilized my alk for the past week and things seem to be coloring up and polyp extension has improved.

[Asureef]

I'm running LEDS, mostly stock JBJ, which work well enough for my acros and millis to grow reasonably well. Also I've put some good distance between my acros and montis, but given it's a nano, I'm not sure it matters much.

 

I recently added a cooling fan above my overflow and it is greatly increasing evaporation, and thus increasing my kalk dosing. I've stabilized my alk for the past week and things seem to be coloring up and polyp extension has improved.

 

Maybe Kalk dosing is the problem, via ATO this can be a problem as we know evaporation can happen at different rates. Another thing you can check is your potassium. Normally, it isn't needed or supplemented, but montis are usually the first to show signs IME.

[BlueThumb]

Update: I have stabilized alk, reduced feedings, and added some new Dr. Tims bacteria. The montis that survived are now showing good recovery, especially my green spongodes. It's flesh had peeled back, leaving it quite bald. Within the last 48 hours it has made quite the spectacular recovery. I'm crossing my fingers that my orange digi will come back but it still looks quite faded.

 

Conclusion:

I made too many changes too fast to know what worked...or what wasn't working. However, if I had to guess, I'd say it was my alk swings that were causing most of the issues.

 

Evaporation:

I can manually dial this back by slowing down the fan and/or repositioning it higher up. Otherwise, I can dilute my calcium acetate solution to adjust to changes, i.e. in case it's being added too fast. It's not perfect but neither is 2-part dosing. Honestly though, my house stays about 73F all year so controlling evap is not that hard. I live on SoCal by the beach so this is not too difficult most of the time, barring this latest heat wave.

[Mniely]

Hey guys...question related to this. One side of mine has white tips (new growth = good right?) But the other side seems like necrosis/black skeletized coral....what does this mean....