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Cultivated Reef

Montipora white spots


Micro 30L

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I was looking at my montipora and I just wanted to know if it's bleaching or if it has any pests. 

Tank is a Nuvo 30l

1 clownfish

1sixline wrasse

1strawberry conch

a few snails

20180613_212316.jpg

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Ph is 8.4

Kh is 9

Nitrates 5ppm(these were all over the place I just got them down this week)

Calcium is 400

Phosphate is 0ppm

These well all taken with the API test kit. I'm upgrading to the Hanna phosphorus test kit today so I'll send a better phosphate test some other time today.

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I literally just dealt with this like two days ago and had to ditch my monti. NOT SAYING THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM, BUT CHECK TO SEE IF IT IS. When I started researching white spots on monti one of the first things I came across was "Montipora eating Nudibranches". Since that's the first thing I came across I wanted to scratch it off the list of possibilities. They recommended to check the underside if the lights were on. I popped it off the rock work (super glued) and sure enough there were two of those ******* under there and eggs to go with them. My white spots on mine looked exactly like yours. There was a line on the edge (not the darker almost purplish living color where they grow on the edges). IT WAS CALCIUM WHITE! Then there was one spot not to far away in the main body of the monti as well. Not trying to alarm you, but this was my case. Hope it's not yours. 

 

EDIT: Note that the development happened literally overnight. I get at least 1 hour of stare time at my tank daily and i'm 100% positive that it wasn't like that before I went to bed. Came home from work the next day and bam. 

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The pic is blurry but I think it looks ok.

 

Since you are still using API kits I'm going to assume you are fairly new to reefing so let's go over a few things to prevent heartache down the road.

 

Be very careful chasing Phosphates, lowering them too fast can outright kill and high Phosphates are more of a nuisance (algae) than a killer.  

 

Keep your KH stable, though montis can tolerate small swings.

 

Don't sweat Nitrates too much unless they get over 20.  Again, mostly an algae issue but in a small tank algae can be a big issue and most here are much less tolerant than I am when it comes to tank algae and looks.  :)

 

As far as monti eating nudis are concerned, they tend to group up and dead patches grow as they eat the coral skin.  Random white spots are wither growth, bleaching from to much light, or coral stress and skin loss due to unstable water params.   Good luck!

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Maybe it was just a coincidence that I had those spots and they were there. But when I noticed the spots develop overnight I got concerned and investigated and when I did. I found nudibranches underneath mine. Maybe I was getting growth and they weren't munching on it yet. But I made the tough decision to get the coral out of my tank because there were eggs as well. So simply removing the two nudis wouldn't have helped. 

 

 

EDIT: I seent 'em wit my own two eyes LOL

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The thing is I had massive growth from this coral when I put it in. Then one day when I was moving some rocks around I kinda broke off the parts of it that were encrusted on the rock work. So I dipped it just to make sure there were no pests on it. That was all two months ago and I haven't added any other coral to my tank. I haven't seen any pests on it or any other coral in my tank and I've been looking at my tank constantly.

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You're probably good......It's just what happened in my tank. In light of what Mark has said. I am probably just dealing with a coincidence. I'm just glad I caught them before they festered for a year lol.  

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A Little Blue

I don’t think that this is related but perhaps interesting thought.... GHA thrives off nutrients in your tank. With combination of your elevated Alk (9), strong light and your nutrients being consumed mostly by algae bloom, bleaching is a possibility. I’m not saying that your Alk is unusually high (that’s where my Alk level is) but combination of above mentioned factors can cause potential bleaching. However, to my eye, your monti doesn’t look all that bad. It could be a little stressed from moving around, handling, water chemistry swings or it could be just a usual growth. 

It is really hard to tell from your picture. 

I wouldn’t stress over it too much. And I would definitely try to keep my hands out of the water and stop chasing numbers. If it grows then it grows, if it doesn’t, move on to something else. 

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  • 2 years later...

Very late follow up but I have the same thing going on with my montipora and have ultra low phosphate and nitrate levels (now dosing to get them up). What ended up happening to your coral?

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