Montipora (plating) surprise recovery !

[Newstead]

I added a cheap frag of orange plating montipora to my Biocube 29 (stock lighting) on Feb. 15 just to see what it would do. To my surprise it did well, new growth, etc. 2 days ago I noticed 2 white spots on the top edge of new growth. Checked my alk/ca/mag and all had fallen a bit since my last check (I have been having to dose some of each day, so I upped the dosage amounts). I try to keep alk at 8, it had slowly fallen to 7.3.

 

More white today even slowly upping the alk, etc. Any hope or is it heading to the great coral graveyard in the sky? Any suggestions? 1st pic today, 2nd pic Sat, 3rd pic 2.5 weeks ago.

 

Sat tests

Temp 79

Salinity 1.026

Alk 7.3

Ca 410

Mag 1120

Nitrates 15 (always bet. 10 to 20)

 

Thanks.

 

 

[msummerf]

I'm not an expert but could be montipora eating nudibranches. They eat it and those white spots will continue to grow. I believe there is a dip you can try and maybe wrasses will eat them. Good luck. 

[jservedio]

If it is nudis and the coral isn't glued down, they are really easy to deal with before they spread if you act quickly. During the day, they live on the underside of the coral and look like tiny little grains of rice. They can be toothbrushed off and you can use a needle with peroxide to spray any eggs. They are easy to see with a flashlight on smaller pieces like yours.

 

I got a frag that had eggs on it and dipping didn't kill them, so a few weeks later when they hatched they attacked. I went a little overboard and blasted any suspect areas with lots of undiluted peroxide out of the water to make sure I didn't miss anything. I ended up killing about 1/2 of the coral, but they are extremely hardy and bounce back (and regrow) very quickly. Definitely don't write it off just yet.

 

If it's your only monti, you can try dipping and brushing any nudis off and hope for no eggs. If you've got other montis, and it's nudis, you gotta get it out of there and deal with any eggs otherwise they will spread.

 

Of the single-genus pests (like AEFW or Zoa Spiders), MENS are the easiest to deal with if you act fast.

[mcarroll]

22 hours ago, Newstead said:

Sat tests

Temp 79

Salinity 1.026

Alk 7.3

Ca 410

Mag 1120

Nitrates 15 (always bet. 10 to 20)

 

Alk and Mg are low vs salinity.

 

Please get your phosphate level measured as well as retesting nitrates and post both results.

[Newstead]

3 hours ago, mcarroll said:

 

Alk and Mg are low vs salinity.

 

Please get your phosphate level measured as well as retesting nitrates and post both results.

Mcarroll, just finished testing again today, after a 20% water change yesterday. Results (all tests are Salifert):

Salinity 1.025 

Alk 7.85

Ca 400

Mag 1215

Nitrates app 15

P04 just under .1  (!!!)

Temp 80.2

 

I use Red Sea blue bucket salt with CPAP steam distilled/ozone water that tests as 0 TDS (had to quit using my RODI unit as our mountain well water, even with an inline sediment filter, ran thru cartridges like crazy). The salinity difference is probably due to my old eyes, as I mix the water to 1.026 and top off 2x day to a line on my 3rd chamber (really need to set up my ATO again). The PO4 was a shock, however, as it always tested between 0 and .003 before (so I hadn't bothered to check it in over a month). 

 

I manually dose 1x day with ESV B-ionic 2 part for alk and calcium, and Kent Tech-M for magnesium, using an online dosage calculator.  

 

This tank has been running for just over a year again, has live rock from my previous 75 and Matrix/rubble in 2 chambers in the InTank media basket with Chemi pure blue in the top chamber and floss on very top. I rinse the matrix and rubble once a month and do 20% water changes every 10 to 14 days. Livestock are a pair of 7.5 year old clowns, a RFA, 1 emerald crab, 1 nassarius and 5 astrea snails. Corals other than the monti are all softies and LPS which are all growing and multiplying like crazy.  There are limpets, small bristle worms and micro stars along with a few small chitons.  No nuisance algae in months.

 

Thanks for any insight - tried to include any info that might be useful. 

[jservedio]

Have you gotten more white spots or had a chance to pull it out and look at the coral?

[Newstead]

More white spreading irregularly in the middle.  I glued it to the rock and it has encrusted on it, so am going to bite the bullet tomorrow, break it off the rock, dip as you suggested and perhaps even frag off a healthy part. Will let you know what I find - or don't. I have checked the last few nights with a flashlight and can't see anything, but obviously something bad is going on.

 

[jservedio]

It very much looks like nudis. Way too slow for RTN and STN usually moves slowly in a line. Also, the coral doesn't typically continue to grow during tissue necrosis, but does for nudis.

 

All your other corals look good right? Monti caps are more hardy than most LPS in my experience.

[mcarroll]

On 5/7/2019 at 3:20 PM, Newstead said:

Salinity 1.025 

Alk 7.85

Ca 400

Mag 1215

Nitrates app 15

P04 just under .1  (!!!)

Temp 80.2

 

I use Red Sea blue bucket salt with CPAP steam distilled/ozone water that tests as 0 TDS (had to quit using my RODI unit as our mountain well water, even with an inline sediment filter, ran thru cartridges like crazy). The salinity difference is probably due to my old eyes, as I mix the water to 1.026 and top off 2x day to a line on my 3rd chamber (really need to set up my ATO again). The PO4 was a shock, however, as it always tested between 0 and .003 before (so I hadn't bothered to check it in over a month). 

Looks like a good set of numbers to me.  🙂

 

But it sounds like it may be worth testing nitrates and phosphates more frequently for a few days or so to find out what "normal" really is.  

 

Until corals have all turned around for the better I wouldn't be happy seeing phosphates ≤ 0.03 ppm....more is better.  0.10 ppm is just fine.  Nitrates ought to be around 5+ ppm.

[Newstead]

Thanks for the suggestions and help. Will be working on them tomorrow  - we've been working on containing another (adorable) "pest" since Thursday night when I walked out onto our 2nd story, no stairs deck and came face to face with Mama opening our bungeed closed container of sunflower seed. Seems she had taken apart the chain link dog fence underneath the deck to help herself. So we have been busy getting a new fence with electric wire installed along with security cams so we can check outside without risking coming between her and her cub.

 

Pic is her behaving herself Thursday afternoon in the front yard. 

 

 

[Newstead]

The bear issue inadvertently helped the monti issue - Monday as I got ready to remove it for dipping I saw some brownish orange starting over the splotches of white. Watched it daily to make sure I wasn't imagining it, but the difference is definite now - must have been the alk drop? Also slowly dropping my phosphates with a tiny bit of Rowaphos- don't want to shock anything. Thanks for all the help!

 

At worst - May 10

 

Today- what a difference !

 

[jservedio]

That's awesome - but what kind of fish do you have in the tank? If you had nudis, and have a wrasse or some other fish that will eat them, they will eat the monti until the fish snacks on them and it will heal up. However, if they had any eggs - once they hatch, the process will repeat.

 

Hopefully it was just an alk spike and nothing more - but it can't hurt to check for them.

[Newstead]

The only fish are a pair of 7.5 year old clowns. I have checked nightly with a flashlight and haven't seen anything, but will continue to do so!

[mcarroll]

 Nice!    If you want to stay successful with this coral you have to plan to dose your alkalinity daily. It's possible you may get away with less than daily for a little while, but you have to stay on top of testing at the very least so there are no surprises. 

 

As long as nitrate levels remain relatively in balance with phosphate levels, I don't know if I would recommend doing anything to manually/artificially lower phosphates. 

 

The reason being is that your corals will continue to appreciate the available nutrients.

 

The only possible downside to having elevated nutrients is a possible increase in algae growth.

 

Even if that happens it does nothing against your corals, it just means that you have a little extra work to do and a little bit of extra cleanup crew to buy if the increased growth seems to be more than transient.