Hermit on Montipora

[RickvD]

Hey,

I have a Montipora Digitata on the top scape. It has been doing good. But since a week or so, my biggest hermit keeps climbing up onto it and just chills there. He doesn't move for hours, then walks around, cleans a bit for 10 minutes and goes back to the Montipora. I pick him up and put him somewhere else atleast 3 times a day. My Montipora has gotten brown tips, doesn't seem as open anymore and has stopped showing any sign of growth. What can I do to stop this?

[seabass]

How long have you had the montipora?  The brown tips could be something else.

 

You might try feeding the hermit crab somewhere else, or moving the montipora; of course (as a last resort) you could re-home the crab.

[RickvD]

2 hours ago, seabass said:

How long have you had the montipora?  The brown tips could be something else.

Pfff almost 3 weeks I think? All parameters seem fine except phosphate which should he as low as possible even though they were 0 untill a few days ago (you know my threads…) tomorrow I’ll test every parameter that could cause burned tips. Only thing I can imagine is too much light, while I know they need a lot of light.

 

2 hours ago, seabass said:

You might try feeding the hermit crab somewhere else, or moving the montipora; of course (as a last resort) you could re-home the crab.

The hermit has food everywhere except the montipora… he only moves to eat, then goes back… I’d hate to remove him, he’s a nice lil fella he even gets along great with snails…

[seabass]

1 minute ago, RickvD said:

Pfff almost 3 weeks I think?

So it's basically new and we really can't say that it has been doing well up to this point.  There are some things which cause the rapid demise of a coral; however, most coral deaths are slow.  But that's not saying that it's dying (it's just not doing well).

 

6 minutes ago, RickvD said:

All parameters seem fine except phosphate which should he as low as possible even though they were 0 untill a few days ago

What's fine?  But phosphate shouldn't be as low as possible.  In fact, 0.10 ppm is probably a good value for phosphate in a mature tank.  The lack of phosphate could be (and probably is) a problem.

 

10 minutes ago, RickvD said:

tomorrow I’ll test every parameter that could cause burned tips. Only thing I can imagine is too much light, while I know they need a lot of light.

Stability is often more telling than spot checking parameters (especially with things like alkalinity).  Too much light can be a problem; but that usually causes bleaching.  SPS browning is often caused by too little light.  Again, I'm not sure if that's the problem or not.

 

So without know a lot about your system, I'd probably recommend increasing the phosphate level as well as increasing the light.  I wouldn't worry about the hermit crab; it's probably fine.  Flow could also be an issue.

[Murphs_Reef]

I tend to find that hermits do perch on branching Monti specifically for some reason (I'll dig some pictures out of mine) It does no real harm from what I've seen. The brown tips on a digi sound more like light or lack of it to me. 

 

Phosphate wise 0.1ppm is what I go for, some people go low at 0.03 or so but i find coral growth pretty slow at that for me personally so 0.1 even up to 0.18 is ok...

[RickvD]

He’s doing a bit worse sadly. Hes right under the light and in the flow. I have upped my lightning too see if that helps. I also feed red sea ab+. 
 

 

I went from the first to the second schedule. I also have a picture and a video of the flow and position but that was with the old schedule.

 

 

23 hours ago, Murphs_Reef said:

Phosphate wise 0.1ppm is what I go for, some people go low at 0.03 or so but i find coral growth pretty slow at that for me personally so 0.1 even up to 0.18 is ok...

I had some stability issues with phosphates being 0 and algae/diatoms issues. I dosed phosphate 2 times and now got great carolline algae and always atleast some noticeable phosphates.