Monti Problems?

[Zoaelite]

Pretty much starting from scratch after my SPS wipe, I ended up loosing about 75% of my colonies including some of my larger ones . I wanted to start introducing some Montipora species in a while when the tank is completely stable again but I have never had luck with them.

Most caps do just fine in my tank (Specifically the green kinds), but any other types (Danae, digitata, confusa...) all have the same reaction. I get about a day or two of proper polyp extension and then they suck up and the coral slowly declines in health.

Anyone experience this before with just their montis? No problems with my acros (Well atleast before the crash).
Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

[Madreefer]

I must have missed your post about a crash. Sorry to hear. That sucks. Could there be some kind of bug that is not visible. I've tried killing mine by coating it with kalk paste, just keeps coming back so have now gave up. The only thing that seems to kill them is when an acro starts to touch them. Was your acro's too close maybe?

[Zoaelite]

Luckily none of my zoas and a very small portion of my LPS was affected, I'm just happy it wasn't a complete loss. It's happened far to many times now to place the blame on close neighbors so I'm leaning towards something in my water or some sort of parameter problem.

I wish my monti's were indestructible . What sort of bug would we be talking? Something larger that I could see or a bacterial/ virus problem?

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by zoaElite

What sort of bug would we be talking? Something larger that I could see or a bacterial/ virus problem?

Sorry dude, I was just throwing that out there. For some reason I remember someone talking about the same thing and it was a bug that was hard to see.

[ScubaSteve]

I've had this problem with monti's in the past too but I've had nothing but success with them now (give or take). I have one colony, a danae, that for some reason will bleach to all hell in a single day (like only 25% to 50% left) then grow back over several months and then do it all again. No idea why, nothing close by, just... does it. My other monti's kind of go through happy and rough periods as well, though not as dramatic... maybe just a couple days of looking ****ed.

Personally I think it's a virus or bacteria in the water if it's targeting monti's specifically; I doubt it's a parameter thing if you have other happy SPS in your tank. I find for the most part monti's aren't very demanding, so if your other SPS are happy, they likely are as well.

No real solutions for you here other than to check the flow in the locations were you are putting them. I've found my monti's are really sensitive to flow more than anything else, with either really high or really low flow encouraging good polyp extension, depending on the type.

[Zoaelite]

Thanks for the post Scuba, I remember Tony was posting a while back that as hard as he tried SPS just wouldn't work for him. Maybe it is a bacterial infection, or something in excess/ lacking in the water.

It's frustrating because they have to be one of my favorite species, such color and great growth patterns behind them.

[shrimpchips]

What are your Mg levels? I find mine show it first when the Mg gets too low.

[Zoaelite]

Mag is sitting around 1350 acording to my ELOS test kit, I'm going to bring my water into a LFS right away here to compair all of my results.

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Originally Posted by zoaElite

Mag is sitting around 1350 acording to my ELOS test kit, I'm going to bring my water into a LFS right away here to compair all of my results.

I keep my Mag in my personal tank right around 1450-1500, I also keep my Potassium levels above 400. Montis love Potassium and MAG from my experience!

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by OceanicCorals-Ian-

I keep my Mag in my personal tank right around 1450-1500, I also keep my Potassium levels above 400. Montis love Potassium and MAG from my experience!

Thanks for the tip Ian, I have been dosing Potassium but don't have a kit for it so that's something I will be picking up in the near future. Will also try increasing my Mag up a little.

Do montis like prodi-bio ? I was so impressed with that Reef booster you sent me I decided to purchase the whole darn kit (I made sure my address was on it this time ). I PM'ed Paul but any way you can get this stuff out to me ASAP (I think I paid the primo delivery charge ).

I really need to get these darn parameters in check and I think purchasing brand new testing equipment is going to be one of my only choices. My tests are all over the map and I'm having some big discrepancies in #'s.