Grafted montipora bleaching while other montipora are fine

[Tim'sReef]

Hi all, I want to ask for a quick tip about this grafted montipora I have bought almost a month ago.
It looks like it is losing color, this has been going on for about one week now. I don't know what to do, cause my other montipora seem fine and grow well. I now placed it on the sandbed cause maybe it's too much light? But I'm second guessing this because I have a bit of what I think is dino on the sand.

It was right next to this one, which has doubled in size since I got it a while back.

Parameters are the following with salinity at 34.9 ppt

Nitrate	Phosphate	Alkalinity KH	Calcium	PH	Magnesium
14.1 ppm	0.02 ppm	8.6 dKH	~ 410 ppm	8.2	~ 1320 ppm

Any help is welcome!

 

[SANDTRAP]

Could be bacterial, a lugols bath could only help.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Could be low phosphate. I had one monti, a RR tropic something or rather that is a hot pink color, that completely bleached when I was running around 0.03 ppm phosphate. I had several other montis and many sps that were perfectly colored. The monti continued to grow, slowly but was stark white. I bumped up my phosphates to over 0.05 ppm and it very slowly colored back up. I mean, like over six months, to fully color. New growth colored first. That was a few years ago. Only piece I ever had bleach out from low phosphate. I keep my phosphates much higher nowadays.

 

[Tim'sReef]

Could be bacterial, a lugols bath could only help.

Could this infect my other montipora, I have a frag tank I could place it in. I have already lost almost every monti due to nudibranchs, so I rather not start over again.

As for the lugols bath, I'm from the Netherlands and I just checked my stores would Seachem Reef Dip work, they have that, and I could get it tomorrow.

 

[Tim'sReef]

Could be low phosphate. I had one monti, a RR tropic something or rather that is a hot pink color, that completely bleached when I was running around 0.03 ppm phosphate. I had several other montis and many sps that were perfectly colored. The monti continued to grow, slowly but was stark white. I bumped up my phosphates to over 0.05 ppm and it very slowly colored back up. I mean, like over six months, to fully color. New growth colored first. That was a few years ago. Only piece I ever had bleach out from low phosphate. I keep my phosphates much higher nowadays.

Thanks, I would like it to be higher, I'm feeding a lot and my nitrates are about where I want them. But I'm kind of hesitant to dose phosphate. Maybe I should be shortening my fuge light, but then the trates would creep up for sure. Tank has always been low on phosphate, set up on 7 Feb 2022 transfered from my nano but with a lot of new rock so maybe that is still sucking it up? Thanks for the tip!

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Thanks, I would like it to be higher, I'm feeding a lot and my nitrates are about where I want them. But I'm kind of hesitant to dose phosphate. Maybe I should be shortening my fuge light, but then the trates would creep up for sure. Tank has always been low on phosphate, set up on 7 Feb 2022 transfered from my nano but with a lot of new rock so maybe that is still sucking it up? Thanks for the tip!

Reef roids can raise phosphate and some prefer that to dosing. I’ve had to dose nitrate and phosphate for a few years now. I started with the bottled neo phos, and after while went diy with the info available on this forum. I even backed off dosing phosphate and let it fall back to 0.02-0.03 ppm after that monti colored up and it started losing color again within a few days. That was all I needed to permanently change my parameters. Nothing else in the tank seemed to care one way or the other.

 

[SANDTRAP]

Could this infect my other montipora, I have a frag tank I could place it in. I have already lost almost every monti due to nudibranchs, so I rather not start over again.

As for the lugols bath, I'm from the Netherlands and I just checked my stores would Seachem Reef Dip work, they have that, and I could get it tomorrow.

No a bacterial infection can be isolated to only one coral. It’s just a sign of the coral being upset and then susceptible to disease.

Lugols is an iodine supplement that can also be used as a dip-bath. You can get iodine from your pharmacy, just be careful
and look up the threads on ratio.