Help!! My Reverse Superman Montipora is Turning ashy

[Philler]

This was my first coral and has grown from about 1.5 in to the size of a strong fist in the last 10 months. It has always been the happiest and most aggressively growing coral in my tank and in the last 2 weeks it's DYING!!! :'(

Here's what it looked like 2 weeks ago

And here is what it looks like now!

My parameters are pretty great so I don't get it!!
-9.6 DKH
-480 Calcium
-1410 Magnesium
-0 nitrites
-2 ppm nitrates
-0.2 phosphates
Every other coral is flourishing and I just have no clue! Flow and light are the same as always.

Tank is a 20g tall, 1 yr old mixed reef (mostly sps)

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Any chance we could get some pics under white light?

hard to tell what’s going on with the blues

 

[Philler]

Any chance we could get some pics under white light?

hard to tell what’s going on with the blues

 

[jda]

Everything looks Ok on the surface. Get back to the basics... check your refractometer, whatever you use for temp and make sure that your test kits are solid. That is pretty close to the light , but if that has not changed, then hard to believe that is an issue. Have you been changing water or otherwise exporting metals and importing traces?

 

[ScottB]

Good chance I am wrong, but that looks similar to damage caused by monti eating nudibranchs in my frag system.

It is very hard to see these tiny white half-snowflake like critters. I never found a predator for them. Repeated dipping was all I could do. The tea tree dips would get them to let loose with some basting. Do you have any other monti in there? Did you introduce any new monti in the last few to several months?

Otherwise, maybe it is one of those few SPS that really don't like those levels of phosphate. I generally knock my PO4 back when it is hitting .15 or so.

 

[hart24601]

Good chance I am wrong, but that looks similar to damage caused by monti eating nudibranchs in my frag system.

It is very hard to see these tiny white half-snowflake like critters. I never found a predator for them. Repeated dipping was all I could do. The tea tree dips would get them to let loose with some basting. Do you have any other monti in there? Did you introduce any new monti in the last few to several months?

Otherwise, maybe it is one of those few SPS that really don't like those levels of phosphate. I generally knock my PO4 back when it is hitting .15 or so.

Hopefully it’s not them, but it does look like the damage I had when fighting them…. Definitely keep an eye out

 

[SamMule]

here is a pic of some that I got on a free monti awhile back. Big one on the front right edge just below the white section of the monti. Another smaller one right of that.

 

[Philler]

Good chance I am wrong, but that looks similar to damage caused by monti eating nudibranchs in my frag system.

It is very hard to see these tiny white half-snowflake like critters. I never found a predator for them. Repeated dipping was all I could do. The tea tree dips would get them to let loose with some basting. Do you have any other monti in there? Did you introduce any new monti in the last few to several months?

Otherwise, maybe it is one of those few SPS that really don't like those levels of phosphate. I generally knock my PO4 back when it is hitting .15 or so.

So thank you all for the very sound advice!!! I do have a new (3 months) Monty in there, but it seems to be fine.

I dropped my light intensity by 20% white and blue, added a phosphate bag to my filter and gave it a good solid 30 min dip for good measure. (I didn't see any nudibranch or anything else in the dip bucket!!)

After 1 day it looked WAY BETTER!!!

My hypotheses is that ....
Last time I moved it slightly, I created a hard shadow on the back of it where it started getting gray. After noticing that, I moved it again to shine light on that bad side to bring it back to the light.
I think I popped it into way too much light and started burning it (maybe)

I'm going to check chemicals again tomorrow and let you know for sure!

Ty tyty very much, sometimes just need another set of eyes to pull a trigger

 

[ScottB]

So thank you all for the very sound advice!!! I do have a new (3 months) Monty in there, but it seems to be fine.

I dropped my light intensity by 20% white and blue, added a phosphate bag to my filter and gave it a good solid 30 min dip for good measure. (I didn't see any nudibranch or anything else in the dip bucket!!)

After 1 day it looked WAY BETTER!!!
View attachment 2459126View attachment 2459127

My hypotheses is that ....
Last time I moved it slightly, I created a hard shadow on the back of it where it started getting gray. After noticing that, I moved it again to shine light on that bad side to bring it back to the light.
I think I popped it into way too much light and started burning it (maybe)

I'm going to check chemicals again tomorrow and let you know for sure!

Ty tyty very much, sometimes just need another set of eyes to pull a trigger

Glad it is improving. Really glad you did not find any MENS. They are much worse than AEFW.