Sunset Monti

[tgurn45]

Ive been having some problems with my sunset monti. its been bleaching out and i can't seem to stop it.

anyone who keeps one of these under a 36" coralife please help

[Ninong]

Are any other montiporas in your tank bleaching or just the sunset? What water temperature are you running? What's your calcium, alkalinity and magnesium. Also, what's your pH. It could be something other than the lighting that is causing it to bleach.

Can you move it lower in the tank to see if that helps?

[tgurn45]

i have a capricornis that is thriving? But the sunset is the only other montipora. My Ca is 460. pH is 8.3 the temp 78. i cant test my alk or mag. but i dose mag with my coralvite by kent.

i moved the coral down i had it 3 in under the surface now its 19in under the surface (in the sand) i have 5 watts per gallon from a coralife t5 system

[Ninong]

You really need to get individual test kits for alkalinity and magnesium. It's impossible to operate a reef aquarium without testing those concentrations. Normally magnesium is around 1290 ppm but with calcium at 460 ppm, your magnesium should be around 1400 ppm to be in balance with your calcium. Alkalinity can be anywhere between 8-12 dKH and still be fine. You can run slighting higher than that but I wouldn't run above 14 dKH. In your case, I think your alkalinity will probably test around 10-11 dKH.

The point is that you must monitor calcium, alkalinity and magnesium regularly if you want to keep a reef aquarium. You can't dose something without knowing whether you're overdosing or not. And you have no way of knowing if your magnesium additions are sufficient or not without testing magnesium.

The primary cause of bleaching in the wild is elevated water temperature, usually caused by El Niño events. In home aquariums, the primary cause is too much light or a sudden change in light. However, there are other causes for bleaching that have nothing to do with light or water temperature. That's why you need to monitor all of your major water parameters just to make sure that nothing is out of whack. Really high alkalinity, for instance, will result in bleaching as a first symptom before the entire system crashes. Really high alkalinity is usually caused by a bad batch of salt mix. We know of hobbyists whose saltwater measured an astounding 95 dKH due to bad salt. That was several years back. I seriously doubt that that is your problem. I suspect that your alk is somewhere around 10-11 dKH, which is fine.

Good luck!

[tgurn45]

okay thank you for your help ill try to watch my temp swings too.

heres a pic of my monti the day i got it....its now grown to the edges and stopped so it could bleach out....