Superman monti control group (1 Viewer)

[merkurmaniac]

So I bought this superman montipora a while back from a guy who had kind of let his tank go.... It was nearly white, mostly a big gray piece, without much color at all. I had read about alkalinity issues bleaching corals and I figured that he had let his alk get out of control when he got tired of his tank. I put it in my tank and figured that it would color up with good water paramaters and most of my corals were doing ok, so I was optomistic.

Any tissue recession stopped and there was growth along the margins. It started to solor up, first tan, then light brown, then darker brown. It had good polyp extension, but never turned an attractive color. It was that way for the better part of a year. Other corals seemed to fare much better. I began to wonder if it was chemistry, flow, or light.

I thought about pulling the whole thing out and taking it to osteneum who made an offer to someone else about babysitting their coral to see if it improved. Thing is, it has encrusted and spread quite a lot since I had placed it in the tank. I decided to do an experiment.

I broke off a chunk and glued it to a frag. I could move this one around and use it to test, while the mother colony remained my control group. I moved the frag very high up in my tank and it began to get much more light. In about a week, its color began to change..... Bingo!

I am now making plans to redo my LEDs again. I am either adding more XMLs or a multichip LED.

Richard

 

[TexanReef]

Very cool! Might be a good idea to get PAR measurements before and after the upgrade.

And, what about the other inhabitants that might be doing well under the existing setup?

Keep us posed, please.

 

[Ostentum]

Monti Danae you kinda have to find their "hotspots". Jedi Mind tricks took moving it all around the tank in order to finally get it to color properly. And it kinda varies from tank to tank.

 

[merkurmaniac]

The one high up on the frag rack in about 2" water is a cool blue color with red polyps. The other is in 8" of water or so, and is still orangish-brown.

 

[merkurmaniac]

I have some good and bad news to share. When I got home form the Marsh meeting, I was looking at my tank and regretting how I had placed the superman monti towards the back where it was higher, but got much less light according to the par meter. I though that I could lumberjack the frogspawn and then replant it where the monti was and then move the monti, but it had totally encrusted the better lit side of the rock... what to do ? Well, I broke off the mainlump of the monti and figured that I would at least move it. It broke easily and at this point, I realized the rock it was on was now mobile. It had formed a bridge between two rocks. I could now turn the monti encrusted rock and swap it end for end. This put the monti in the light and the frogspawn where I wanted it.... AWESOME !

I then needed a place for the main monti lump I broke off. I'd sell it, but it really looks bad. I know it will look good with good light, so I'll wait. I decided to clear out a spot where I had some meh-yellow pallys and make a place for the monti. Well, I violently stripped a bunch of them from the rock using some foreceps. I dumped them in the trash. All good so far.

Well, when I got home Sunday night from an afternoon at my sisters, I found that the damn pallys must have poisoned the water somehow.. My green shelf forming monti, plus the big frag I had made of it are now CHALK WHITE !!! Nothing else seems affected, but man, that coral got wrecked. I dunno if it'll come back or not. Real uncool. All other SPS seems unaffected. Damn pallys !

 

[merkurmaniac]

Looks like the green monti that was on my frag shelf is back and greener than ever. The mother colony lower down appears to be beginning to color up as well.

My superman monti on my frag shelf is now quite blue. The other colony that I moved to the sandbed is changing to blue also. Woo hooo.

 

[merkurmaniac]

Well, that light that I showed off at the lighting lecture mtg is really doing a nice job on my tank. I have two multichip led's. A combo blue/white, and a second one that is just a 50 watt royal blue. Superman monty is loving it. Here is a before and the after picture. Lighting was the big key to this guy. I need to clean those dang polyps off.

 

[merkurmaniac]

The good news is, my new LED with the lens has a lot nicer spread of light, and its lighting up another spot of the same type of coral and its beginning to blue. Here is a pic of the one on my frag rack. Its encrusting nicely.