Blue Polyp digitata Question....

[ChitownRomeo]

My Blue Polyp Montipora Digitata is not looking good but growing fast as hell. Switched from I/O salt to Kent Reef Salt and now it looks crappy as hell.....
Anything I can do cause it seems to not have alot of polyp extension any more. Had it maybe 6 months and it started out as a 1 inch frag. Have not moved it at all.

 

[DianaKay]

I'm too new with the SPS to give advice but from my little short experience, the blue one seems to be hardest one to keep a bright color on. I have red/orange & green & both are doing better than the blue for color & growth.
Do you have others colors? If so, how are they doing?

I'm thinking Oxylebius will be able to you when she sees this post.
You may need a wider picture of what's near your Digitata.
Are you feeding it? Is it getting plenty of water flow?
And how are your water parameters holding? Do you dose between WC's?

 

[Overlook Reef]

What is your water parameters (phosphate and nitrate?) and what else do you have in the tank? What other SPS do you have and what do they look like? It looks like it bleached out.
My German Blue Digita grows so fast that I trim it every other week. I love it, but it is almost a pest.
Why did you switch Salts and how often do you do WC?

The German Blue is in the middle.

This picture is about six months old, but the color is the same.

 

[ChitownRomeo]

What is your water parameters (phosphate and nitrate?) and what else do you have in the tank? What other SPS do you have and what do they look like? It looks like it bleached out.
My German Blue Digita grows so fast that I trim it every other week. I love it, but it is almost a pest.
Why did you switch Salts and how often do you do WC?

The German Blue is in the middle.

This picture is about six months old, but the color is the same.

I have some torches, Froggies, Hammers and Duncans and a few zoas. Nothing major. I got this digitata from a guy on ebay and it never really turned blue. It bleached out totally white then came back and grew like crazy. I used Instant ocean for a while bu the last 2 buckets made my corals look like crap. Nitrate and Phoshate are at zero. I use rodi plus I run a reactor with phosguard just to be sure. Water changes every sunday...

Also I noticed some red legged hermits crawling all over it. could they have eaten some polyps or irritated it so much that it looks like this now?

 

[Overlook Reef]

Sounds like you do not have too many nutrients in your water. I do not believe the hermits have anything to do with it. I see good polyp extension in your picture. It my be getting too much light.

Where is it positioned in your tank? If it is up high, you may want to try it lower. What kind of lights do you have? What are your other parameters? (Cal, Alk, SG etc)

Other than the color, It looks healthy. It may get its color back.

 

[Snid]

Well... You made a change and now it is reacting. You changed the salt. What were the water parameters before you changed it, and what are they now? I'm betting the overall solution will be in the answer to those questions.

 

[Overlook Reef]

Well... You made a change and now it is reacting. You changed the salt. What were the water parameters before you changed it, and what are they now? I'm betting the overall solution will be in the answer to those questions.

I think he said he got it from ebay and it never really turned blue.

 

[Oxylebius]

First of all, in my experience w/the german blue digitatas, they are usually pale blue, you won't see a whole lot of color from it. But, yours looks bleached (lots its zooxanthellae aka dinoflagellates), it still has tissue and polyp extension looks really good.

Any changes in the coral within the last few days?

If the only parameter you changed was salt brands, then it seems like the coral is reacting to that.

Did you change your lights? Did you have swings in temperature? Usually these enact bleaching in corals.

But, what may also be happening is that the coral is showing signs of transplant shock or adaptive bleaching. When corals are transplanted from one reef to another in the wild, they can expel their zooxanthellae and then take in new zooxanthellae from the new location, this has been called transplant shock or adaptive bleaching. Perhaps the changing of salts is causing this adaptive bleaching behavior in your coral.