Red Montipora Digi - snapped ends/tips??

[mrtb21980]

hi everyone I'm a bit puzzled at the min as my pride and joy large red digi colony that I have kept for almost 2 years is giving me a headache!

I came off triton about 5/6 months ago now and have been dosing reef flowers additives which have accelerated growth like the tanks on steroids:-d seriously this is the best stuff that I have found and not too pricey.

My Monti digi has grown the most and quickest out of all the corals in my tank but over the last week something strange has started to happen.....Some not all and in different places of the colony are having what looks like their tips being broken off? they look just like when you catch a coral with arm in the tank and knock off a bit of sps etc ie snapped like a twig??? Now I also have a few other pieces off the same colony in the same tank glued to the central weir but they are perfectly fine and doing well its just the mother colony.

My Mag is probably a little high at 1450/1500 all other prams are ok too I have not changed the light setting on my radions so I'm a bit puzzled:whistling:

I did notice my glass thermometer had ended up off the glass and thought perhaps the powerhead has send it round smashing into the coral? but..... a few days later I noticed a coupe 2/3 other tips with snapped ends? so this theory is a no no .

A good friend of mine who is very experienced in marine said he experienced the same but with a milliapora and it ended up being a large rogue crab eating it but dwelling in a different coral??? but if so why eat the tips? and not the base and I have been up at 3/4am and no signs of a crab??

Another fishy pal reckons its burning from too much mag??? but iv seen burning and it doesn't look like the end has been snapped off? or am I wrong? my opinion with burning is it tends to recede?

The tips that were snapped off first that I noticed are rounding off and healing again just like after you have fragged a digi or similar and the coral looks healthy so please please if you have experienced this yourself or anything similar do share with me as I'm struggling to put my finger on it etc.I have attached some pictures so yeah let me know your opinions and thanks for reading

 

[cuprajake]

my tang is like a natural fragging machine, do you have any erratic fish?

 

[warby]

Looks like fishy damage mine do it from time to time. Recently my Bali green slimmer got fragged by a fish no idea which one though.
and as far as I'm aware you can't get magnesium burn on corals your friend might mean alk burn but that's only when alk is high and nutrients are low iirc.

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[mrtb21980]

my tang is like a natural fragging machine, do you have any erratic fish?

I have a purple tang who to be fair is as greedy as a pig but other than algae I have never seen her anywhere near a coral but I shall certainly keep an eye out thanks for the input


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[cuprajake]

didnt mean my tang eats the coral, more flys about the tank, like a bull in a china shop

 

[mrtb21980]

Looks like fishy damage mine do it from time to time. Recently my Bali green slimmer got fragged by a fish no idea which one though.
and as far as I'm aware you can't get magnesium burn on corals your friend might mean alk burn but that's only when alk is high and nutrients are low iirc.

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Cheers [MENTION=20322]warby[/MENTION] I agree the signs are definitely there that something is eating rather than water or light issues but again I have to say I haven't seen any of the fish even attempt to nibble on it but I will certainly keep an eye out for it cheers again


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[warby]

Cheers [MENTION=20322]warby[/MENTION] I agree the signs are definitely there that something is eating rather than water or light issues but again I have to say I haven't seen any of the fish even attempt to nibble on it but I will certainly keep an eye out for it cheers again


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they won't be eating it they will be knocking the ends off as they swim past its pretty common to be honest especially with larger sps corals.

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[mrtb21980]

didnt mean my tang eats the coral, more flys about the tank, like a bull in a china shop

Oh right [MENTION=22549]cuprajake[/MENTION] I see well yeah she does patrol around the tank at night quite a lot when everyone else is sleeping and she's rather large but I never find the ends?? There's no leftovers etc on the sand etc


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[mrtb21980]

they won't be eating it they will be knocking the ends off as they swim past its pretty common to be honest especially with larger sps corals.

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[MENTION=20322]warby[/MENTION] aaaahhhh I see well I'm rather relieved if that's the case I hope that's all it is like I said in my original post it's my pride and joy and grows so well but you only have to catch the ends with your arm/hand and it Snaps! So duh yeah that makes sense I suppose cheers


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[Eaval]

My trigger used to do all my monti fragging for me lol.

As above like a bull in a China shop

 

[mrtb21980]

My trigger used to do all my monti fragging for me lol.

As above like a bull in a China shop

[MENTION=14712]Eaval[/MENTION] so do you agree then with the other posts? Have you seen my pictures? Iv just sat down with a beer and watched the fish and perhaps it's because they think their getting fed but non have swum anywhere near the digi lol


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[Bluez_01]

Night crawler I thinks, surely if the tips were getting knocked off, then you would be seeing parts of them on the sand/rocks? more so if they "pop" with actinic lights at night, your sand bed and rocks would look like a xmas tree...

Is it a set family of coral that are losing the tips, or various? I am leaning towards a crab of some kind, possible a gorilla or similar. snails I would rule out as if you had any nasties of these, then you would normally see a streaky line up the coral as they chew upwards to the tip.

Just my thoughts.

 

[mrtb21980]

[MENTION=16451]Bluez_01[/MENTION] I agree there would be tips on the floor and there is nothing to provide evidence unfortunately I've had gorilla crabs before but they tend to munch around the base so I'm soooo confused about this what do you mean by pop with actinic lights? Sorry blonde moment


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[Bluez_01]

Coral "pop" ie, fluorescence glow under blue leds that are around 420-440 spectrum (normally you can tell instantly if you have a green fleshy coral, as they look bright yellow).

Its kind of confusing really, as gut first instinct to me was coral burn, as its all on the tips which would normally indicate alk burn or light burn, but if other corals are at the same height or higher than this colony then it would be happening to them all, if its only this colony then I would have to say its a muncher of some kind, snails as I said before like the sundials would leave trails, but this is not the case, so I would say its something that is perhaps crawling up to the tip to eat at the new tissue, it could even be a nudibranch perhaps? though the common pest ones tend to start at the bottom and work up, or inwards in the case of montipora eating ones (Side note, have to be the worst creature on the planet!)

I am guessing this tends to happen more at night than the day? if so it maybe a late nighter some time soon with a red light to see if you can see anything lurking around an hour or two after lights out, alternative would be to set the lap top up with a caption video program and have it take snap shots every 10 mins and use an IR light on the tank (yes its extreme, but it would work) this would deffo identify anything that is on the coral during the night.

 

[mrtb21980]

Right [MENTION=16451]Bluez_01[/MENTION] I'm getting what your saying I must point out that the tips that have already been snapped/munched at the start of this weird conundrum have started to heal and round off etc and look just like normal growth tips but this morning I noticed having taken pictures of the first instance and then comparing that this is happening to different tips - I do agree that I'm going to have to have a late night and try and catch the culprit although I obviously wanted the fish bashing it to be the problem.i had a large teddy bear on this colony i.e. Size of 50p piece a while ago and now lives in the sump but even he was easy and quick to spot but munched on the underneath of the colony not the tips which I find really strange. I have x3 wrasses and a few sapphire damsels would these guys not help me with a nudibranch?? I'm hoping it's the crab to be honest but no signs at all


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[Bluez_01]

I have a gorilla/hairy crab under my centre rock, I often see a leg now and again, and hes reasonably sized as well in all fairness, but I have no way of getting to him and have tried countless times to try and catch him in a crab trap with different baits, but none have worked, currently to date, "touch wood" hes not attacked anything I have, but knowing hes there always keeps me on my toes, just in case.
I wasn`t aware he even existed until he shed his shell and left it on the sand bed for me to find one morning, this is what got me alerted to him in the first place.

Wrasses tend to keep nudi`s at bay, however as was pointed out to me, fish will only eat what they can see, and when lights go off they can see..... kind of logical really when you think about it lol, hence why I asked if its happening at night more than in the day hours.
I would with all due respect to the previous members posts rule out a fish hitting them, as stated before there would be bits laying around from the after math of the impact, if any fish was eating the tips then most likely than not they would be picking at them during the day as well.
If I was a betting man, then my money would be on a crawler at night, or possibly an alk/light issue, but a few tests would rule that out, which I would guess you have already done, so that kind of only leaves the crawler really.

 

[mrtb21980]

I have a gorilla/hairy crab under my centre rock, I often see a leg now and again, and hes reasonably sized as well in all fairness, but I have no way of getting to him and have tried countless times to try and catch him in a crab trap with different baits, but none have worked, currently to date, "touch wood" hes not attacked anything I have, but knowing hes there always keeps me on my toes, just in case.
I wasn`t aware he even existed until he shed his shell and left it on the sand bed for me to find one morning, this is what got me alerted to him in the first place.

Wrasses tend to keep nudi`s at bay, however as was pointed out to me, fish will only eat what they can see, and when lights go off they can see..... kind of logical really when you think about it lol, hence why I asked if its happening at night more than in the day hours.
I would with all due respect to the previous members posts rule out a fish hitting them, as stated before there would be bits laying around from the after math of the impact, if any fish was eating the tips then most likely than not they would be picking at them during the day as well.
If I was a betting man, then my money would be on a crawler at night, or possibly an alk/light issue, but a few tests would rule that out, which I would guess you have already done, so that kind of only leaves the crawler really.

[MENTION=16451]Bluez_01[/MENTION] If it were burn would you agree that the tips would recede not look like they had been snapped off?? I have a large frag of this colony higher up in the tank under more direct light stuck to the weir which is completely fine and growing nicely


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[Bluez_01]

Yup, if its a rough tip and not smooth then I would be looking at something that can "pinch" which would result in the roughness, so I think it will be a case of a couple of night watches to see if you can see anything really.

 

[Eaval]

what puts me off the thought of a nasty crab is the sheer number of tips we are talking about.

as another query, do you have any large urchins?
It may be going over the tops which would explain why only tips and also the number of tips involved

 

[mrtb21980]

what puts me off the thought of a nasty crab is the sheer number of tips we are talking about.

as another query, do you have any large urchins?
It may be going over the tops which would explain why only tips and also the number of tips involved

[MENTION=14712]Eaval[/MENTION] I wish I had a urchin but no I don't so it's not that/ I have been down at night on a number of occasions to try and spot the culprit and still no crab!!


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