Montipora Frag Color Return

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dward0487

I purchased an absolutely beautiful frag of encrusting montipora a few days ago. At the LFS, the frag had bright hot pink skin and green polyps. I acclimated the frag and placed it in my tank, and it basically looked like a little brown/grey blob. Later that evening, the green polyps came out and they are looking great again. However, the "skin" has not yet returned to the beautiful hot pink that it was at the LFS (right now there are some dull pink areas that you can see if you look closely, but the skin is still rather brownish/grey). This is my first SPS coral, and I know that patience is key, but I was just curious as to how long these things usually take to color back up after being moved to a new tank. Thanks!
 
The dull pink color is spreading across the frag, but it's still nothing that can be noticed under the actinics. I hope that, with time, it will revert to the brilliant bright pink it was at the LFS... I'm used to LPS corals (all the ones I've gotten have bounced right back after adding them to my tank), so having this SPS look so different after a few days of being in the tank is worrisome to me.
 
Some SPS can recover their color quickly. Others take months it seems even with "ideal" conditions. There are just so many differences in parameters, flow, lighting, etc. that this happens even when you try to match things perfectly. Give it a little time and the color should bounce back if your parameters are stable.
 
Alright, so I've been monitoring it some more, and there seems to be a VERY slight increase in color, but I noticed something else. It seems like there is a somewhat opaque coating on top of the skin of the monti that may be obscuring the color. When viewed from the side, the skin of the monti looks slightly fuzzy. The frag is growing, and it seems like the very edge of the new growth has the bright pink color that I saw at the store. It's almost like the bright pink skin is growing out from under this opaque coating. I've heard of montis developing a slime coat when exposed to air, so is that what this is? I attempted to blow it off with a bit of water from my coral feeding baster, but to no avail. If this is a slime coat, will it ever come off? The polyps are beautiful, and are always fully extended, so the coral seems healthy. I just worry about this little guy!
 
Monti are hard to kill totally. Even if it looks like it died, keep it because you never know what will come back. I've had them go totally only to come back later looking as good as ever. What you are describing is a stressed out coral so long as you see polyps the color will come back. Give it a few weeks....
 
Well, the polyps are definitely out. Here's a shot of the frag with the day lights on (I apologize for the poor picture quality):

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The polyps look great, but as you can see, the pink skin is pretty dull... In the store, it was a really eye-popping bright neon pink. I'm not sure what stressed it out... It made the same trip home with me from the store as this monti setosa, and I would say that they were the same shade of pink, originally:

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They came from the same frag tank, and they were both acclimated into my tank the same way, so I'm not sure why the sunset monti is not doing as well... They did trim the frag plug on the sunset monti at the LFS for me, so maybe that put some undue stress on it. Anyway, it's been in the tank about 4 days, so hopefully it will start to improve in the near future.
 
I'm starting to think this is a combination of low alkalinity and perhaps lighting intensity. My alkalinity has been hovering around 7 dKH because I hadn't started dosing B-Ionic yet. I'm currently trying to bring the alk up to about 9 dKH. I'm also going to get a dimmer for my full white Reefbrite XHO (I currently have 1 full white and 2 full blue actinics). I'm going to put the dimmer on the white light and bring it down to about 75-80% and see if that helps this little guy out!
 
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