i have a nice big superman monti rock about 8 inches long and 4 inches wide. it started with just white stuff forming in the middle of the monti getting bigger and bigger now i see it on the edge of the monti. any clues? i have it in the middle of the tank with lots of flow, i was thinking of putting it on the sand bed, but didnt want to move it around too much. i had it under t5ho's at the top of the tank and it was great then i got the i4 and thats when i started to see the white spot, thinking maybe the rock needed to be moved lower i brought it down to the middle of the tank but where there was alot more flow aswell. and still looks like its getting worse. any idea's??

what is the possibility of some salt creep getting knocked on it when you switched the lights ?? sounds like a small piece landed on it and burned it.

could be possible, but i did not see it happen, i was looking at the monti from all angles today and i did notice something weird on it that i never noticed before, not sure if its a nudibranch from who knows where, but it looks green and white, and has a bunch of air holes all along its body that open and close, pretty big looks more like a sea cucumber then a nudi but im not sure and i noticed there was another one but smaller. they were both in the same area on the rock but not on the superman encrusted part, more on the stone. anyone know what im describing?? not sure if these new things is whats causeing the monti to stress out or look bad or not.

Sure, it could be. Check out The Slug Site (http://slugsite.tierranet.com/) and see if you can find your suspect. In the meantime I would remove the ones that you see and QT them some place until you know if they are harmful. Also if you can get a picture it will help. I'd put one in a shallow clear cup of tank water and it will make it easier to take pix.

i dont know what it is, it does look like a slug all right. well what i tried to do and failed was take the rock that has the superman monti encrusted on it out of the tank and take my tongs and try to take the ?slug? off but as soon as i touched the thing it turned hard almost like a coral would. i couldnt even peel it off it stuck so good to the rock and got so hard like plastic once it was touched with the tongs. also now im noticing alot of the blue spots on the superman are turning white. anyone know what this pine green and white monster slug is??

hmmmm...any way to get a picture??

A picture would help. Did you see any like him on the slug site? Do you see them move at all?

no i didnt see any that looked like it on the site, also it doesnt look like it moved from it spot yesterday but it does actually breath because i see it expand it has a about 3 or 4 air holes on it, and like i said when i went to try and peel it off the rock it got hard almost like glue forming it was very strange. anyway i will try and take the rock out of the water tommorow and take some pics of the mystery thing and the condition my superman monti is in.

Could it be a sponge?

well i was looking up sea cucumbers online and i found a pic that has what i think might be the mystery thing on my rock but really still not sure, but if you go to aquacon.com and look at there assorted sea cucumber box the biggest one at the bottem kinda looks like the thing on the rock that has my superman monti not sure 100% though. i tried to put the pic up here but i guess im not as computer savy as i use to be hehe.

I have never had a cucumber but I think that you would see it move.

and i dont think that cucumbers get hard like you are describing to us, but i could be wrong.

no im sure that im wrong actually because i do have a yellow knobby in my tank too and yes it does move around, but that thing is still there on the side of the rock, im not sure its affecting the actual monti because its not on it, its on the rock part of the coral. but my monti is not looking good at all, where most of the blue spots were are turning white, the only thing i could think of is that my new solaris i4 shocked the hell out of it and bleached it, i moved it to about 6 inches off the sand about 22 inches deep. so im not sure if there is anything else i can do for it. but i am willing to try anything to save this, its a decent size rock.

if it keeps bleaching, i would definately frag it so that you at least have a piece to regrow. with a pic i can give you suggestions on where to cut it and walk you through it if you need help.

ok i have a pic here it is, you cant really tell that much but the actually blue spots are mostly white now and you can see the big spot in the middle, my LFS told me not to worry that it will just regrow over the algae in the middle but i dont believe them since they didnt see how bad of shape it was in. if you notice at the bottem of the rock theres a weird black piece of plastic encrusted too, it was like that when i bought the piece.

it looks a lot like salt burn to me. i have a montipora Capricornus that i dropped some salt creep on a few days ago and it looks very similar to you damage. i know it is hard to get pics of the damage.

i would do this ... frag off one of the big bumps on the rock, just to be safe, and make sure that you still have the coral if the colony does not make it. you could do an Iodine dip on it just in case of an infection in the damaged area.

i had a HUGE post typed out, but clicked on the pic to get a closer look and lost the whole thing !!

ok, so since i consider myself a rookie at reefkeeping, do you think this superman monti will be saved??? or does it look like it will die off? i will frag a piece off too just to make sure. not sure what an iodine dip involves but would you do it, or just let nature take its course after fragging off a piece?

i think that if you do an Iodine dip and have great water quality this colony can be saved. from the look of things it does not really look to bad. i would just suggest the fragging to insure that even IF something happens ... you will still have a nice frag of the colony and did not throw all of the money down the drain.

an Iodine dip for a coral is pretty much the same thing as when you were a kid and got hurt. the hospital put a red Iodine liquid on the affected area to rid it of infection. i would frag it, then do a dip on both pieces. i bet that it will come back to its former glory in time and great tank husbandry. corals are far more hardy than most people give them credit for. i mean they go through A LOT when collected, shipped, bought by wholesaler, shipped to wholesaler, bought by LFS, shipped to LFS, bought by reefer, transported or shipped to reefer, then into a box of new water parameters. i personally am veru impressed with how they can survive that.

ok i did my iodine dip for 20 min. this morning, since then it looks like the superman monti closed up, or kinda turned a paleish purple and the white marks are still there, now my question was is that all i needed to do? or should i be giving it an iodine dip every day for a few days? or was one dip all it take and just sit back and wait a few days/weeks?

I have bleached 4 or 5 frags till i figured out the danger zone under my halides...hope it comes through

i dont have halides i use to have t5ho's till i purchased recently the newest version of pfo's solaris led light the i4

i would just keep an eye on it for a while and see what happens. i am betting that it will be fine.

ok well here is an updated pic of my superman monti, it doesnt look good, its probably covered in white now and only a few red polyps and really no blue ones, i did do the iodine dip for 20 minutes, i use kents lugols solution. not sure if this is normal or if its just a lost cause, any reccomendations? i didnt frag it yet, because i did not want to make matters worse and i really dont know how to frag, is it just using a chisel and breaking a clean piece off? not sure if its worth it but i might have to frag off a piece even though i didnt want too. should i do another dip as well??

if it got that bad in the few days between posts here, then i would frag it ASAP. do you see the big knot on the left side of the rock (middle and left in the pic)?? i would take a razor blade, and cut around that entire knot ... then take a chisel and place it on the cut that you just made, then take a hammer and knock that knot off of the rock. it sounds hard to do, but once you do it one time, you will see just how easy it is. LR is usually pretty brittle, so just keep hitting the chisel and it will eventually break right off. it should make a fairly clean break on the coral where you cut it before hitting it.

ok i will see if i can get to frag it tommorow morning first thing! do you think i should take the frag and do another iodine dip?? what do you think could be causeing this???

From your latest picture, the demise of the coral is not from predation, but from a bacterial infection. Predators that feed off small polyps in general will not destroy as it would be counterproductive to self-survival.

The type of damage that I see is in MHO indicative of the result of shipping damage in conjunction with poor water flow. Rapid tissue degeneration without good flow will linger and give a milky mucus like appearance.

A true Superman Monti is from deepwater, and will require less light and flow, thus the high value and demand. Sadly, too many people, stores, websites will slap on the name "Superman Monti" on anything that even remotely resembles it. Unfortunately, many of those require massive flow and massive lighting, and is virtually impossible to keep for all but the most serious hobbyist. A typical true Superman sells for for about 50-100 for a quarter inch frag on the west coast, seeing that you live in New Jersey.......

well here is an update, i gave the superman monti 2 dips about 10 days apart and moved it to high flow/ medium light area and it looks like certain spots are starting to come back nice hopefully it will cover the rock once again. no blue polyps on it yet but the spots that are regrowing are looking good hopefully the blue will come back soon.

That's good news!

sounds like it is making a comeback ... good to hear