montastrea bleaching

[scubacane]

I got several frags from a friend 6 weeks back for my14 gallon biocube w/ upgraded PC lighting -5 watts / gallon.All the softies are doing well- candy cane, torch, frogspawn, green finger, however a montastrea frag has started to bleach out and I am concerned its not long for this world. parameters-1.025,78- 80degrees, nitates 0, Ca 410, pH8.2, plenty of current, 15 % water changes w/ distilled water q 3 days and instant ocean, feeding 2-3 times per week with kent marine zooplex mixed with freeze dried cyclopeeze. I have the frag about 4 inches from the surface. I am afraid I just dont have enough light for it to survive- the middle 5 polyps have bleached but the surrounding polyps have held their color. Any ideas?

[Bifferwine]

Well, it is an LPS, so it shouldn't need too much light, but still 5 watts per gallon of PCs isn't usually enough except for low-light corals. I'd give it back to your friend if you can, and see if it can recover.

[fatman]

A Star or Moon Coral is able to tolerate a broad lighting range, but usually it is a near bottom of the tank dweller with all but the dimmest lighting systems. It would be hard to believe that the PC lighting would be too intense unless the previous owner supplied some dismal lighting. They must be fed as most derive only a small perentage of their needs from lighting. They will usually do well on phytoplankton, zooplankton, marine snow, fish feces, and finely chopped fish and shrimp etc. for foods. They need medium to high water flow. They usually require target feeding, and having large polyps respond best to pieces of fish and shrimp and the like. I would need to know what the previous owner used for lighting before I deemed the light as inadequate, it is definitely not to intense. I would not feed freeze dried food to corals. Stick to frozen, bottled, live, or with LPS, DIY foods made of finely chopped mixtures of fresh shell foods and non oily fish boosted by soaking in some Selcon before freezing into sheets. Dry mixture almost fully on paper towels before freezing so as to eliminate most fluids.