Bleached monti Cap?

I have an orange (red?) monti cap. I recently upgraded lights from PC's to T5's. The person I purchased the monti from had it under T5's and it was thriving. I currently have egg crate under the lights to cut down on the intensity (thus the dark picture).

The pictures are representative of what is happening around the entire perimeter and in some spots on the surface.

I am pretty sure, but not certain, this is bleaching from the new lights? If not, does anyone know what this is? Is there anything I can do to restore the color? I would really love to save this coral and am concerned I might lose it.

Thanks for any help you can offer a newbie.

 

i would say it is growing

 

whats your params?

 

Cant see the spots on the surface, but I agree the edges just look like new growth.

 

Here are my perams.

Temp. - 80 - 82
Salinity - 1.022
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - >20
Alkalinity - 11
Calcium - 650
pH - 8.2

Sorry the pics aren't better...the spots don't look like something on the surface, it looks like the edges where the orange has turned white.

Everytime I do a water change it seems to get "stringy" around the edges for a few minutes as well?

 

Are you sure your Calcium is 650 at alk of 11 at 1.022? That's pretty hard to do without a major precipitation event.

 

I agree...looks like growth. Thats some pretty decent growth too. Something is def off with your parameters. Get that in check

 

I will double check the perameters. I checked them yesterday and the calcium and alkaline had actually come down a bit since last week. I am using the API reef test kit so there is some margin for user error in the readings but these are close.

Before I added the monti I had been dosing calcium per the direction of the guy at my LFS but I don't think the tank was using it because my levels were so high when I got the monti and started testing for it?

What in the calcium, Alk and Salinity numbers causes concern? Still new and trying to figure out how to process the data.

 

They turn white on the edge when they grow Its hard to give a monti too much light.

 

that would explain why your monti is getting mad when you do a waterchange. You're automatically getting a precipitation event as soon as the new water hits the tank. It won't hurt it long term.....it's just an irritation