MarcosTacos
Active Member
Sorry for the long post, I just want to give everyone as much info as possible:
3 weeks ago I bought 7 acropora frags, they all seemed healthy and were bought from a local sps guy who is pretty knowledgeable. I dipped them all in coralRX and rinsed them in saltwater before gluing them to the rock.
A week later I left for a 2 week trip. When I cam back, I had small patches of cyano and 3 of the frags had bleached and the healthy ones had no polyp extention at all:
- my green slimer bleached almost completely, a small spot of green is visible near the frag plug:
- Some other frag named Winterland is pale brown and looks unhealthy
- Some other frag named RR Godzilla bleached at the top except for one tip, there is also some die off near the base, I would say half the coral is dead and the rest is still colored:
One weird thing is that I accidentally broke small pieces of some of the frags I bought and these show polyp extention on my frag rack while the ''mother colonies'' don't:
My tank (40 gal cube) has been setup almost a month ago (tank transfer) with some very established live rock and some new rock (i'd say half and half) I also added small doses of beneficial bacteria from microbacter 7 and Fauna Marin bacto therapy. I have a lot of other sps, like montiporas, birdsnest, stylos, a small golden rod and one other acro, as well as euphillia and softies which all seem to be doing great.
Before adding this batch of acros, I had rented a par meter to measure the par around the top and my XR15 G5 PRO output 200-225 PAR on the surface of the rocks at 100%. I decided to run it at 80% to acclimate everything before I left on my trip, which meant 170-190 PAR in those areas. I run 2 nero 5's on the back wall which provides some good flow to the areas where the acros are (40% pulse) and placed them a bit over them not to directly blast them with flow.
Parameters dipped a bit while on my trip, I dosed All For Reef to maintain them but the dose wasn't enough so I dropped around 1DKH, 30ppm calcium and 50ppm mag over 2 weeks, which doesn't seem too bad to me. Phos was 0.05 and nitrates were 5-10ppm when I tested upon my return. Temp hovers around 78 and salinity is at 1.026. I don't run anything except floss which is changed every couple of days, I have a gravity fed ato which keeps salinity stable and my RO unit was recently overhauled, it reads 3 tds at the membrane and then 0 out from my dual resin canisters. I have 2 clowns, a damsel a clown goby and a cleaner shrimp which don't seem to touch or bother the corals.
I tried looking for pests like red bugs or AEFW but I didn't spot any. I knew acroporas were harder to keep but I managed to color up a brown frag I had been given without any difficulty so thought why not try more? I am a bit confused right now and would like some input on what I did wrong so I can improve in the future.
Sorry again for the long post!
3 weeks ago I bought 7 acropora frags, they all seemed healthy and were bought from a local sps guy who is pretty knowledgeable. I dipped them all in coralRX and rinsed them in saltwater before gluing them to the rock.
A week later I left for a 2 week trip. When I cam back, I had small patches of cyano and 3 of the frags had bleached and the healthy ones had no polyp extention at all:
- my green slimer bleached almost completely, a small spot of green is visible near the frag plug:
- Some other frag named Winterland is pale brown and looks unhealthy
- Some other frag named RR Godzilla bleached at the top except for one tip, there is also some die off near the base, I would say half the coral is dead and the rest is still colored:
One weird thing is that I accidentally broke small pieces of some of the frags I bought and these show polyp extention on my frag rack while the ''mother colonies'' don't:
My tank (40 gal cube) has been setup almost a month ago (tank transfer) with some very established live rock and some new rock (i'd say half and half) I also added small doses of beneficial bacteria from microbacter 7 and Fauna Marin bacto therapy. I have a lot of other sps, like montiporas, birdsnest, stylos, a small golden rod and one other acro, as well as euphillia and softies which all seem to be doing great.
Before adding this batch of acros, I had rented a par meter to measure the par around the top and my XR15 G5 PRO output 200-225 PAR on the surface of the rocks at 100%. I decided to run it at 80% to acclimate everything before I left on my trip, which meant 170-190 PAR in those areas. I run 2 nero 5's on the back wall which provides some good flow to the areas where the acros are (40% pulse) and placed them a bit over them not to directly blast them with flow.
Parameters dipped a bit while on my trip, I dosed All For Reef to maintain them but the dose wasn't enough so I dropped around 1DKH, 30ppm calcium and 50ppm mag over 2 weeks, which doesn't seem too bad to me. Phos was 0.05 and nitrates were 5-10ppm when I tested upon my return. Temp hovers around 78 and salinity is at 1.026. I don't run anything except floss which is changed every couple of days, I have a gravity fed ato which keeps salinity stable and my RO unit was recently overhauled, it reads 3 tds at the membrane and then 0 out from my dual resin canisters. I have 2 clowns, a damsel a clown goby and a cleaner shrimp which don't seem to touch or bother the corals.
I tried looking for pests like red bugs or AEFW but I didn't spot any. I knew acroporas were harder to keep but I managed to color up a brown frag I had been given without any difficulty so thought why not try more? I am a bit confused right now and would like some input on what I did wrong so I can improve in the future.
Sorry again for the long post!
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