Coral frustrations.

[Tracy Best]

Hey all! I'm having frustrations with adding corals to my display tank. Looking for tips and tricks to helping them grow. I put my frags in the quarantine tank and they flourish. When I put them in the display they shrink a little every day or bleach etc. Help please!

 

[Nihilus]

How big is your tank? What kind of lighting do you have? Are you starting the corals on the bottom first? What are your parameters?

 

[Kershaw]

What are the peramiters of both tanks and what lighiting is on both tanks. And how about flow

 

[Tracy Best]

Tank is 180g + 120g sump. Been up and running for since June of 2015. Lights are led blue 100%, white 50%. Starting corals on bottom for at least a week.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate less than 5
Phosphate 0
Ca 425
Alk 6.7
Mag 13.25
pH 8.18
Salinity 1.0245

 

[twilliard]

There is a balance that we have in tanks.
Sounds like there is an imbalance in your DT

 

[Tracy Best]

Sorry for my ignorance. Still new. What is DT?

 

[goatcorals]

Acronym for display tank. ALK looks low compared to calcium. Are you dosing?

 

[Tracy Best]

Flow in display is 250-300 g turnover plus two mp40's running 40% max. Sump turnover 500g an hour with 100g through fuge.

 

[Tracy Best]

No dosing

 

[goatcorals]

Low nutrients might be the problem if your phosphate and nitrate are indeed 0. Are you having trouble with pocilapora or birds nest by chance?

 

[Tracy Best]

40g water changes every 2 wks

 

[Kershaw]

Your alk is low. I have had all issues before and my coral won't grow below 7dkh and cal is a little low

 

[Kershaw]

Could also be your lighting. You have not said what they are other then LEDs. Not all LEDs are created equal. And what is on your frag tank

 

[Tracy Best]

Horn coral burnt up initially but is recovering very well. Candy cane coral first piece coming back to life, second piece thriving, glove polyps rapidly reproducing in quarantine tank and acclimating, seems to be stabilizing. Hammer was doing very well but seems to shrink a little more each day. Pulsing xania lost all pulsing branches. Now just stubs. Ricordea is doing well at the bottom tank. Am I not being patient enough?

 

[Tracy Best]

Same leds on both tanks. Galaxy hydro.

 

[Kershaw]

I'm my experience, I rarely acclimate coral except for light acclimation. Bleaching for me is normally too high of light. Brown is either not enough light or high nutrients. Stn is normally more serious.

 

[Untamedrose]

Same leds on both tanks. Galaxy hydro.

Same depth though?

 

[Tracy Best]

What is stn?

 

[Kershaw]

Slow tissue narcosis. It looks like the flesh of the coral is pealing off

 

[Tracy Best]

Same depth though?

Definitely not same depth start off at bottom than move up to approx same depth.