Coral Quarantine Help

Opah · Jan 1, 2021

Some new corals are starting to recede and brown out in quarantine.

Here is my setup.

60 gallon
4 HOB filters
4 sponge
2 small power heads
1 black box ~12" high
1 reefbrite blue LED strip
Water is from main system (running for 11 years)
Alk 8.7
Calcium 430
Nitrate 3
Phosphate 0.05

I do water changes once a week. ~10 gallons from main display.

I feed aqua barn phyto daily (about 20ml) and reef chili every other day. Light period is ~12 hours.

I am planning to move some rock from the sump over and considering dosing some coral aminos. I have a par meter coming.

Any thoughts or advice?

Ron Reefman · Jan 2, 2021

bump
#reefsquad

Redfoxtang · Jan 2, 2021

With your nutrients hanging on the edge of zero I think your keeping your water to “clean”. Try raising nutrients and skipping a few water changes. If it’s fish less you could add N03 and P04 manually.

DeniseAndy · Jan 2, 2021

Also looks that the light may be too much for some of the corals. Try dropping them down in height. I do not run LEDs, but the first looks to be a bit bleached too.

For the coral qt, do you have any live rock in it? This helps keep the balance of the system. My qt has the live rock in the sump. It is packed, so not gathering algae in the main or detracting from the qt, but still helping stabilize. IMO live rock can have great effects in keeping systems healthy.

I see you have HOB filters, put some rubble in the chambers. This is how I run my 6g. Does a lot of good.

Rickybobby · Jan 2, 2021

My experience with coral qt is this. At the beginning when the tank is new. Only hardy beginner stuff thrives. As bacteria’s and nutrient build and the tank ages I have been able to add more corals. As well I keep one damsel in there to help fertilize and keep the cycle going. My tank is cycled. Also is it possible your light settings are off?

Idoc · Jan 2, 2021

I would definitely look at the lights. I use a black box led over my 20g long coral quarantine tank. I only have the white around 10-20% max and blues around 50%. You can easily fry the corals in a smaller tank with those leds.

Opah · Jan 4, 2021

DeniseAndy said:
Also looks that the light may be too much for some of the corals. Try dropping them down in height. I do not run LEDs, but the first looks to be a bit bleached too.

For the coral qt, do you have any live rock in it? This helps keep the balance of the system. My qt has the live rock in the sump. It is packed, so not gathering algae in the main or detracting from the qt, but still helping stabilize. IMO live rock can have great effects in keeping systems healthy.

I see you have HOB filters, put some rubble in the chambers. This is how I run my 6g. Does a lot of good.

Thanks. I didn't have rock in there, but I did move some in now. Getting a par meter tomorrow, we'll see about lighting.