Emergency***Beginner Acros melting in QT

[Rincon_Reefer]

I have a 10 gallon QT tank for my corals. No fish. I have had some LPS in there for about a month and have put 2 sets of beginner acro frags in. One about 2 weeks ago, one a week ago. Everything was going fine until a hammer I had in there died (hadn't looked good since shipping) . I removed it when I saw it was dead.

I didn't think too much of it, but I have been watching the acros and a couple started to melt. I measured phosphate and it was at .29...way too high, I immediately did a 60% water change. Next day I came back and a couple more are not looking good. I did two water changes yesterday. And one today. I removed the acro that ended up dying and then clipped back the frags where they had melted. The majority of the frags are still fine. All the rest of the LPS is fine, but my phosphate keeps climbing right back up.

I measured at noon today after water change. It was at .16 ppm by 8 pm it was at .20 already. I have GFO in the canister filter and an extra pouch near a powerhead. I plan to do another water change and add some more GFO.

I don't know what else to do. Could the extreme phosphate level rise be all from dying coral? It is a small volume I guess.

1. Should I dip the coral? Coral Rx or Iodine?
2. Should I just risk it and put them in the DT so the volume dilutes it?
3. Should I just keep on the path and battle phosphates?
4. Could this be a disease?

Alk 9.6
Calc 440
Mag 1400
PAR<100 avg (just mapped this weekend)

Thanks for any help

 

[vetteguy53081]

Mag and alk a little elevated. I dont see much of a reason to have them in QT.
Yes on display tank and acclimate them to new tank and introduce under low /blue light.
Moderate light and water flow

 

[jda]

There is probably not anything that you can do. Sterlie QT tanks are a bad idea, IMO, but people love to suggest them. Some sand and rock will help buffer the phosphate (read up on how P binds to aragonite) and allow bacteria to quickly grow if you have a die-off event, which happens in QT and your tank needs to be able to handle a dying hammer frag. I QT my corals, but it is an established tank with some rock and/or sand with the same lighting as my reef... basically just a smaller tank. I watch what I put into it and time when they come out, otherwise it is a full-blown reef tank. If you want your QT tank to work, you cannot be changing water or GFOing all the time.

I doubt that there is much that you can do this go-around, so in between cycles, try and get some more stability.

 

[stephj03]

Any chance you have a small piece of rock you can move from your display to your QT?

Might also consider using water from your display to do the WC on your QT.

Sent you a txt.

 

[Rincon_Reefer]

There is probably not anything that you can do. Sterlie QT tanks are a bad idea, IMO, but people love to suggest them. Some sand and rock will help buffer the phosphate (read up on how P binds to aragonite) and allow bacteria to quickly grow if you have a die-off event, which happens in QT and your tank needs to be able to handle a dying hammer frag. I QT my corals, but it is an established tank with some rock and/or sand with the same lighting as my reef... basically just a smaller tank. I watch what I put into it and time when they come out, otherwise it is a full-blown reef tank. If you want your QT tank to work, you cannot be changing water or GFOing all the time.

I doubt that there is much that you can do this go-around, so in between cycles, try and get some more stability.

I guess I could have been more clear on using the term 'QT' what I meant in terms of coral is that it has no fish to host fish parasites. The tank has live rock with coralline algae, sand, mangroves and macro algae. The tank has been running for about 6 months, not in it's current manifestation, but the rock and filter bio material. it is really more of a mini reef tank/frag tank.