Environmental factors or coincidence?

[Derrick0580]

So a friend if mine and I swap frags back and forth, therefore we each pretty much have the same stuff the other one does. The weird part is when I find out that if one of my corals is doing bad or has kicked the bucket, most likely the same one in his tank has either already died or is doing poorly as well. Could be something we traded a year ago as well. Seems to happen mostly with softies, but either way it just seems insane. Can local factors cause this, like possibly something in the air or barometric changes, don’t really know what’s up….

 

[Dan_P]

So a friend if mine and I swap frags back and forth, therefore we each pretty much have the same stuff the other one does. The weird part is when I find out that if one of my corals is doing bad or has kicked the bucket, most likely the same one in his tank has either already died or is doing poorly as well. Could be something we traded a year ago as well. Seems to happen mostly with softies, but either way it just seems insane. Can local factors cause this, like possibly something in the air or barometric changes, don’t really know what’s up….

Frags are identical twins and would be expected to behave similarly. The odd thing is that you are both killing the same thing or is it each frag that dies is doomed to die from the start because of an infection acquired during the frag-ing process. Also consider that both your systems are infected with similar pathogens because of the extensive trading.

 

[The_Paradox]

Possible you both learned bad habits from each other? Ie how similar are your tank parameters and set ups?

 

[Derrick0580]

He runs his nutrients a lot higher than I do. I’m in the .08 phos, 10 nitrate range where he is around .2 phos and 50 nitrate. I use radions vs his ai 16hd and a blade. I use kalkwasser and he doses redsea cal and alk. Other than swapping frags they are totally different tanks. I will also add that some of the stuff we had suffer didn’t come from each other like frankenstein mushrooms, two different suppliers but both of us had them looking great for over a year then suddenly shrivel up and not come out of it. Losing zoas for no reason when everything around them look great…it’s just strange and super frustrating!