Frags going down hill after moved to DT.

[chicago]

So I have a restart on my DT. Long story but broke it down year and half ago because of ick ect. tank is back up and running ick free with angels and wrasses. I QT everything.. so that means frags are QT also. I had great luck in the past just putting the SPS in my DT. My QT has been an issue. SPS QT is 30 gallon tank. I have been dealing with slim algea in the QT. I thank I held the frags in the QT to long.. should have just done 30 days. DT water is all good. but the alk in the DT was a bit higher than in the QT.. What do you guys do to match the ALK from store to DT ect. We all know ALK swings are bad.. so my QT was 7.7 the DT is 8.4. This am I am looking at the frags and not looking good. Some were already stressed and dying. You know.. they go STN. Or RTN and then take on a bleach white and in a day or two they are green.

They were slowly acclimated from QT to DT for two hours. So the question is what do you guys do to accllimated ALK levels.

 

[chicago]

here are some pics.. DT is 1.025, ALK 8.4 NO3 5 , Calcium 500 Mag 1500 Temp 79.6 Phosphate 0.

 

[justingraham]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but a lot of those frags are dead

The second frag rack all of them look dead

 

[BestMomEver]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but a lot of those frags are dead

The second frag rack all of them look dead

I don’t think they are all dead. Some are ok. As for getting dkh the same, dose the lower one until it matches. I keep my dkh in the 9-10 range so you should be ok.

 

[BestMomEver]

Also your calcium is pretty high. What salt are you using? Are you dosing?

 

[SeaDweller]

I wouldnt think your 7.7 to 8.4 change in dkh is what’s killing them, although it seems to be the likely suspect in your eyes, but it’s not that huge of a shift.

I honestly don’t even check the params of the stuff I get. I just tell acclimate for about 10-15 mins and in they go, after a dip. The only thing that I’d feel is the culprit is the acclimation duration, but that’s my guess.

 

[justingraham]

I don’t think they are all dead. Some are ok. As for getting dkh the same, dose the lower one until it matches. I keep my dkh in the 9-10 range so you should be ok.

The second frag rack picture out of the 20 or so frags one may be alive

And it looks like they have been gone for awhile by the algae growth on them if it happened on the switch it would be white like the coral laying sideways on the first photo

I think the qt did a lot of damage as it’s hard to keep that many corals alive and the water params stable in a 30 gallon that’s a lot of corals in general

So to answer the original question I wouldn’t worry about the dkh swing from qt to the main display at all but next time try to keep the qt params and the display params the same

 

[SeaDweller]

The second frag rack picture out of the 20 or so frags one may be alive

And it looks like they have been gone for awhile by the algae growth on them if it happened on the switch it would be white like the coral laying sideways on the first photo

I think the qt did a lot of damage as it’s hard to keep that many corals alive and the water params stable in a 30 gallon that’s a lot of corals in general

So to answer the original question I wouldn’t worry about the dkh swing from qt to the main display at all but next time try to keep the qt params and the display params the same

I agree man. Most of that stuff looks like it was dead for a bit of time before going in to the DT.

 

[pirate2876]

How long has the display been up and running with fish?

 

[NewbsReef]

Noticed your phosphates are 0. Id bump that up around 0.03

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[chicago]

Thank you all. yep you guys confirmed what I was thinking.. some have been dead for a few weeks I think.. Had RTN hit the QT and that was reason I wanted to get them to the DT. Keeping a QT 30 gallon is not working. Agree to hard to keep stable I probably was too aggressive with the number of frags..

Phosphate is reading zero but I doubt it is zero as there is hair algae in the DT.. I run an Turf scrubber in the DT also and that seems to be fine. I had some slimy Algae growing in the QT ... weird stuff.. Another reason I wanted them out of the QT.. I QT them to long.. got lazy and this happened.. Lesson learned.. Get frags to main DT as soon as can... or maybe a QT of 50 gallons for frags and sps would be better.

 

[SeaDweller]

Thank you all. yep you guys confirmed what I was thinking.. some have been dead for a few weeks I think.. Had RTN hit the QT and that was reason I wanted to get them to the DT. Keeping a QT 30 gallon is not working. Agree to hard to keep stable I probably was too aggressive with the number of frags..

Phosphate is reading zero but I doubt it is zero as there is hair algae in the DT.. I run an Turf scrubber in the DT also and that seems to be fine. I had some slimy Algae growing in the QT ... weird stuff.. Another reason I wanted them out of the QT.. I QT them to long.. got lazy and this happened.. Lesson learned.. Get frags to main DT as soon as can... or maybe a QT of 50 gallons for frags and sps would be better.

I had 100+ frags in a 60 cube. It’s really about keeping the water stable. And they were in there for 2 months Ish, fresh start from my old rock in my DT and fresh salt water. Just depends on how you maintain the params.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

As long as the QT tank is kept stable, has good flow and light corals can stay in there indefinitely. 30g is not too small you just need to stay on top of the water chemistry and have a couple fish to provide nutrients to the corals and keep algae away.