Marco S
Always Learning
While my DT is doing good since I took my time to carefully QT every fish and tested parameters religiously over the 10 months it took to get fully stocked, I have had some tragic and very expensive losses with my coral QT. 
My coral QT is an Innovative Marine 20 gallon AIO tank with just filter media and some Marine Pure Balls for filtration, (no skimmer). I have sand, live rock, 4 Turbo snails and 2 Tiger Conches so the bio load is not much and took a bit of time to build up some Nitrates and I have done weekly water changes to keep it at around 5 - 10 PPM Nitrates since. Here are the mistakes I made and the consequences...
Mistake 1 - Stocked too many coral at once since it would be 76 days before I could put them in my DT and I wanted a bunch of coral instead of just a few.
Consequence - I lost two Acans, (very expensive Acans) because they were too close to a Favia and they lost that war. I also lost a n Incredible Hulk Leptoseris because it was too close to a Bowebanki and it also lost that war.
Lesson Learned - Placement of coral is VERY important and I need to do more research before choosing what coral can be beside another. I also lost track of the golden rule in this hobby, "Nothing good happens fast". I tried to rush things and it didn't end well.
Mistake 2 - Mixed LPS, Softies and SPS in a small QT with not enough depth to properly light them all to their required PAR levels.
Consequence - A couple Torches started to bleach because the PAR was too high and when I turned it down I lost a Bird of Paradise and a Neon Birdsnest. Even with a frag rack and the SPS higher than the LPS and Softies the tank was not deep enough to adequately light them all and I had to choose between them and lost all my SPS.
Lesson Learned - Make sure there is enough depth in the tank to light each coral to their required lighting needs.
Mistake 3 - After the 76 days were up, I stopped doing weekly water changes and testing while I was moving the coral over to my DT. Since I was doing a 15 minute dip with CoralRX and then a 15 minute dip with Revive for each coral, it took about 45 minutes to move each one and I did this over a couple weeks as I had time.
Consequence - Because I was not doing water changes and still feeding the coral in my QT my Nitrates got over 25 PPM and I lost both my Frogspawn, (ouch that hurt the worst) a few heads of one Duncan and potentially a Gold Hammer, (it doesn't look good) to Brown Jelly.
Lesson Learned - Fluctuations in water parameters are a VERY BAD thing for coral. Consistency is more important than hitting any given number because some coral do not handle change well at all. I also realize that I should have probably started off with a bigger tank since I keep hearing that tanks 20 gallons and under are the hardest to keep and this was my first time trying to keep coral.
I am posting this mainly to help others so that they do not make the same mistakes as I have, but also to drill it into my head that I messed up and all my losses could have been avoided and I wasted a lot of money to learn these simple lessons that I should have known before trying to keep coral. Even though I have learned from my mistakes, I should have never made them in the first place and I am very mad at myself right now. :mad:
My coral QT is an Innovative Marine 20 gallon AIO tank with just filter media and some Marine Pure Balls for filtration, (no skimmer). I have sand, live rock, 4 Turbo snails and 2 Tiger Conches so the bio load is not much and took a bit of time to build up some Nitrates and I have done weekly water changes to keep it at around 5 - 10 PPM Nitrates since. Here are the mistakes I made and the consequences...
Mistake 1 - Stocked too many coral at once since it would be 76 days before I could put them in my DT and I wanted a bunch of coral instead of just a few.
Consequence - I lost two Acans, (very expensive Acans) because they were too close to a Favia and they lost that war. I also lost a n Incredible Hulk Leptoseris because it was too close to a Bowebanki and it also lost that war.
Lesson Learned - Placement of coral is VERY important and I need to do more research before choosing what coral can be beside another. I also lost track of the golden rule in this hobby, "Nothing good happens fast". I tried to rush things and it didn't end well.
Mistake 2 - Mixed LPS, Softies and SPS in a small QT with not enough depth to properly light them all to their required PAR levels.
Consequence - A couple Torches started to bleach because the PAR was too high and when I turned it down I lost a Bird of Paradise and a Neon Birdsnest. Even with a frag rack and the SPS higher than the LPS and Softies the tank was not deep enough to adequately light them all and I had to choose between them and lost all my SPS.
Lesson Learned - Make sure there is enough depth in the tank to light each coral to their required lighting needs.
Mistake 3 - After the 76 days were up, I stopped doing weekly water changes and testing while I was moving the coral over to my DT. Since I was doing a 15 minute dip with CoralRX and then a 15 minute dip with Revive for each coral, it took about 45 minutes to move each one and I did this over a couple weeks as I had time.
Consequence - Because I was not doing water changes and still feeding the coral in my QT my Nitrates got over 25 PPM and I lost both my Frogspawn, (ouch that hurt the worst) a few heads of one Duncan and potentially a Gold Hammer, (it doesn't look good) to Brown Jelly.
Lesson Learned - Fluctuations in water parameters are a VERY BAD thing for coral. Consistency is more important than hitting any given number because some coral do not handle change well at all. I also realize that I should have probably started off with a bigger tank since I keep hearing that tanks 20 gallons and under are the hardest to keep and this was my first time trying to keep coral.
I am posting this mainly to help others so that they do not make the same mistakes as I have, but also to drill it into my head that I messed up and all my losses could have been avoided and I wasted a lot of money to learn these simple lessons that I should have known before trying to keep coral. Even though I have learned from my mistakes, I should have never made them in the first place and I am very mad at myself right now. :mad:
