From the photos, it looks like the uglie's are just starting, so it is too early for corals in my view. I would not buy any more corals until you have had the successive waves of ugly algae come and go and you start to see the first hints of coraline taking hold. When your tank can support coraline, it can support corals.
In the meantime, I would suggest becoming familiar with keeping the most important 3 parameters of your tank stable and in the preferred zones. Those being temperature, alkalinity and salinity. Keeping those 3 stable and in range, gets you well on your way to success. It looks like you are already working on temperature and salinity.
One of the biggest problems, and cause for frustration, is unreliable test results. Many a reefer has been foiled by basing their tank husbandry on test results that proved to be inaccurate and as a result led them astray. With that in mind, every reefer should have a method for testing the important parameters that can't be inaccurate. I strongly suggest the following:
- Tropic Marin High Precision Hydrometer
- Tropic Marin High Precision Thermometer
Both of those require no calibration and are deadly accurate. The expectation is that they would be used to cross check and confirm the easier and more convenient methods, that trade convenience for margin of error.
For alkalinity, there is no test that guarantee's accuracy unfortunately. Using a quality test like Salifert will help though. Stay away from tests that are known to be problematic (like API).
Most importantly, don't be discouraged by the results with your frags. Almost everyone kills their first frags (unfortunately). Anyone can be successful in this hobby given enough patience and attention to detail. Stick with it you will get there.
Dennis
