Mortality rate

[GillMeister]

What percentage of your SPS corals die in a 12 month period. Every so often I'll have a random coral die off and it's usually one that was growing fast looking healthy weeks before. I have a digi in it's death throes right now and it doesn't look like it's going to bounce back. Other than the massive die-off I had from flucanozole I lose about 5% per year.

I don't want to think I'm the only coral killer on the forum.

 

[ScottB]

Good question @GillMeister

For smaller pieces, I would guess on the order of 10% or so. For larger/older colonies it is considerably less.

It is very rare for me to have a new piece just up and die. My mortality pattern is more like a given piece will just never take off. It may hang around for months and even years completely stalled. And then one day it is brown. Or white.

Curious if others see the same.

 

[guylaga]

It is very rare for me to have a new piece just up and die. My mortality pattern is more like a given piece will just never take off. It may hang around for months and even years completely stalled. And then one day it is brown. Or white.

Curious if others see the same.

Same for me.

I have had maybe 5-6 frags out of 40+ in the last year or so that refuse to grow and color down or slowly STN. The only long term SPS that I have had that died in the past year was a OP that fell over onto a montipora and RTNed.

 

[jda]

I take care to keep my parameters and lighting so that I can keep any acro, any time and any where. I want to be able to get a A. Simplex, for example, if I see one come into a shop and not have to worry that my N and P are too high, or whatever. I also light every inch of my tank to be able to keep any acro at any depth. I only mention this because it helps to keep losses lower because not all acropora will thrive when you get too far away from NSW parameters whereas some don't seem to care at all.

That said, I might lose one a year that is established. If I have not added many new pieces, then sometimes none. I do lose new pieces especially after shipping, but after they get encrusted and grow a bit, this is rare. Once I started a coral isolation/QT and wait to dip for a few weeks after shipping, this was cut down significantly.

When I prune out large hunks when they get big, sometimes those die and never take off again but the bases rarely do.

As mentioned above, what is more frustrating is that I have a handful of pieces that just go greysish, purplish brown that never do much of anything. Not dying, but not really living, either. I have a Purple Monster like this, RR JD (got another actually since this one makes me so mad) and a few others. SPS purgatory.

No, you are not alone losing pieces... especially newer ones.

Anybody worry that we all just jinx'd ourselves? If my Quazar or Pearlberry is dead, I will never forgive myself.

 

[GillMeister]

I've had quite a few that began to die off and the came back with a vengeance.

 

[thepotoo]

I do lose new pieces especially after shipping, but after they get encrusted and grow a bit, this is rare

I have seen this as well. Once a piece has started to encrust, I almost never lose it as long, as it has proper light and flow.

I love threads like these because people who lose corals regularly don't want to talk about it. You're going to get a ton of people saying "never", but if you look at this forum, it's full of people asking "what does it mean when my coral turns white?" Hmmm....something doesn't add up.

I try to keep track of survival rates of stuff in my hobbies, and I see about a 50-70% survival rate after one year when moving living things - this rate goes for fish, for corals, for frogs, for orchids, even trees. Obviously this varies quite a lot, if you are buying easy stuff, it's more likely to do well, but I do occasionally buy trickier stuff, so the 50-70% average survival rate overall holds up. Tracking critters that are thriving for me that I sell to others, I see a similar rate of survival.

Obviously, if you don't know what you are doing, you'll have a 0% survival rate. As an example, I routinely give away 4" colonies of birdsnest to people who keep softies and want to try an SPS, and I don't know of any of these that are still alive after a year.

There are many factors at play. Sometimes a hermit knocks a frag down where I can't get it. Sometimes a frag falls onto another coral which stings and kills it. Frags from good vendors tend to do better, but stuff outside my control just happens.

 

[ScottB]

Once I started a coral isolation/QT and wait to dip for a few weeks after shipping, this was cut down significantly.

Anybody worry that we all just jinx'd ourselves? If my Quazar or Pearlberry is dead, I will never forgive myself.

Waiting to dip. This for me was extremely helpful for shipped new pieces -- almost a game changer. Assuming there was no troubles with the transport, it is very rare I lose a piece early on. It wasn't necessarily so when I dipped them straight from the bag (post temp acclimation) and them put them under SPS PAR after.

Temp acclimate in dark sump
Place in my LPS tank with relatively low PAR T5 for several days before dipping.
Dip, remove/replace plug. Inspect.
Repeat at least once more.