My First Acro Not Doing Well

[ac4570]

I don't dip new coral(SPS) right away it's already stressed. It goes into QT first. I just plop and drop.

Mean while it looks from your pictures your best plan of action is to frag your Acro. Can see lots of tissue loss in your pictures. Cut above tissue loss area (only still living tissue on new frag). DO NOT dip the new frag you make(its already been dipped). You can make many frags out of it.

Sounds good I’ll give that a try. I’ll try to get a few small frags out of it and put them in different locations to see if some work better than others. Thanks!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Sounds good I’ll give that a try. I’ll try to get a few small frags out of it and put them in different locations to see if some work better than others. Thanks!

How many fish do you have and how much are you feeding them?

 

[ac4570]

How many fish do you have and how much are you feeding them?

2 small clowns
1 firefish
1 scooter blenny
1 royal gramma
1 starry blenny
1 fire shrimp
Snail/hermit crab clean up crew

I feed a pretty good size chunk of Rod’s original food (probably the size of a frozen cube) every day and a small clip of algae for the starry blenny couple times a week.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

2 small clowns
1 firefish
1 scooter blenny
1 royal gramma
1 starry blenny
1 fire shrimp
Snail/hermit crab clean up crew

I feed a pretty good size chunk of Rod’s original food (probably the size of a frozen cube) every day and a small clip of algae for the starry blenny couple times a week.

What all are you doing for nutrient export? And what is your AI prime schedule?

 

[ac4570]

What all are you doing for nutrient export? And what is your AI prime schedule?

I have a 15 gallon sump running through a filter sock, a small protein skimmer, and a refugium with cheato (light running opposite my display). Here’s my AI schedule (I used a premade preset from AI’s website and raised it to get my par up)

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I have a 15 gallon sump running through a filter sock, a small protein skimmer, and a refugium with cheato (light running opposite my display). Here’s my AI schedule (I used a premade preset from AI’s website and raised it to get my par up)

I’m not a fan of the saxby program but I doubt that’s your issues. Is your tank grounded?

 

[ac4570]

I’m not a fan of the saxby program but I doubt that’s your issues. Is your tank grounded?

I would look into others, but I liked the color and that would mean renting another par meter and no it is not grounded, I am using all dc pumps though if that makes a difference. Thx for the help btw!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I have a 5G side frag holding tank with an AI prime 16

I don’t use the moonlight but I just checked the par on it set at 30 and it’s providing 50 par. Acropora need 10+ hours of rest and 50 par at night does not allow that to happen.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I would look into others, but I liked the color and that would mean renting another par meter and no it is not grounded, I am using all dc pumps though if that makes a difference. Thx for the help btw!

Get a grounding plug.

 

[ac4570]

I have a 5G side frag holding tank with an AI prime 16

I don’t use the moonlight but I just checked the par on it set at 30 and it’s providing 50 par. Acropora need 10+ hours of rest and 50 par at night does not allow that to happen.

Interesting I didn’t know that. I read somewhere about using moonlight during the night but I can go ahead and shut it off.

Get a grounding plug.

Okay I’ll order one tonight. Thought of getting one before but didn’t know if it was worth it. Thx

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

You’ve had a lot of good advice from some very successful hobbyists, but if any of it were absolute necessities to keep sps alive, I would of been out of the hobby years ago.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I don’t think it’s your no3/po4
Add some gfo if you want to put that coral out of its misery. I hate gfo. Don’t rule out pests. Look at it after lights out with flashlight. If you see any bugs/pods crawling on the living tissue/flesh than thats your issue.

 

[ac4570]

You’ve had a lot of good advice from some very successful hobbyists, but if any of it were absolute necessities to keep sps alive, I would of been out of the hobby years ago.

Awesome stuff! I’d love to keep some sps like that, but first I need to get one acro to survive lol (also what’s the blue one in the first pic? I’d like to get something like that in the future)
Do you like keeping your phosphates in the .2 range? I noticed a lot of people like them very low, but that seems like a highly debated topic.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Awesome stuff! I’d love to keep some sps like that, but first I need to get one acro to survive lol (also what’s the blue one in the first pic? I’d like to get something like that in the future)
Do you like keeping your phosphates in the .2 range? I noticed a lot of people like them very low, but that seems like a highly debated topic.

I like my po4 in the 0.10-0.30 range. That’s an Oregon tort, and I have several large frags of it available.

 

[ac4570]

I like my po4 in the 0.10-0.30 range. That’s an Oregon tort, and I have several large frags of it available.

Dang I would definitely buy one if it I wasn’t going to kill it lol

 

[javisaman]

If you want to drop phos without impacting nitrates too much, you can look at lanthanum chloride dosing. I've had some success with Phosphate RX and the 10 micron socks. The nice thing is that you have fine control of the dosage by dropping exactly as much as you need. The 10 micron socks are necessary to capture the precipitate that is formed otherwise it might irritate corals/fish. I started off with 3 drops a day (eventually started doing 6 drops) directly into the filter sock to go from a phosphate of 0.5 to 0.09 over the course of a few weeks.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Dang I would definitely buy one if it I wasn’t going to kill it lol

Honestly
I wouldn’t sell you one right now. No offense, but I vet all my customers to make sure they can keep them alive. I’ll be happy to hook you up when you’re ready.

 

[ac4570]

If you want to drop phos without impacting nitrates too much, you can look at lanthanum chloride dosing. I've had some success with Phosphate RX and the 10 micron socks. The nice thing is that you have fine control of the dosage by dropping exactly as much as you need. The 10 micron socks are necessary to capture the precipitate that is formed otherwise it might irritate corals/fish. I started off with 3 drops a day (eventually started doing 6 drops) directly into the filter sock to go from a phosphate of 0.5 to 0.09 over the course of a few weeks.

Hmm I’ll look into that as well. I need to decide if I want to lower phosphates or try and maintain it around a .2 range. A lot of different views in the hobby so it’s a hard decision lol. Thx for the reply

 

[ac4570]

Honestly
I wouldn’t sell you one right now. No offense, but I vet all my customers to make sure they can keep them alive. I’ll be happy to hook you up when you’re ready.

Fair enough lol. Only sps I’ve had success with so far is stylophora and don’t plan on adding anyone until I can keep my acro thriving. Luckily it was cheap, but I still wish it went better

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

And make sure your blue spot puffer isn’t munching on it