My SPS journey begins!

[Azedenkae]

The experiment begins! Got three krypto monti cap frags from Cultivated Reef (props to them for selling corals that actually looks like pictures they have on site!).

My only concern at the moment is my pH is on the low side (7.8, but still okay) and not sure if the lighting is too much. One frag is doing very well, one seems to be good, another has some polyp bail out. D:

[EDIT]

Gosh images with blue light look horrible.

 

[T-J]

My only concern at the moment is my pH is on the low side (7.8, but still okay) and not sure if the lighting is too much. One frag is doing very well, one seems to be good, another has some polyp bail out. D:

7.8 isn't anything to worry about. I'd be more concerned about the lighting being correct. Not sure what you're using for a light, but you may want to borrow/rent a PAR meter or a Seneye to see what your numbers actually are.
I may be wrong, but I've never heard of a Monti having "polyp bailout". I've heard of frogspawn doing a polyp bailout as a last ditch effort to survive.

Gosh images with blue light look horrible.

Yes. Get an orange filter for your camera/phone. Or, turn off blues and run whites for pictures.
The water looks cloudy. Do you have a bacterial bloom going on?

 

[Azedenkae]

7.8 isn't anything to worry about. I'd be more concerned about the lighting being correct. Not sure what you're using for a light, but you may want to borrow/rent a PAR meter or a Seneye to see what your numbers actually are.
I may be wrong, but I've never heard of a Monti having "polyp bailout". I've heard of frogspawn doing a polyp bailout as a last ditch effort to survive.

Yes. Get an orange filter for your camera/phone. Or, turn off blues and run whites for pictures.
The water looks cloudy. Do you have a bacterial bloom going on?

The bacterial bloom started the moment I added the corals in. I am not sure if 'polyp bailout' is the correct term for monti caps, but yeah I can see the individual fluorescent green polyps being dislodged.

As of now two of the frags have lost all or most of their colors, there is one that is still green-ish.

I'll try to get measurements soon, but yesterday when I added the corals temperature was 24.3 Celcius/75.74 Fahrenheit, salinity was 1.026 s.g., pH was 7.8, alkalinity was 12 dkH, and calcium was 580 ppm. Both alkalinity and calcium are high, but as far as I have read usually issues with them would come from values being too low, not too high.

 

[T-J]

Is that tank plumbed into another system? What are you using for filtration/biological media?
Yes, alk and calc are high. I'd be more concerned with the high alk than calc at this point.
Temp seems a bit low.
How old is that tank?
What light are you using?

 

[T-J]

Nevermind. I looked at your build thread.
Tank is a month old, AI prime, and you did a 100% water change right before putting the corals in?

 

[DaneGer21]

From the numbers you provided, I would let your alk/cal drift downward. I would also get the temp at least to 77, with slightly higher being better, imo.

 

[Azedenkae]

Nevermind. I looked at your build thread.
Tank is a month old, AI prime, and you did a 100% water change right before putting the corals in?

Yes I did. I was cycling the tank and managed to establish enough nitrifiers to fully handle 2ppm ammonia daily. However through the entire cycling process my pH had dropped to 7.4 (or less, 7.4 is the lower limit of detection). So I had three choices, either dose something to increase pH, do small water changes for like a month, or just a 100% water change. Given that there had been no live stock in the tank, the 100% water change was my choice.

To be fair, I did do it within 24 hours of adding the corals, but I am positive the saltwater had been fully mixed by then. And I can't see anything that would be adversely affected by the water change.

The tank is a month old, though I don't think it should affect anything in this case given the experiment involves just MarinePure gems in a tank, so there is nothing really to be 'established' beyond getting the tank cycled.

But yes, the bacterial bloom is a concern. It has happened before multiple times, well back when I was dosing with Microbacter7.

The other issue I have is the flow. It seems like there is circulation throughout the entire tank, but it is relatively slow. Unfortunately that is the design of the tank. Though I am unsure if this may be the culprit either, at least not to have an effect this fast. The only thing that I am pondering is maybe it is not oxygenated enough...

 

[Azedenkae]

From the numbers you provided, I would let your alk/cal drift downward. I would also get the temp at least to 77, with slightly higher being better, imo.

Thanks. I can set the temperature higher, though I don't think that is the culprit for what is happening.

 

[T-J]

Thanks. I can set the temperature higher, though I don't think that is the culprit for what is happening.

The culprit, to me, is pretty obvious: You took 3 frags that were stressed from shipping, and put them into a 1 month old tank with low temp and high alk/calc, which further stressed them. Can you check with the seller to see what the tank params of the frag system is? I'm guessing their temp is around 78, alk around 8-9 and calc around 420.

 

[DaneGer21]

Thanks. I can set the temperature higher, though I don't think that is the culprit for what is happening.

Maybe, maybe not, but also not helping the situation.

Here’s what I would do with a tank of that size... Remove frags and place in a small bowl, using tank water. Do a large/full water change. Get parameters in check using correct salt, or self adjusted. Acclimate frags to tanks new parameters. Reintroduce frags to tank.

 

[Azedenkae]

The culprit, to me, is pretty obvious: You took 3 frags that were stressed from shipping, and put them into a 1 month old tank with low temp and high alk/calc, which further stressed them. Can you check with the seller to see what the tank params of the frag system is? I'm guessing their temp is around 78, alk around 8-9 and calc around 420.

I am not sure how the age of the tank has anything to do with how well the frags adapt to it though.

The temperature, I would imagine would not play a key role either, given the frags had to likely deal with varying temperatures during shipping, so acclimatizing to 75.74 F or 78 F probably should be similar.

But I can see the problems with high alk/calc. I would definitely imagine though that the alk/calc from the seller would be way lower. Though I did have another three coral frags I bought from the seller that was added to my other tank that are doing great. Of course, that may not really say much given 1. they are softies and 2. the other tank's salinity is 1.023 sg and probably had lower alk/calc.

Maybe, maybe not, but also not helping the situation.

Here’s what I would do with a tank of that size... Remove frags and place in a small bowl, using tank water. Do a large/full water change. Get parameters in check using correct salt, or self adjusted. Acclimate frags to tanks new parameters. Reintroduce frags to tank.

Yep, I am doing a water change now to get parameters correct.

Expensive lesson learnt, the frags have 'stabilized' now in the other tank, but if they do recover it seems like it will take a very long time.

Gosh I feel bad. I figured the alk/calc was high, but forgot to take into mind that going from the seller's tank makes the change even more significant.

Thank you @T-J and @DaneGer21 for your recommendations. For what it's worth, I have also changed the temperature to be higher, and yeah gonna see what the parameters of the tank are before considering re-introduction of the frags.