Sps Help! (and some lps)

[corey.nolta]

Is it normal for fresh cut frags to have a loss in color? I purchased 15 frags of a variety of sps yesterday to add to my tank. He cut them all fresh from his colonies. They all looked healthy and colorful. They have been in my tank for 24 hours now and I have noticed a drastic color loss in 90% of the frags. Is this normal for fresh cuts from stress? I sure hope so because I'm going to be bumming hard if I just lost that kind of money's worth of frags.
Travel time was about 5 minutes. Got them home and glued everything to small pieces of rubble rock. Put them on the sand bed for the glue to fully set before placing them on the rock work (which I was going to do this afternoon)

Tank parameters
165w led units x2 (~75% blues / ~10% whites)(tank is 24" tall)
salinity 1.025
temp 78-80
ph 8.1
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10-15
Phosphate ~.15
Calcium 400
Alk 8dkh

Corals purchased (fresh cut and all look pretty bad right now)
Orange digi
Green digi
Garf bonsai
BoP birdsnest
Tri color nana
Blasto
Teal stag
War coral
Hydnophora
Pocillapora
Mystery chalice

I do have frags that I purchased about 2 months ago that are thriving and growling like crazy: Green slimmer, red cap, torch, hammer, frogspawn, and galaxea (well until the other night when my carpet decided to move and sting the fugh out of it).
So I don't feel my tank is too out of whack. Nitrates and Phosphate are a tad high, but nothing major that I feel would cause loss of color in only 24 hours??? Everything else in my tank is doing pretty well!
Any thoughts???
Thanks a ton!

 

[nmohr6]

Did you acclimate the corals any?

 

[Lenny_S]

So they were basically fragged on the spot and you took them home and mounted them to rubble? IDK, never heard it done that way. Usually the new frags would get mounted and just placed right back to the same tank as the mother colony until it had a chance to heal and establish. Not sure what I'd do at this point but try and minimize any more stress. Uncharted territory for me.

 

[Russ265]

i grab frags from my lfs and mount them my way too.
paling in 24 hours is odd. id look at lack of nitrates. even then it usually takes 30 days. not 24 hours.

 

[corey.nolta]

@nmohr6 - Normally I drip acclimate for a good 2+ hours, but with these frags, it was more of a quickie. With the weather getting cold, the water in the bag cooled down very quickly and I didn't want them sitting in cold water. I dumped all the frags into a tupperware with the water they came in. I started gluing the shorter frags first in order to keep everything under water. As I got to the taller ones I added some of my tank water into the tupperware (about a 1/2 cup at a time) just to cover it. Continued with that until they were all done. Took about an hour. So yes they were acclimated-ish somewhat.

@Lenny_S - Yes, that's pretty much exactly what happened. It was kind of a last minute deal and the only time that worked for both of us to get together.

@Russ265 - I thought it was odd to lose a significant amount of color that fast as well. But I am somewhat new to sps so I wasn't sure. I don't know if it's really a parameter issue being too low/high, because I do have a few other sps frags that i have had about 2 months, that are thriving and growing well. And they are decent sized frags too. All 3"-4" with multiple branches

 

[nmohr6]

Okay. Thought maybe that they were in shock from lack of acclimation, but now I don't know. Might be a mix of that and the cold though. Just throwing some ideas out.

 

[Russ265]

are you running heavy gfo?
how old is the tank? looks like a strong stocking.

 

[cjsreefaus]

May of just been quite a ride for them. Long as theirs flesh theirs still a chance.

 

[Lenny_S]

All this really just points to a lot of stress on the corals. They were freshly fragged, transported, mounted, and put in a completely different environment all within the span of just a few hours it sounds like. I think the only chance they have is to leave them on the sand and keep everything as stable as possible till they recover. Hopefully they acclimate and start to adjust to all this, there really isn't anything else you can do. Any fiddling around at this point will likely only add to the stress. Good luck.

 

[corey.nolta]

@Russ265 I am not running any gfo and the tank is about 8 months old.
@Lenny_S From start to finish (cutting to placing on sand bed) was probably about three hours. I just got home from work, and there isn't any more color loss from yesterday and all polyps seem to have decent extensions (good sign?). So best bet is to just leave them on the sand bed for now? Don't try to find a better place to secure to the rockwork?
Thanks everyone for the input! I'm really hoping it's nothing more than stress and they'll bounce back just fine. Here's hoping!

 

[Lenny_S]

Yes I think it is just stress and you should just leave them on the sand bed for now. I'm glad to hear they seem to be bouncing back. Once they look healthy again start moving them to the spots you want. But move them slowly and not too high too fast.