Why do i struggle with Duncans????

[steallife904]

I have been in this hobby for years and have done SPS and LPS. Current tank that's been running for 2 years (but just moved it to new house in July) is LPS only. I have Frogspawn, Torch, Multiple acans and favias.... the one I cannot keep is duncans. I just lost my 3rd frag. They look fine for weeks then the heads just fall off. Each frag was tried in a different area of the tank with different light and flow. I spot feed each LPS once a week, Water parameters are stable at 8dkh and 410 calc, haven't checked Mag in a very long time and my nitrate and phosphate has always been undetectable no mater what I do. I do weekly water change of 5 gallons (140 gallon tank) with Brightwell neomarine salt. No issue with anything else just the duncans and it sucks because I like them. Whats up???

One off thing this time around I did skip a water change for almost 2 weeks seeing if I could get nitrate and phosphates up. Maybe this did it but this didn't happen in the past when other duncans dies.

 

[glb]

I have been in this hobby for years and have done SPS and LPS. Current tank that's been running for 2 years (but just moved it to new house in July) is LPS only. I have Frogspawn, Torch, Multiple acans and favias.... the one I cannot keep is duncans. I just lost my 3rd frag. They look fine for weeks then the heads just fall off. Each frag was tried in a different area of the tank with different light and flow. I spot feed each LPS once a week, Water parameters are stable at 8dkh and 410 calc, haven't checked Mag in a very long time and my nitrate and phosphate has always been undetectable no mater what I do. I do weekly water change of 5 gallons (140 gallon tank) with Brightwell neomarine salt. No issue with anything else just the duncans and it sucks because I like them. Whats up???

One off thing this time around I did skip a water change for almost 2 weeks seeing if I could get nitrate and phosphates up. Maybe this did it but this didn't happen in the past when other duncans dies.

Sometimes there’s a coral that just doesn’t do well in your tank. That being said, have you tried different locations, lighting and flow in different parts of the tank?

 

[timrocks311]

Sometimes there’s a coral that just doesn’t do well in your tank. That being said, have you tried different locations, lighting and flow in different parts of the tank?

I agree with this. I don't think nitrates and phosphates from a skipped water change are your problem. If other LPS are doing fine, then you either haven't found a spot it's happy, or for some reason it just won't be happy. My Duncan loves to eat. It gets some flow to move it's polyps and it gets direct light, although it's in the bottom corner so it's lower light.

I happens with certain corals. Fortunately for me, my LPS are doing great, but I haven't had good luck with zoas. I love them and they are regarded as easy, but for some reason they don't do well in my tank. There is one spot I have a few frags and they look good, but all others do not, so maybe that's my sweet spot for zoas...I don't know.

 

[steallife904]

ya I have tried different spots each time I got a new frag and all other LPS doing great. Maybe my duncans needed more that 1 feeding a week???????? Or they just are not for me. Might try it one more time at some point.