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- Oct 23, 2019
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So two weeks ago we had a power outage while we were away. The guy taking care of my tank from the LFS was a champ and did what he could to keep the water at a good temp given the 100* weather, and to keep things going on our battery back up. When we got home we'd lost a couple fish, a torch, and a welsoni, and had a very very unhappy duncan. The duncan seemed to recover, but never returned to the fluffiness it was out prior to the outage, and the last two days in particular looked pretty rough.
Well this morning we woke up to bail out of the two largest polyps. They look pretty terrible. Other coral in the tank including two gonis/alvis, and even our sps look fine.
Parameters as of 10am Alk 8.6, CA 425, Nitrate 17.3, Phosphate 0.07, MG 1290, Salinity 1.025, pH 8.4, and temp is sitting right at 77.6 F. Parameters after the outage were a bit wacky but not too far off.
On the 10th when we returned home Alk was 7.9 (it was brought up over the last two weeks slowly) CA was 540 (allowed to drop through water changes and stoppage of all dosing) Nitrate was 13.4 and I did dose a little nitrate+ to bring it up to 15 over the course of a week, Phos was 0.08, MG was 1470, salinity 1.025, ph 8.4, I think CA and Mg were up because I found out later my friend dosed all for reef by mistake instead of just alkalinity. I don't have my dosing automated since the tank is still young enough that it isn't needing daily dosing.
I know the likelihood of survival is low, but I plan to toss the polyps in some rubble with mesh over top to keep them from blowing around. guess my question comes to, is the swing in cal and mg the likely culprit for bailout? The wednesday prior to the 10th, CA was at 450, which is where it normally sits, MG was at 1200 which is on the low side and I'd dosed it up a little to 1250 with plans to bring it up again after we got home with another small increment, I normally try to keep it right around 1300. Another question is if not the parameter swing, could just the temperature struggles with the outage cause it even two weeks later? Like maybe it just took the coral that long to deteriorate from the stress of the temp swing? Highest it got during the outage was when my fish guy got there, and the tank was sitting at 85, he brought it down with frozen gallon jug in the far side of the sump from the return, and brought it down to 78 in the display before the power got back on.
I'm a bit bummed, because while losing the torch sucked (it was gorgeous, fat and happy when we left) the duncan was the first ever coral my partner bought. This tank is the first one he's involved in and is learning from. It wasn't a particularly nice duncan either, just a five dollar frag from the lfs, that was a weird peach tone when we brought it home, and started developing greens and purples under our lights. It had grown from two heads to 6 over the 4 months we've had it, and had a few more baby heads popping up this past week. I plan on replacing his duncan, but I know it'll never be his first coral again.
Well this morning we woke up to bail out of the two largest polyps. They look pretty terrible. Other coral in the tank including two gonis/alvis, and even our sps look fine.
Parameters as of 10am Alk 8.6, CA 425, Nitrate 17.3, Phosphate 0.07, MG 1290, Salinity 1.025, pH 8.4, and temp is sitting right at 77.6 F. Parameters after the outage were a bit wacky but not too far off.
On the 10th when we returned home Alk was 7.9 (it was brought up over the last two weeks slowly) CA was 540 (allowed to drop through water changes and stoppage of all dosing) Nitrate was 13.4 and I did dose a little nitrate+ to bring it up to 15 over the course of a week, Phos was 0.08, MG was 1470, salinity 1.025, ph 8.4, I think CA and Mg were up because I found out later my friend dosed all for reef by mistake instead of just alkalinity. I don't have my dosing automated since the tank is still young enough that it isn't needing daily dosing.
I know the likelihood of survival is low, but I plan to toss the polyps in some rubble with mesh over top to keep them from blowing around. guess my question comes to, is the swing in cal and mg the likely culprit for bailout? The wednesday prior to the 10th, CA was at 450, which is where it normally sits, MG was at 1200 which is on the low side and I'd dosed it up a little to 1250 with plans to bring it up again after we got home with another small increment, I normally try to keep it right around 1300. Another question is if not the parameter swing, could just the temperature struggles with the outage cause it even two weeks later? Like maybe it just took the coral that long to deteriorate from the stress of the temp swing? Highest it got during the outage was when my fish guy got there, and the tank was sitting at 85, he brought it down with frozen gallon jug in the far side of the sump from the return, and brought it down to 78 in the display before the power got back on.
I'm a bit bummed, because while losing the torch sucked (it was gorgeous, fat and happy when we left) the duncan was the first ever coral my partner bought. This tank is the first one he's involved in and is learning from. It wasn't a particularly nice duncan either, just a five dollar frag from the lfs, that was a weird peach tone when we brought it home, and started developing greens and purples under our lights. It had grown from two heads to 6 over the 4 months we've had it, and had a few more baby heads popping up this past week. I plan on replacing his duncan, but I know it'll never be his first coral again.
