Red Dragon frag tissue loss, help!

[Brian1f1]

I will disagree with the flow, mine is almost directly in front of an MP60 and gets quite the amount of flow.

Maybe it’s a lighting issue - have LEDs? If the original tank had different settings on light, that could also do it.

I don’t know. The original and the frag I made that were in front of the nero 7 have gone so far. The second one peeled within 2 hours of cutting it. At 24 now and the other two are still holding up, but who knows why? And yes, LEDs, running 3 hydra 26s on BRS setting for LPS slightly amped up on a reefer 525 (5 foot). The tank it came out of had LEDs too, not sure what kind or what settings, but there were definitely a lot more of them in a similar space.

Also, I’m probably wrong about the flow, but tbc, its not because I think they can’t handle flow, I’m wondering if they couldn’t handle it from behind when freshly fragged, like it peeled from where it had just been cut.

 

[Brian1f1]

Dont feel bad mine went in couple days, it had amazing growth just started going and done in two days. I had a frag of it that I had taken weeks prior that also went a few days later. I took many frags from my main colony when it started but none made it.

I do like it and hope it makes it though, mostly because I don’t think I could justify dropping 50 or more bucks on it if getting it established is so hit and miss!

 

[Max93]

I don’t know. The original and the frag I made that were in front of the nero 7 have gone so far. The second one peeled within 2 hours of cutting it. At 24 now and the other two are still holding up, but who knows why? And yes, LEDs, running 3 hydra 26s on BRS setting for LPS slightly amped up on a reefer 525 (5 foot). The tank it came out of had LEDs too, not sure what kind or what settings, but there were definitely a lot more of them in a similar space.

Also, I’m probably wrong about the flow, but tbc, its not because I think they can’t handle flow, I’m wondering if they couldn’t handle it from behind when freshly fragged, like it peeled from where it had just been cut.

Mine handles an mp60 almost directly in front of it, I used to also think it was flow - I killed like 4 frags before I finally figured it out.

It was my lighting and my traces. That’s all I have changed - LED is tricky imo although doable.

 

[Brian1f1]

Yeah, it’s not flow, the experienced minds of R2R were correct. At the 48 hour mark and now only one of the three rescue frags hasn’t peeled like a banana…

 

[Big E]

Have your friend cut a new one and have him hold it till it settles in and starts to grow. .........2-3 weeks, then take it home.

The other option is to take a fresh cut and just shove it in a hole. This coral hates the super glue interface, you can also try using epoxy instead.

As stated above it's a great grower once established but it can also RTN overnight

 

[Kerbash]

Have your friend cut a new one and have him hold it till it settles in and starts to grow. .........2-3 weeks, then take it home.

The other option is to take a fresh cut and just shove it in a hole. This coral hates the super glue interface, you can also try using epoxy instead.

As stated above it's a great grower once established but it can also RTN overnight

Oh really? they hate super glue? Thats why I have had such bad luck with fragging mine. I never could pin point why, thanks.

 

[ArachnoJoozt]

I don't think I had any major swings, but maybe enough to just trigger it... IDK, it was just cut Saturday so that probably didn't help. My tank is an LPS set up, so it probably won't work out, but was worth a try. The LFS gave it to me for free because they broke it off accidentally and told me it was super sensitive but have it and try!

My thought here is that the coral did have a major swing, from the lfs system to yours. Your alk is 12+, it's highly unlikely the store also has such a high alk. Say the store keeps an alk of 9 (IMO on the high side but still normal). Now the sensitive frag has an alk swing of 3+. That's a pretty big swing. Adding to that is your seemingly not so mature system.
With good parameters my sps was surviving the first 1,5 year, but started thriving and growing fast after that time.

 

[Brian1f1]

My thought here is that the coral did have a major swing, from the lfs system to yours. Your alk is 12+, it's highly unlikely the store also has such a high alk. Say the store keeps an alk of 9 (IMO on the high side but still normal). Now the sensitive frag has an alk swing of 3+. That's a pretty big swing. Adding to that is your seemingly not so mature system.
With good parameters my sps was surviving the first 1,5 year, but started thriving and growing fast after that time.

This makes sense. Darn reef crystals, I really didn't expect that to mix that high, but that is apparently by design.

FWIW, system is mature in at least some if not most senses of the word though, is six years old, just doing a bit of a reboot on it for the past six months or so after finally winning a truly horrific two year long battle (and I sure hope the war....) with highly toxic dinos which finally gave way to GHA for another several months (had to dose nitrate and phos as part of the battle and no CUC could survive with the dinos at all, they were awful) .... I almost got out of the hobby over it.

Here is what we are looking like currently.

Thanks for the insight. I am going to try to drop that alk gradually as I mentioned above anyway, but if I did want to add things with my alk high is their a procedure or just stay away from highly sensitive SPS?

 

[ArachnoJoozt]

This makes sense. Darn reef crystals, I really didn't expect that to mix that high, but that is apparently by design.

FWIW, system is mature in at least some if not most senses of the word though, is six years old, just doing a bit of a reboot on it for the past six months or so after finally winning a truly horrific two year long battle (and I sure hope the war....) with highly toxic dinos which finally gave way to GHA for another several months (had to dose nitrate and phos as part of the battle and no CUC could survive with the dinos at all, they were awful) .... I almost got out of the hobby over it.

Here is what we are looking like currently.

Congrats on the victory against the dino's! A 2 year long battle, wow, that shows some perseverence to stick it out that long... The tank is looking really clean now
If that's an option you could switch to a salt that has a lower KH, slowly bringing the KH down.

Thanks for the insight. I am going to try to drop that alk gradually as I mentioned above anyway, but if I did want to add things with my alk high is their a procedure or just stay away from highly sensitive SPS?

I (try to) keep my alk in the range of 7 to 8, never had high alk so don't know a procedure based on experience. One thing that you could do is an acclimation (or quarantine) tank, where you can slowly raise the alk to the levels of your tank.
I've read that high alk causes rapid growth but also brittle skeletons. I would rather go for a little less growth and normal, solid coral skeletons.

 

[Brian1f1]

Congrats on the victory against the dino's! A 2 year long battle, wow, that shows some perseverence to stick it out that long... The tank is looking really clean now
If that's an option you could switch to a salt that has a lower KH, slowly bringing the KH down.

I (try to) keep my alk in the range of 7 to 8, never had high alk so don't know a procedure based on experience. One thing that you could do is an acclimation (or quarantine) tank, where you can slowly raise the alk to the levels of your tank.
I've read that high alk causes rapid growth but also brittle skeletons. I would rather go for a little less growth and normal, solid coral skeletons.

Thank you. I know, I’m enjoying it while it lasts… (still feels like it could go suddenly, it sucked so bad). I did kind of neglect it for awhile because it really felt hopeless. I still don’t know where they came from or why they aren’t insane anymore. Best I can tell is my system drove nitrate to zero (full sump chaeto fuge) and I let it sit there too long thinking it was good because it was the goals for years and then the yellow snot exploded. Every snail died within days, just fell off the glass. Was really something.