Trouble getting corals through quarantine?

[Drummerguydw]

Hey everyone, so I’ve been struggling getting sps through quarantine, I have a 15 gallon AIO cube, with an AI Prime and a hydor Koralia powerhead. Everything is usually fine from week 1-4 then after that I usually notice either tissue loss, browning, bleaching, ect. This past batch I noticed tissue loss at the tips of all my sps, and some full blown stn on one of my frags. I test alk 2x per week and all other parameters 1x per week.

Parameters are as follows.
Alk:9.0
Ca: 460
Mag: 1400
N03:2-5
Po4:0.02
Ph:8.2
SG:35 ppt
Temp:80.6 F +- 0.5 degrees

no fish or inverts in the system.

 

[Spare time]

Probably because your nitrate and phosphate are too low. I would feed it daily something like reef energy or similar.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Your alk is too high for your limited bio load
Bring it down to 7.5

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

And get a couple damsels or clownfish in there

 

[Spare time]

And get a couple damsels or clownfish in there

Keeping the fish in there defeats the point of a QT for coral or unnecessarily risks the lives of the fish.

 

[Drummerguydw]

Probably because your nitrate and phosphate are too low. I would feed it daily something like reef energy or similar.

Sorry I forgot to add, I do feed 10 ml Red Sea ab+ daily

 

[Drummerguydw]

Probably because your nitrate and phosphate are too low. I would feed it daily something like reef energy or similar.

Where should my nutrients be to balance out the alk? If possible id prefer to keep the same alk as my display so it’s easier to transition them over, and I dose Red Sea ab+ already daily, would dosing liquid n03 and po4 be the best option for keeping nutrients up?

 

[Tamberav]

What is the set up like? Live rock? Dry? Marine pure? Established? No?

I found SPS to be easy to keep in a fishless QT as long as I used mature live rock. Everything seems to stay more stable including nutrients.

 

[Pntbll687]

Where should my nutrients be to balance out the alk? If possible id prefer to keep the same alk as my display so it’s easier to transition them over, and I dose Red Sea ab+ already daily, would dosing liquid n03 and po4 be the best option for keeping nutrients up?

I would bring phosphates up to around .07. Corals can survive with 0 nitrate, but cannot survive 0 phosphate. Even if the test says .02 it's probably within the margin of error of the test, bringing it up slightly higher would give you some buffer room if anything were to dip

 

[Drummerguydw]

What is the set up like? Live rock? Dry? Marine pure? Established? No?

I found SPS to be easy to keep in a fishless QT as long as I used mature live rock. Everything seems to stay more stable including nutrients.

No rock and no sand, I do have some Brightwell cubes in the back chamber that were cycled in my main display for a few weeks. I added some dry rock into my display to use in this tank after seeing my lack of success this time around. So I’ll be leaving that in there for a while to get established before I use it in this tank.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Keeping the fish in there defeats the point of a QT for coral or unnecessarily risks the lives of the fish.

Alrighty. So starving the corals and killing them is ok though? How does fish to support coral health in coral qt defeat the qt purpose? I’ve never qt’d a fish in my 20 years of this hobby and have never seen velvet or ich or any of the other stuff. Then I read all of these fish dying in qt.
Where’s the qt fish police?

 

[Drummerguydw]

Alrighty. So starving the corals and killing them is ok though? How does fish to support coral health in coral qt defeat the qt purpose? I’ve never qt’d a fish in my 20 years of this hobby and have never seen velvet or ich or any of the other stuff. Then I read all of these fish dying in qt.
Where’s the qt fish police?

In my defense, I have quarantined all of my fish and have never lost a fish in qt, the purpose of keeping a fishless system is so I don’t introduce fish related diseases into my display like ich or velvet, it’s the same thing as keeping a display fallow.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

In my defense, I have quarantined all of my fish and have never lost a fish in qt, the purpose of keeping a fishless system is so I don’t introduce fish related diseases into my display like ich or velvet, it’s the same thing as keeping a display fallow.

Ich or velvet from the coral? Never heard of that. Qt the fish for the coral qt then.

 

[Drummerguydw]

Ich or velvet from the coral? Never heard of that. Qt the fish for the coral qt then.

The velvet or ich comes from the water that the coral is in, not the coral itself, I had intervts in my qt system before and that helped take the place of the fish so I might do that again and see about feeding something like reef chili or reef roids to add nutrients

 

[Tamberav]

Alrighty. So starving the corals and killing them is ok though? How does fish to support coral health in coral qt defeat the qt purpose? I’ve never qt’d a fish in my 20 years of this hobby and have never seen velvet or ich or any of the other stuff. Then I read all of these fish dying in qt.
Where’s the qt fish police?

Dont need fish to QT corals. Mine doesn’t have any. If a person wants something to feed then they can always add shrimp/inverts.

I think the bigger issue is that it is basically an empty tank with some blocks that are only a few weeks established. Not a happy place for acropora.

Usually a new thread every day of fish dying in display tanks too so meh.

As far as ich and velvet on coral. That’s a real possibility. If you look at the life cycle they attach to substrate or anything hard. So cuc shells, any hard skeleton, frag plugs, a pod, etc.

Most can’t really rush a coral QT for acros and expect to have a good time.

 

[Drummerguydw]

Dont need fish to QT corals. Mine doesn’t have any. If a person wants something to feed then they can always add shrimp/inverts.

I think the bigger issue is that it is basically an empty tank with some blocks that are only a few weeks established. Not a happy place for acropora.

Usually a new thread every day of fish dying in display tanks too so meh.

As far as ich and velvet on coral. That’s a real possibility. If you look at the life cycle they attach to substrate or anything hard. So cuc shells, any hard skeleton, frag plugs, a pod, etc.

Most can’t really rush a coral QT for acros and expect to have a good time.

I feel like this may be my biggest issue, I usually sterilize between batches of corals and I feel like I should just put some established rock/media and keep it running with inverts so it can mature just like any other tank.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Dont need fish to QT corals. Mine doesn’t have any. If a person wants something to feed then they can always add shrimp/inverts.

I think the bigger issue is that it is basically an empty tank with some blocks that are only a few weeks established. Not a happy place for acropora.

Usually a new thread every day of fish dying in display tanks too so meh.

As far as ich and velvet on coral. That’s a real possibility. If you look at the life cycle they attach to substrate or anything hard. So cuc shells, any hard skeleton, frag plugs, a pod, etc.

Most can’t really rush a coral QT for acros and expect to have a good time.

I just remount the coral from qt. But that’s to prevent coral pests, which is the reason for a coral qt to me. I have over a 100 acros that came from qt to display and have never seen ich or velvet etc.
Maybe I have magic water. Good luck OP

 

[Drummerguydw]

I just remount the coral from qt. But that’s to prevent coral pests, which is the reason for a coral qt to me. I have over a 100 acros that came from qt to display and have never seen ich or velvet etc.
Maybe I have magic water. Good luck OP

Thanks, I guess I’m just paranoid since I had to do a complete tank restart a month in due to a disease outbreak so now I’m a little extra paranoid, I do notice my corals do much better in my display and having fish in it helps 100%, that’s the part I struggle with since eliminating ich and velvet is important but it’s a struggle seeing my nice acros not making it through qt

 

[Cell]

Your alk is too high for your limited bio load
Bring it down to 7.5

Huh? 9.0 alk is too high if you don't have enough livestock? I've never heard of such a thing. 9.0 is fine as long as it's stable.

I would consider lowering it because you are running a low nutrient tank, not because you have a low bioload.

If this were true, how the heck would anyone start a tank with IO/Reef Crystals?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Huh? 9.0 alk is too high if you don't have enough livestock? I've never heard of such a thing. 9.0 is fine as long as it's stable.

I would consider lowering it because you are running a low nutrient tank, not because you have a low bioload.

If this were true, how the heck would anyone start a tank with IO/Reef Crystals?

You keep your alk at 9.0 dKh with no fish and low n/p? I mean you keep your acros under those conditions