Newly added frag motality rate

[Baldy]

Hello all.

A recent frag addition to my tank has gotten me wondering, what percentage of frags that you add to your tanks survive?

I just added 4 frags, 2 head galaxy torch, 10-15 heads pink palys/zoas, 5-7 heads magician zoas, and an acan frag with around 5 heads on it. The galaxy torch and the pink zoas are doing great. The acans have been acting strange. a couple dayas after i added them, they were maybe half inflated again, and held that way for a few more days. I thought maybe it was too much light. Theyre in a lower flow area of my tank. I shaded them and the next day they were way worse. I pulled the shade off before i left for the weekend, and when i got back theres been no change. the skeleton is very much exposed, theres still color around where the mouths would be, just not much.

solving the problem isnt really what im looking for, just wondering if newly purchased frags dying is a fact of life with this hobby or if im doing something wrong that i need to look at. I think i end up about 50-60% of my frags surviving.

[Proteus]

I would think your doin something wrong

[SteveCGY]

I would think your doin something wrong

Agreed, I've lost 2 since I started both were when I first started and my tank water was crap. Other than that I float the bag for like 39 mins than just throw them in

[Coral Hoarder]

Mine is 99% are fine you do get that one on ocation that's freash cut or has some thing eating it and doesn't do well

[Aquattro]

I would say probably trouble with 1 out of 50.

[Baldy]

damn this is disheartening. with this last batch of frags i cna understand as ive allowed my maintenance to slip. the summer/winter i havent done as much as i should, but ive still got coralline growing like crazy, and all the frags that i have are growing fine. nitrate, phos are 0, alk 7 (working on bringing it up), calc 440, mag 1300. i can grow chaeto like crazy, and run gfo and carbon. I use RODI water and h2ocean salt. i dose 3 part BRS suppliments through a marine magic doser. the lighting grows the coral i have great, I just cant figure out what the problem is. maybe my skimmer, it doesnt work very well, but would that alone cause the problems?

[Baldy]

btw, yes now im trying to figure out what the problem is. I was hoping to hear that people had frags die like me, but expected that i have a problem.

[Slyguy00]

Probably 1 out of every 50 coral I might have an issue. And thats usually because it was already in rough shape when I got it.

[spit.fire]

Lately the only losses I've had are corals that were rtning when I got them (attempted to bring some back) and even at that I only lose half of those

[jason604]

99% frag surviving rate.ake sure u put the new bag of corals in the tank still closed to temp matches then do a slow drip for about 1hr to acclimate then do a coral dip

[jason604]

Man stupid iPhone auto-correct makes me seem like I'm retarded lol

[Aquattro]

99% frag surviving rate.ake sure u put the new bag of corals in the tank still closed to temp matches then do a slow drip for about 1hr to acclimate then do a coral dip

And certainly nothing wrong with all that, but I've never acclimated a coral. They all do fine.

[Proteus]

And certainly nothing wrong with all that, but I've never acclimated a coral. They all do fine.

+1. I dip and drop them in tank: so to speak

[Baldy]

do you guys do any light acclimation?

[Proteus]

do you guys do any light acclimation?

Not for me. My tanks only 12" deep so its kinda pointless

[Aquattro]

do you guys do any light acclimation?

Nope, most new frags will go in the rack right at the top.

[Tn23]

I agree with Brad. Most of my frags just go straight in. However there are some that are more sensitive and I try to be more careful with those.

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[Reef Pilot]

As best I can remember, I have never lost an SPS frag, except a couple that got knocked off and lost in the rock work. I even had a Hawkins Echinata (a very sensitive coral) frag buried in my sand for a few days in early Dec when I was away. I fished it out when I got back, and thought for sure was going to lose this one. But it survived and is growing nicely now. I did have some SPS frags that got bleached a bit and had to move to lower light levels, but they came back after that.

However, did lose some Chalices due to various reasons. Some due to too much light at first, and some due to warefare from other corals. But those were understandable.

Also have had no luck with Zoas. Tried them twice and both times they melted. No sign of bugs, so no idea what the problem was. Palys do fine in my tanks, but not zoas for some reason. So have sworn off them for a while, at least.

[LoJack]

99% … I have the random one that doesn't handle the dip process well and that would account for my 1% oddball deaths.

I don't acclimate coral either, I dip, remove from plug, cut off base of coral, dip again, and put it in the sandbed after being remounted.

[asylumdown]

So far I haven't lost a frag in this tank yet. I've lost corals to stupid mistakes, but everything I've lost was in my tank long enough to grow a bit before it cacked it for what was usually a known and acute reason, so I wouldn't count them in the tally. Nothing's straight up died in over a year now.

[Marlin65]

99% here as well. I have killed coral with alk swings though keep an eye on that.