Did I kill the frags?

[jejton]

I picked up some frags from a local reefer - 2 zoa colonies, 1 each of green monti, millepora and green slimer. I let them temp acclimate for a few hours and then I dipped them all and put them in my quarantine tank for until I had time to mount them. I dipped as follows:
Each bag got FWE, was swished around and left for 15 minutes. The zoas then got a pH adjusted FW dip for 15 minutes. Afterwards they, along with the other ones, each got a swish in some tank water with Coral Revive, then a swish in some plain tank water and then placed into the quarantine. I then mounted two of the hard corals with Holdfast and the millepora with loctite gel and they were all placed on the bottom of the tank ( all lights were off at the time ). This morning, the zoas were fine but the other three were all pretty much white with the exception of the lower part of the slimer which still had a faint green to it. Nothing changed after the MH's came on ( 2x175 ). I have in the tank a mixture of softies, LPS and SPS but nothing big and not too much. Everything else is doing well as before. Carbon and phosban are run. SG is 1.025/6. The only think I could think of was that the quarantine tank was SG 1.020 ( I have a pink-spotted shrimp goby in there that was bought from a tank at 1.019 the day before ) but they were only in there for a little while. Did I kill the frags or will the tissue regenrate ? I did notice some mucus sloughing off a couple of them - could that have been zooanthellae being expelled?

 

[ZZROCOOL]

I think that whole process is what did it. I do a 15 minute drip acclimation and thats it the rest of it causes more stress then its worth! IMO

 

[jackson6745]

I never acclimate SPS.....it pointless IMO. If your other acros are doing good then I would say the stress from the dip could be a cause. SPS are very sensitive to phosphate. While LPS and softies would thrive your SPS could die very fast. Phosban exhausts very quick in when there is lots of phosphate present.

How long did you quarantine the frags? How is the water quality in that setup?

 

[ming]

that was bought from a tank at 1.019 the day before

Afterwards they, along with the other ones, each got a swish in some tank water with Coral Revive

next time skip this part.. no need to use anything with the word revive in its name

then a swish in some plain tank water

SG is 1.025/6.

so you swish it in something .006 SG higher then what its used to?

and then placed into the quarantine.

the quarantine tank was SG 1.020

then back to something low again?

I then mounted two of the hard corals with Holdfast and the millepora with loctite gel and they were all placed on the bottom of the tank

I'm guess it went back to the 1.025/6 SG again?
I'm sure you see a pattern here
Corals in bags are stressed enough as it is and no need to put it in several different environments before being put in the tank.
Letting it sit in a quarantine tank for a very short period of time is not a quarantine tank. Either have it setup so you have keep corals alive in there for a few weeks to truely quarantine it, or don't put it in there at all

 

[jejton]

Ming - I only put them in the quarantine ( forgetting that the SG in there was lower than that of their origin or my DT ) for a little bit so I could take care of some stuff before getting back to mounting them. The other SPS in the tank are doing fine so I assume the process is what did it. My reason for doing the dips was to try to avoid introducing any pests ( which I did twice already ) and I tried to follow procedure posted by other members more experienced than myself. At some point I'd like to get an appropriate light for my quarantine so I could properly quarantine corals in there and not have to do all the dips but for now I dont and only quarantine fish. The goby is currently in the quarantine. That is what I bought from a store that kept it in 1.019 which is why the quarantine was at 1.020. The corals were bought from a local reefer whose DT was 1.026 like mine ( I'm sorry if that wasnt made clearer in my first post ).

So is it safe to assume that the corals are dead or should I wait to see if they recover ( possible even ? )?

 

[Treef]

maybe they are just bleached, I dipped one of my corals that had red bugs and it turned all white the next morning, i thought it had died but it was just bleached, its started to gain some color back, so just wait and see imo. Post a pic maybe someone can tell you if they are bleached or not.

 

[ming]

FYI, there is no dip known so far that will kill AEFW eggs or red bug eggs without killing the coral so the dip isn't 100%

 

[jejton]

so the only real measure to take is quarantine? how long should a frag be quarantined to be safe? how long can it go without proper lighting?