Saying goodbye to my 14 yr old DT and hello to a little frag tank

[Wade]

(moved this thread to to Tank Builds from the Reef Keeping main.)  

We sold our house and close on it this Friday.  My DT is built in so I had to give the option for the buyers to keep it if they wanted it.  i didn't think anyone without experience in the hobby would want it and would ask me to remove it, but they're excited about it so it's goodbye to my DT:(  On the flip side, I've got frags of everything in there that I could get frags of and have set up a frag tank to keep in our apartment until our new house is built and I build my new system! 

It's only a 12 gallon tank so water changes will be a breeze.  I currently don't plan to dose Calcium/Alk and just plan to do weekly 1-2 gallon water changes.

My question to those of you with frag tank experience is, do you regularly dose additives like Fuel, Marine Snow, Coral Frenzy, etc. or no?  Also, do you keep anything else in there other than a couple of hermits or an emerald crab?  It'll be mostly SPS with only a couple of zoas and LPS.  

As always, thanks!

[Juiceman]

I have been since I have no fish, but I don't go crazy. A small feeding each day


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[Wade]

what do you feed?

[Wade]

and when you say a small feeding do you mean like a just a few drops or .5 ml of mixture?  I've got some Coral Frenzy that I'm going to try.  I think I'll mix a little up and then use a dropper to add a few drops a day and see how that goes.  A friend of mine is getting good results from Fuel.  I may get some of that and alternate daily.  What do you think?

[Juiceman]

I do the recommended amount on the bottles and what not.

I alternate between
Coral Frenzy
Sponge Power
Pohls Xtra
Amina Acids
Coral Vitalizer.

So I guess I shouldn't say small amounts as they're the recommended amounts, I just don't feed more than once a day.

Maybe someone with an actual frag tank can chime in with their experience.


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[Wade]

Thank you sir!  I'm going to treat it as one big experiment and see how it goes.  I think I'll float a little Dragon's Breath in the overflow as well to help deal with the nitrates in addition to the water changes.  Thanks again for your feedback:)

 

[Wade]

The polyp extension on several on the coral have been barely noticeable over the past few days.  I ran some tests and the only parameter that's off the mark is Alkalinity coming in at 4.8 dKh.  I've ordered some 2-part supplies and hope to have that set up and dosing soon.  I didn't have a calcium test kit (ordered one) and will assume that's off as well.  Ammonia and nitrate comes in at 0.00.  I'm using a Marine purse slab that I seeded in my old tank for about 6 weeks prior to setting this tank up and I'm using that for my biological filtration as well as a Marineland Penguin 100 and a piece of Dragon's Breath tumbling in the small overflow.  

I also raised my lights about 10 inches.  They're currently hanging 26" above the tank with the white channel at 20% and the blue channel at 60%.  It's a black box Chinese fixture.  I was running a Reefbreeder's Photon fixture hung 7" above the water level at 40% white and 85% blue.  The tank was 23" deep.  I'm trying to judge what intensity I should be running this fixture at it's current height to provide the necessary light without burning the coral up.  I may look for a better fixture, but I'll still need to determine how high to hang it.  Does anyone have any experience in this regard?  

Here's some pics.  The larger frags with little to no polyp extension are pocillopora which did look fine the first couple of days post move.  The large frags with polyp extension is stylo and the small frag with the two small sticks is a digi.

Any and all suggestions are welcome and appreciated as always:) 

[Wade]

Well most everything has perished I believe.  There's still a war coral and a chalice and maybe a spongodes with some flesh ion them that are hanging on.  The zoas are very very shrunken but haven't melted away yet so there's hope there.  I removed the racks yesterday and placed everything on the bottom.  Not sure why I didn't do that to begin with.  Going to test everything again this weekend to see where I stand.  As long as something's living there's hope they'll recover

 

[jolt]

Wow, sorry to hear that.  It's really hard to keep coral happy for a length of time in a small tank, that's been my experience.

[Isaac]

ugh, thats awful. im sorry  I have a similar light to yours, but its only 12" above the frag tank.  blue at 60% and white at 10% (i got the digital/timer version).  You probably have them pumped up higher so that shouldn't be why.   It may be possible that these coral got used to your larger tank's water parameters, bacteria, and general environment, but downsizing the tank and having larger ratio water changes, it could have affected that balance quite a bit.  

the thing often overlooked(well, more like take for granted) by us larger tank folk... the more volume you have, the more stable the system becomes, and the easier it is for the system to recover from, or fight,  "events" (temp swings, co2 changes in the room, accidental overdose, bad topoff water, etc).  When you reduce the volume, you lose a bunch of that stability and "buffer," so to speak.   My 29g biocube in my office is far from stable, its got crazy mood swings, while my main DT tank is a 180, but add in fuge, frag, sump, reactors, etc.. its at 270.  I don't see much "swing" in the larger system.  hell, adding the 20g frag to the loop didn't affect anything noticeable... and its got a diatom bloom raging right now.

I know none of this "helps," but understanding WHY is always a learning experience for next time!

You could always check in on your old tank, offer any help they need, then ask for a few frags once your tank stabilizes   its a win/win, you get to visit your old tank, make new friends, and get frags!  And if you help them w/ maint, you can get old change water to re-seed your frag tank's water.

[Wade]

Thanks guys.  I actually have been back to help them several times.  Nice people and it's been great to go back and work on my old system.  I actually have the light cranked way down because I thought I may have been cooking them since the water is so shallow.  I've just now turned it up to 25% blues and 10% whites.  As longs as a couple still have flesh I'll keep working on it.