Frogspawn troubles

[Scubabum]

Hello fellow reefers.My tank has been running for over 20 years and I have a variety of coral. I have Acan, Duncans, Brain, several Zoas, several mushrooms, a RTBA and they are all doing great. I really want a frogspawn. I have tried 3 different frags and they all seem to die. The latest frag i purchased was damaged during shipping and I noticed some brown jelly coming out of the damaged head. I dipped it in lugols Iodine solution and cut off the damaged head. Two days later the remaining two heads got the brown Jelly and unfortunately the coral didn’t make it. My question is should I wait before trying another Frogspawn? Does the Brown jelly stay in the tank?


I’m at a total loss here. I can’t figure out why I’m having such bad luck with frogspawn. My tank is a 58 gallon Oceanic reef ready tank. Flow is Two Mp10’s mounted on opposite sides of the tank. Lighting is a Kessil Ap700 at 32%. Par is 120 at the Frogspawn location.

My parameters are steady and are:::


Temp 78

Ph 8.2

Salinity 1.026

Alk 8.4

Calc 480

mag 1440

Nitrate 5ppm

Phos .03


Could it be just bad luck? I went through the same thing when adding my first Duncan. Went through 3 frags all placed in the same position before one actually lived and is thriving. Any thoughts on this? I would really appreciate any feedback you can give me. I want a Frogspawn SO bad but trying to add one is hurting the wallet. Thank you for any help or your thoughts. I really appreciate it. Have a great weekend..

 

[zachfishman]

What do the frags look like as they are dieing? Bleaching? Slow/fast tissue loss? Make sure their flow isn't too high (I've grown them in nearly stagnant water). Have any emerald crabs?

 

[Scubabum]

What do the frags look like as they are dieing? Bleaching? Slow/fast tissue loss? Make sure their flow isn't too high (I've grown them in nearly stagnant water). Have any emerald crabs?

No bleaching on any of the frags. The first frag slowly retracted over several weeks then died after 2-3 months. The second frag developed a Huge translucent bubble in the center and looked as if the skeleton was splitting and after 2-3 months died. The last frag was damaged during shipping and it appeared to have brown jelly. I cut off the damaged head and dipped in Lugols Iodine solution. Two days later the other two heads developed rapid tissue loss and died. As far as flow, the polyps were gently swaying in the flow. Definitely not getting blasted. No emerald crabs.

 

[zachfishman]

Buying online or getting cuts from local hobbyists? If the former, try local from colonies already growing well.

 

[Scubabum]

Buying online or getting cuts from local hobbyists? If the former, try local from colonies already growing well.

The first frag was from LFS. It looked freshly cut when I bought it. Most of the frags I have purchased from this LFS don't seem to do well, so I've moved on. The second frag was purchased from another LFS but was a much larger Frag that looked like it had been cut a while back. This one did the best but retracted after it developed the translucent bubble. The last frag was from online, Salterwaterfish.com. It was the best looking of the 3 but died the fastest. I live in a small town and unfortunately the choices are limited and we don't have many reefers around that I know of. Wish I could find some local colonies. Might have to make a road trip to So. or No. California.