SPS help needed in marietta/east cobb

[outdrsyguy1]

I'm hoping someone who's got some good SPS experience can come check out my tank and help me straighten out some things. I"m having some problems with colors and also getting my alk to stay 7.8 dkh+.

I'd really like it if you have a PAR meter and a reliable phosphate test. I have a red sea phosphate pro kit but I'm not happy with the readings I'm getting.

Anyone interested?
I live near sprayberry HS

 

[outdrsyguy1]

bumpity bump, going kayaking saturday but sundays open!

 

[ralph atl]

in the meantime.....

please post ALL your parems:

Alk:
Calcium:
Salinity:
Mag:
Trates:
Phates:

Flow:
Nutrient Reduction methods:

Maintenance?

weekly water changes?
how much?
GFO? how much? how often?
Carbon? How much? How often?

Nitrate Reduction Method? Carbon dosing? Sulfur? Pellets? Seachem Matrix? etc?

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Okay, so my sps never seems to keep the colors and slowly fades to brownish. The tips start bright and slowly fade. Everything seems to grow decently but I can't figure out what I need to do to fix the problem.
In the beginning I think I might have had some old MH bulbs.
Gory details and pics below, sorry for the huge post....

I'll put a full tank shot and a couple before/after shots
Left to right in pic from start to last week
Tort with purple tips, tabling superman, green slimer (top), ORA Red Planet

Tank Size 110 (tall 90 dimensions. 48 x 18 x 29)
2 - 250 MH (20k Megachrome geismenn (installed 1/22/2013)
2 - 95 watt hamilton PC double actinic bulbs (installed 11/1/2012)
PC's run 10 am to 9:30 PM
MH's run 2:30 to 7:30 (used to run about 8 to 10 hours 6 weeks+ ago)
Tank cycled as of 10/25/2012
Was running 2 PH, but worried maybe not enough flow and added turbo stream 6105 that ramps up and down day and night using my Apex (a little less at night)
Salinity - 1.024
Alk 7.8 dkh (7.6 to 7.9 max range)
calc 400 ppm (380 to 405, but usually right on 400)
mag 1320
PH 8.05 to 8.16 night/day
temp 79.5 to 80.5 (runs on a chiller to keep temp 80 +/- .5)
Amm/Nitrite/Nitrate 0/0/0
Phosphate - not sure, very minimal to no hair algae. My Red sea phosphate pro measures .06 from tank and RO/DI water measuring 0 TDS
1 Teaspoon of Kalkwasser per gallon of makup water on ATO
15% water change with IO reefcrystals every 7 to 10 days (siphone 1" sand bed as much as possible each time)
Skimmer - kent marine nautilus TE (doesn't seem to pull all that much out, but I do not feed very much)
Feed about 1/3 a PE mysis cube per day, up to 1/2 at max
Fish: 3 bartlets anthias, 3 OC clowns, purple firefish, red firefish
CUC 3 trochus, 2 hermits, small army of stometella
TLF reactor running phosguard (change once a month, been in 2 months tops)
2 "unit" bags of chemi-pure elite (change every 2 months)
2 - 4" filter socks I change every 3 days, soak in bleach and let dry min 24 hrs

Edit: I just got my order in for the brs carbon and gfo you recommended Ralph. That blue millie I got from you has lost some color but isn't brown. The red dragon is starting to color up a little. I'm going to start the weekly changes and see if that makes a difference.
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[ralph atl]

You'll also need to change GFO and Carbon weekly, along with weekly water changes....bacteria coats that stuff and renders it useless within 2 weeks.....

Just use HC GFO and Rox carbon, change it weekly along with large weekly water change.


Consider dosing Vodka and at minimum get a few liters of Seachem Matrix...as long as you got Alk, Calcium, Mag, flow and lights, the rest is in reducing trates and phates!

 

[outdrsyguy1]

I do feel like something weird is going on with my tank though. I tried getting my calc/alk up and dosed tons for a week+ and couldn't budge it beyond 410 calc and 8.2 dkh

 

[ripped tide]

What are you using to raise ca and alk???? Just Kalk?

 

[outdrsyguy1]

I use kalk as my main staple for ATO water and to keep the calc alk numbers up. But when I need to do a significant bump I've used stuff the LFS recommended. Alk is seachem Reef builder "raises carbonate alkalinity". For calc Reef advantage calcium "raises calcium, maintains magnesium & strontium". I was testing them every day for 3weeks + after each dose and very rarely dosing them both in the same day (if so, hours apart).
It's been a while since i've tried bumping calc and my magnesium was a little high back then (around 1400) so I could try the calc supplement again, but I feel more concerned about alk.

Maybe I should bring in a sample to the LFS to test nitrate as a double check, my tests have never shown it above zero. And as I said above, my red sea phosphate pro shows .06 from tank, but also .06 from RO/DI water with 0 TDS and all new components. I wrote the manufacturer about it but they never responded. I even changed the kelvin of my bulbs in the room I measure with but it didn't yield different results.

I thought vodka dosing was for nitrate and phosphate reduction, if I don't have any measurable, would it do anything?

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Here's a couple shots of my green tort which has been my best grower. 12/23/12 to 2/9/13 (about 7 weeks).

This other shot is from a while back, the white acro on the left with pink tips and green polyps has faded to just white all over and the polyps are barely visible. Even the ones at the tips barely extend when the lights go off now. The brown millie is a lot less bushy and brown now, it's more tan colored and while it's encrusted and grown a little, I did find some red bugs on it last week so i could possibly contribute that for the color fade. The white acro definitely has no red bugs. Yes they are only about 3 inches apart but they are really pretty easy to see on the white acro and i've spent a lot of time looking for them.

Edit:

Edit:

Edit: here's a shot from 2/16. Iphone pic so colors off, but you can see the difference. Things are mostly growing/encrusting.
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[ripped tide]

Are you pretty new to SPS?

All the corals in the pics look ok.... They just look like they are frags that are adjusting to a system. It can take anywhere from 1-6 months for some SPS to adjust. Some hit the ground running, some take their time.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

I'm definitely new to sps. My tank finished cycling around the end of last october and my first real sps was added 3 months ago. I just see so many frags that I add to the tank lose the vibrant tip color and overall fade that I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Maybe it's just patience for them to come back. I've just yet to have any sps coral come back and look as healthy/colorful as when it arrived.

 

[seth the wine guy]

I'm not a fan of running actinics or the like for long periods prior to the real lighting coming on. Corals have a around four hour period of converting light into food/energy. My theory- If the first four hours of light they get has no full spectrum they are probably never getting all the light they need even though you run all the lighting they would need eventually during the lighting cycle. Run actinics after they get the "good" light.

 

[ripped tide]

Seth, your head is in the right direction, but to my understanding, corals don't start a photo period unless a certain level of par is reached. Most folks using t-5s or pcs in conjunction with halides probably don't have enough par coming from the actinics to trigger a photocycle.

 

[ralph atl]

albeit it isn't necessarily accurate (hobby test kit on phates), phosphates are at 0.06 which is double the recommended amount of less than 0.03.

Also, what test kit are you using for nitrates?


Carbon dosing helps keep trates from creeping up & allows you to feed your fish more.......

 

[seth the wine guy]

Ripped Tide;845825 wrote: Seth, your head is in the right direction, but to my understanding, corals don't start a photo period unless a certain level of par is reached. Most folks using t-5s or pcs in conjunction with halides probably don't have enough par coming from the actinics to trigger a photocycle.

All discussion aside about photo periods and what PAR level triggers them, I know for certain that behaviors change the moment any type of lighting is turned on in my tank. Some acros completely withdraw PE, chalice retract sweepers, zoas open, LPS expand. There's no telling what other changes are happening in the water column that we can't see with the naked eye. (Pod/algae blooms, etc.) The entire water chemistry begins changing. How that impacts a coral and it's photo period, I have no idea.

So, SOMETHING in these corals is telling them to change their behavior and it's obviously linked to a photo sensitive organism. Could that organism start a chain reaction that is supposed to be quickly picked up by another type of photo sensitive organism triggered by higher PAR? If the chain is broken is the coral missing a vital process in it's feeding and survival?

 

[ripped tide]

Think about natural sunlight. The sun rises around 6 or 7 am, thought light is present, it is not until 11-12 that the sun is in peak position for photosynthesis.

For the first light to be the brightest light, IMO, would be like waking up and skipping your morning coffee, Bloody Mary, and shower.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

mysterybox;845826 wrote: albeit it isn't necessarily accurate (hobby test kit on phates), phosphates are at 0.06 which is double the recommended amount of less than 0.03.

Also, what test kit are you using for nitrates?


Carbon dosing helps keep trates from creeping up & allows you to feed your fish more.......

I use API for nitrates I think. and my red sea tests DI/RO and says it's .06 which I don't believe. Since 0 TDS DI/RO water tests at .06 I think the test is not very accurate. That's why i'm trying to find someone near me that's got a more reliable test I can check against. Will optimum aquarium test phosphates for me or just the basics?
I looked into a hanna checker but the accuracy makes it unreliable in the 0 to .04 range.

My ballasts and lighting system is probably 6 years+ old so I was also hoping to find someone with a PAR meter to make sure I'm actually getting decent output from my system. It's HQI ballast. The bulb area gets pretty hot, the cooling system coralife put into these lights isn't that great. One of my PC bulbs i just changed even had a dark brown burnt looking plastic near the area where the tube enters the plastic connection piece.