What are the best things you do for acros?

[vols22]

I'm just seeing what everyone does for their acros. Always trying to learn more. I started the ab+ lighting schedule on my Hydra 26s and got more flow and that has really helped me out. Of course I keep my big three in check as well. Any comments or advice is welcome!!

 

[Adam]

Lools like you got the bases covered. I don't really do anything extra. Place them high enough to get the right light and flow. Keep things stable and watch them grow. I'm interested to see what others have to say... @dball711

 

[Onefallleaf]

You got the basics covered man. Good flow, lighting, and stability is the best way to really maintain good acros and keep them coloring up. I like to feed them every now and again. I feel like it helps with the polyp extension. I use Benepets and Acropower.

 

[vols22]

@Onefallleaf I haven't heard of benepets I'll check it out.

 

[dball711]

Best thing is Stability...end of story.

Seriously it's the beginning of the story, as long as you can keep your parameters stable you have a great foundation. Do everything else in moderation and you can really dial in what's best, best color, best growth or somewhere in-between.

I've seen many healthy, well colored up SPS tanks and chancers are each one has a different story like high nutrients, low nutrients, high ALK, low ALK, success with salinity at 1.023 or maybe 1.026. Every tank has a story and here's mine...

Salinity - 1.025
Alk - 8 dKH
Cal - 460
Mag - 1350
NO3 - .4-.6PPM
PO4 - .02-.03PPM

Tank is an 80g Deep Blue 16" X 24" X 48" and it's an All-In One (total 80g). I have a Tunze DOC 9410 Skimmer and run BRS ROX 8 carbon in a media reactor and I do two 10g water changes weekly. I also dose EVS Bionic 2-part with a GHL Doser. I use an ATI 6 bub (all Blue+ bulbs) Sunpower with a couple Reef Brite and a coupe generic 470nm LED strips. I'm getting 450+ PAR a couple inches from the surface and 350 about 8" down. And flow, lots of it. The return pumps push 800+ gph and I'm running Maxpect Gyre 250's at 50% in alternating gyre mode.

Im in the process of raising my NO3 to 5PPM to help bring out more color and growth. Just started this experiment and moved the NO3 level to 1PPM just today. Here's a few pics of some frags growing out in this tank.

 

[Steve Burton]

@dball711, what test kit do you use for NO3? I'm not at all confident that my color reading is accurate.

 

[enderg60]

Stage 1: Light, flow and stable parameters.
Stage 2: keeping nutrients low but there, more flow.
Stage 3:???
Stage 4: Profit

 

[dball711]

@Steve Burton, Im using the Red Sea Algae control pro test kit for NO3 & PO4.

 

[Adam]

I use the RS NO3 Pro test too. But Hanna ULR for PO4.

There's an app called Aquarium Note, Android & I believe it's on Apple too. It has a tool that uses the camera on your phone to match the color of the sample with the color on test cards. It's not much help with the RS NO3 Pro kit because of the color wheel setup but it works good for most other test kits and it takes your eyes out of the equation. Being colorblind it's come in handy for me.

 

[dball711]

The color wheel can be tough to see clearly, I have to move into another room with bright white lighting away from the blue light of the tank room. Makes it much easier to diagnose the color

 

[anon28342]

Regular water changes, maintaining calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium. Feeding!

 

[fishlips]

I agree with stability.
I have very weak lighting,( t5s). Even my flow is weak.
All that is in my tank ,are sticks. I'm sure if I had better lighting and more flow, It would improve. But, I'm getting very good growth. Just a few pics.

 

[snowmansnow]

Regular water changes, maintaining calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium. Feeding!

Some have mentioned stability . I’ll being that into focus even more and say or the things to keep steady MAKE SURE your alk is rock steady as possible.

The majority of sps issues I’ve experienced through the years have been due to alk


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