90 Gallon Reef SPS slowly taking over

[javsku]

Just hit the two year mark for my tank. This is my first saltwater tank and I have done many modifications and additions since I started it. Within this past year I started focusing more on SPS. I learned alot from the SPS forum and other reef central members. These past six months my sps have started exploding with growth and color. All of my sps started out as 1" frags. I have things dialed in pretty consistant right now. Please excuse the cyano on the sand bed, I'm starting to back off a little more on the trace elements .

Better in HD

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[allsps40]

nice

 

[davidadelp]

Looks great I love that colony of candy cane coral.

 

[javsku]

Looks great I love that colony of candy cane coral.

Thanks, that colony only started out as three small heads.

This is also what my RBTA's started out as. It has since split 4 times, I'm lucky they like that large rock

 

[javsku]

Some top down shots with iphone

 

[Laddy]

Looks nice. Are you running T-5s?

 

[reefmatenate]

ok. so what do you do that you think specially give you such good success.. I have been up and goin for a year. none of my corals grow as quickly as yours but yet they dont die either. i do lots of water changes and dose kalkwasser...

 

[javsku]

Looks nice. Are you running T-5s?

Yup, I'm using a TEK 6 bulb 48" 54W T5 fixture. 4 ATI blue+ 1 purple + and 1 coral +.

ok. so what do you do that you think specially give you such good success.. I have been up and goin for a year. none of my corals grow as quickly as yours but yet they dont die either. i do lots of water changes and dose kalkwasser...

Steady and consistant paramiters, you will hear it repetitive in the SPS forum especially. It took me a while but what works for me is I use Kalk in my 5 gallon auto top off reservoir, 5 1/2 teaspoons of Bulk Reef Supply Pharmeceutical grade. I got to that specific dose by adding 1 teaspoon to 5 gallons and went up by 1 teaspoon every time my reservoir was depleted (about every 6 to 7 days). Kalk is what keeps my PH stable and helps with Alk and Calc. I do have 3 fail safes for it so it does not overdose and kill my tank. It is run off two float switches (extra in case main fails) and my DA reefkeeper. If my PH gets to 8.5 it kills power to the auto topoff and will not turn back on until it drops to 8.3. I manually dose Brightwell Aquatics reef code A and B. I dose each opposite days of eachother 4 capfulls of the big bottle. Reef Code B needs to be mixed with RO water before it is put in the sump. I'm hoping to eventually run Dosers for the ALk and Calc but my method is working for me so I will hold off for now . I also dose Aquavitro Ions (Magnesium) now. I noticed my colors were fading and some LPS and Zooas were slowly melting. I was under the impression that water changes should keep it up. I use Red Sea Coral Pro salt so I thought every two weeks was fine. I finall tested my Mg and was shocked to see that it was below 1200. I slowly raised it to the desired level. Now I dose it every time I dose Alk. That made a BIG difference for me. I also run BRS dual gfo and carbon reactor. Media gets switched out every two weeks when I do my water change. I started low with the phosp media when I started, good advice from the forum.

Params

PH - 8.2 to 8.4
Cal - 400 to 450
Alk - 9 to 10 dkh
Mag - 1350 to 1400
Nitrate - 0
Phosph - .002 to .004 (I don't test for that very often)

Oh and for my tanks 2yr anniversary I upgraded my skimmer to a Reef Octopus Diablo 225-XS. I am seriously impressed by the amount of crap it pulls out. Way better then my old Bubble Magus NAC6.