am i starving my SPS?

[oneradtek202]

Over the past year my sps has been growing great, but has suffered in lack of color and some polyp extension. Im thinking that it may possibly be due to me not feeding my sps in particular.

I have a 75 gallon tank with 55 gallon sump and only 6 fish, most medium to small size. I feed mysis once a day. I bought a hannah meter and it registered 0.00 ppm for po4's.


am i starving my sps to the state of unhealthy?

 

[jfl14609]

what are your calcium and magnesium levels I have noticed colors and growth slow down when I am low on magnesium

 

[magdelan]

I just began feeding Prime Reef frozen cubes and have noticed an increase in sps color... think about it.

 

[oneradtek202]

mag is actually the other end of the spectrum, i think 1500


ca-400
alk-9

 

[pascal32]

Check the model number of your hanna. There is a regular range and an ultra low range. You want the ultra low range for this application. The regular can't go below .1

I just got the ULR yesterday, haven't tried it yet

 

[pascal32]

Oh yeah, with the ulr you need to multiply the result to get poke as I believe the units are ppbs

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Plenty of people have great colors without feeding SPS, and (IMHO at least) the hobby has a poor understanding at best of even how to feed them or what it accomplishes. IMHO, look elsewhere for your problems - nutrient levels, absolute value and stability of Ca, alk, pH; flow, lighting, etc.

 

[toddmh]

I'm still kinda new to sps,but your cal seems a bit low(not to bad though)I dose both of my tanks two times a week with reef chili http://www.reefchili.com/ I've tried a few other brands but I like this one the best..

my sps are looking great now...Also could your bulbs be getting old??

 

[Gravesj1s]

Possible.Might want to use food of the right size though.

 

[oneradtek202]

id say my bulbs are in the early stages of dementia right now....about 9 months old over driven on a HQI ballast

low nutrient levels is what im trying to get at about "feeding" my sps. im worried with such a low bioload and amount of fish and about 100 gallons of water volume and a powerful skimmer , theres just no nutrients anymore


Mark(cully) has always said that once a sps tank grows out to a point in a finite system, it becomes unstable and hard to provide everything needed to maintain ur tank and eventually ka'boom

 

[tmz]

While they are highly autotrophic even sps need some carbon based foods as well as nitrogen for protein ,dna etc and phosphorous. Surface reef waters are low in nitrogen and phosphorous, .2 to .5ppmm NO3 and.005ppm PO4.Corals from deeper waters are used to levels 5 to 10xhigher. But even the surface levels are constant and not 0.

I have not feed any small micron coral foods in months . Tried Coral Frenzy which has small micron foods in it for a while but didn't notice any changes.

However, I have over 40 fish in the 550 gallon system which are brodcast fed a mix of mysis, brine, mosquito larvae(blood worms) and cyclopeeze, which may be small enough for many of he sps, 2x per day. No socks or other mechanical filtration are used accept occasionally during maintenance or rare lanthanum chloride dosing.. Several refugia for cyptic critters and pods also contribute to the food chain; I hope. Dosing vodka and vinegar daily povides bacteria and acetate which may also help..

I may try some aspartic acid from I herb.com,an amino not syntesized by corals but one which they use.

Overall, keeping PO4 and NO3 low(FWIW, system levels are PO4 .04ppm, NO3 .2/.5ppm) trumps heavy feedings or amino supplements and I'd watch those levels closely when new feeding routines are applied.But it is possible to create anorexic corals but it is unlikely in a reef tank with fed fish, in my opinion.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

IMO/IME frozen mysids are good for many things (including feeding corals if they are pulverized) but they're messy (prone to cause cyano blooms) and don't do much for color enhancing.

Feeding corals is a good thing but you must keep phosphates in check while doing so. Well fed Acropora (SPS) coupled with low PO4 will result in best coloration IME.

 

[oneradtek202]

Hmmm well all of my caps have basically bleach out except for the rims and edges, I have stn all over the place, something is horribly wrong and I have no ideas left....

Anothr possibilty I thought of was chemical warfare since I have 2 large btas and a gigantic frogspaw that's about a foot wide, and 40 heads??

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

JMO but it doesn't sound like chem warfare to me

 

[oneradtek202]

hmmm ok, so when i go to switch over my tanks to the 100 gallon miracle tank, i should probably do a massive water change just to see what happens or waht? i need to have something change here.

 

[pascal32]

lights might be a good investment. I was having coloring issues with my SPS. I decreased the duration and increased the intensity slowly (now running all 8 t5s for close to 8 hours) and coloring, growth and apparently KH/CA consumption have jumped tremendously. seems that lighting makes a huge difference.

 

[oneradtek202]

yea mine are turned down to 8 hours, but this is a bleaching/dying issue

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

you're still running Radiums on HQI, right?

.......if there hasn't been a lighting change recently I'd rule out lighting.


Are only Montipora affected?

 

[oneradtek202]

you're still running Radiums on HQI, right?

.......if there hasn't been a lighting change recently I'd rule out lighting.


Are only Montipora affected?

i am still running radiums on pfo hqi ballast


montiporas are bleaching out badly


other sps are STN'ing esp acroporas

the birdsnest is still going strong, along with monti digi species. no sign of AEFW bite marks or eggs

 

[GMaquarium]

Try to maintain po4 at .02-.05 and use some amino acid for a while. This will answer if the water is too low in nutrients.