Another acropora advice thread
- Thread starter Bpb
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Bpb
New member
a few more pics. I haven't done a big tank phot shoot in a long time. Since Jan. These are just some random iphone pics I've taken in the past few weeks of a couple acros that are still doing ok (just frags unfortunately, the big colonies of everything else are toast), and some montipira I frequently frag and sell. The maroon color on the rocks is not cyano. There's not one bit of cyano in the tank, that's just some red turf. I don't mind it. It is the dominant micro/macro algae in the tank next to the coraline, and the foxface and tang love to munch on it all day. it's easily killed and grown over but all corals, and after having dealt with bubble algae, dino, cyano, green hair, bryopsis, and cladophora, I'll take red turf any day of the week. It's not very troublesom. The coraline and red turf do give the tank an obnoxious purple hue on my iphone camera. It's alot more blue/white inperson. Pics taken under the 2x250 watt radiums, and BML strip at 50%, on iphone 6 camera
markalot
...
Tank looks fantastic IMO. My PH concern was not 7.9 but I thought your low was 7.7. Maybe I read the graph wrong? I had issues when my PH dropped below 7.7, so I took action. Now that it swings between 7.9 and 8.3 I really don't worry about it.
The only time I've seen base recession is when I had a short lived KH spike from 8 to 10 over 3 days. I let it slowly fall back down but the damage was done and I had STN issues for 2 months on various corals. Acros respond differently, it's a crap shoot which ones will be harmed and which ones won't.
Even my slimer receded about 2 inches at the base and then one day stopped and developed a new growth edge and has been slowly working its way back down while putting on a bunch of top growth.
The only time I've seen base recession is when I had a short lived KH spike from 8 to 10 over 3 days. I let it slowly fall back down but the damage was done and I had STN issues for 2 months on various corals. Acros respond differently, it's a crap shoot which ones will be harmed and which ones won't.
Even my slimer receded about 2 inches at the base and then one day stopped and developed a new growth edge and has been slowly working its way back down while putting on a bunch of top growth.
CHSUB
"Certified Hobby Expert"
looking at your pics, imo, inorganic nutrients are too high, despite test readings. the corals are starving of organic nutrients and at the same time the zoox are "supercharged". the acro's are trying to pull more food from the zoox and the zoox are poisoning them with their increased activity. i would suggest more fatten fish and more export.
Plainswalker
New member
I had the same problem when I moved from a 35g to a 90g. I removed my GFO after I thought that the SPS started showing more colouration with it offline.
Acropora just started STN'ing after a good period of growth. LPS and montipora did well.
It ended up being a massive amount of phosphate locked away in the rocks. I ran 2 cups of GFO a week for 3 months before my phosphate finally went down to >0.03. Once that happened, acroporas stopped STN'ing.
Acropora just started STN'ing after a good period of growth. LPS and montipora did well.
It ended up being a massive amount of phosphate locked away in the rocks. I ran 2 cups of GFO a week for 3 months before my phosphate finally went down to >0.03. Once that happened, acroporas stopped STN'ing.
Bpb
New member
I've brough my skimmer back online, and reduced the LED mid-day peak to 50% (down from 100%). I'm going to start with just skimming. I have a GFO reactor and a couple gallons of GFO laying in wait to see if I ever need them again. I also still have a full unopened bag of biopellets, as well as 2 gallons of Rox 0.8 carbon. I'm considering running a tiny bit of carbon in a media bag temporarily.
I do have a large toadstool and a decent sized palau nepthelia. I know there are hundreds of examples of people successfully keeping these corals along with acros, so chemical warfare isn't exactly at the top of my list of concerns, but it's there. I'll be selling my nepthelia colony this week, and potentially selling the whole toadstool some time soon. My biggest concern there is that it is the home of my 8 year old clarkii clown. When she is without a home she gets incredibly destructive and aggressive. Pulls things off the rocks, flips corals over on the sand, creates constant sand storms all day, buries stuff. Just a mess. Happened the 2 times I've taken anemones away. If I take the toadstool she will be homeless.
I performed a full array of tests on the 2nd.
Salinity 1.026
Alk 6.9 dkh (seems to keep falling and falling. I test every 4 days and have to increase my dose timer programming every time. I think it's the montipora doing it. My target is 8.0, but I'm not in a huge hurry to get there)
Ca: 450 ppm
Mg: 1450 ppm
NO3: <1 ppm
PO4: 0.02 ppm
I recently acquired a large amount of corals. I had mentioned in the original post that a friend was going to be taking down his tank and had reserved me some corals to take. I was going to have a friend take them at some point in a couple weeks, but he expedited the tear down process, and this weekend basically said "tank is taking a nose dive, and I have an army of folks coming over today to pick it clean. you better get over here now and take what you want"
So, rather than waiting a few weeks I had to go collect stuff immediately.
The aquisition included:
ORA Stuber Stag acro (from my original colony I sold off a year ago, glad to have it back)
ASD Cotton Candy Acro
ASD Blue Bottlebrush Acro
Mint Julep Acro
Rainbow Stylophora (in really bad shape, hope it pulls through)
Rainbow Pocillopora (not usually excited about pocci, but this one looks spectacular)
Large Lobo, kind of browned out, but I expect it to color up in the coming weeks
Hi lighter goniopora
purple aussie torch (biggest question mark here, not sure where to place it in the tank. it's in the back corner. Gets plenty of light, and a little flow, but is kind of smashed and cant expand fully. Don't want it to kill anything valuable, but dont want to get rid of it. May have to sell a few things.)
ORA derasa clam
Jedi Mint Trick Montipora (lost a frag of this when I had my alk spike in feb. This piece is in rough shape too, but it's already larger than what I was working with before. love mind trick)
Posting a few pics of the new aquisitions. Hopefully they do well! I'm feeling pretty good about it this time. Though I did just add alot of stuff so I'm going to have to watch alk closely, especially with that derasa clam. Being that I'm using so much 2 part and increasing every few days, I'm considering going back to kalkwasser to lighten the load. I have an Avast Kalkwasser reactor sitting in the garage waiting to be used, which should significantly lighten the load on my two part dosing. However, being that it can only dose fully saturated kalk, I have to wait until I'm using the same amount of 2 part supplementation in one day, as I would using a gallon or so of fully saturated kalk. Not quite there yet.
I do have a large toadstool and a decent sized palau nepthelia. I know there are hundreds of examples of people successfully keeping these corals along with acros, so chemical warfare isn't exactly at the top of my list of concerns, but it's there. I'll be selling my nepthelia colony this week, and potentially selling the whole toadstool some time soon. My biggest concern there is that it is the home of my 8 year old clarkii clown. When she is without a home she gets incredibly destructive and aggressive. Pulls things off the rocks, flips corals over on the sand, creates constant sand storms all day, buries stuff. Just a mess. Happened the 2 times I've taken anemones away. If I take the toadstool she will be homeless.
I performed a full array of tests on the 2nd.
Salinity 1.026
Alk 6.9 dkh (seems to keep falling and falling. I test every 4 days and have to increase my dose timer programming every time. I think it's the montipora doing it. My target is 8.0, but I'm not in a huge hurry to get there)
Ca: 450 ppm
Mg: 1450 ppm
NO3: <1 ppm
PO4: 0.02 ppm
I recently acquired a large amount of corals. I had mentioned in the original post that a friend was going to be taking down his tank and had reserved me some corals to take. I was going to have a friend take them at some point in a couple weeks, but he expedited the tear down process, and this weekend basically said "tank is taking a nose dive, and I have an army of folks coming over today to pick it clean. you better get over here now and take what you want"
So, rather than waiting a few weeks I had to go collect stuff immediately.
The aquisition included:
ORA Stuber Stag acro (from my original colony I sold off a year ago, glad to have it back)
ASD Cotton Candy Acro
ASD Blue Bottlebrush Acro
Mint Julep Acro
Rainbow Stylophora (in really bad shape, hope it pulls through)
Rainbow Pocillopora (not usually excited about pocci, but this one looks spectacular)
Large Lobo, kind of browned out, but I expect it to color up in the coming weeks
Hi lighter goniopora
purple aussie torch (biggest question mark here, not sure where to place it in the tank. it's in the back corner. Gets plenty of light, and a little flow, but is kind of smashed and cant expand fully. Don't want it to kill anything valuable, but dont want to get rid of it. May have to sell a few things.)
ORA derasa clam
Jedi Mint Trick Montipora (lost a frag of this when I had my alk spike in feb. This piece is in rough shape too, but it's already larger than what I was working with before. love mind trick)
Posting a few pics of the new aquisitions. Hopefully they do well! I'm feeling pretty good about it this time. Though I did just add alot of stuff so I'm going to have to watch alk closely, especially with that derasa clam. Being that I'm using so much 2 part and increasing every few days, I'm considering going back to kalkwasser to lighten the load. I have an Avast Kalkwasser reactor sitting in the garage waiting to be used, which should significantly lighten the load on my two part dosing. However, being that it can only dose fully saturated kalk, I have to wait until I'm using the same amount of 2 part supplementation in one day, as I would using a gallon or so of fully saturated kalk. Not quite there yet.
bobssecrtsn
New member
updates?
Bpb
New member
No stn as of yet on the new acros. PE and color holding like I had before the crash. STN that was happening on a few older frags has stopped but no growth yet. Alk keeps taking a nose dive, I predict from the clams and montipora. So I'm trying to bring it up but super slowly. Basically I add 20 seconds to my ca and alk hourly dose every 4 days via the apex oscillation statement if that makes sense. That should be slow enough. Feeling pretty positive about it. Ordering some new radiums here pretty soon (may wait for a BRS sale, at this age the bulbs have lost about all the par they'll lose and shifted as far as they'll shift so I'm not really hurting things by waiting). Trying out the Red Sea reef energy a & b products now as well. Almost out of Elos amino acids so I'm trying these out for a trial run. Also started rinsing my PE mysis before feeding. Trying to increase organic nutrient input and inorganic nutrient export
I'm also in the middle of a massive overhaul of my planted tank so attention is fairly divided
I'm also in the middle of a massive overhaul of my planted tank so attention is fairly divided
bobssecrtsn
New member
updates?
Bpb
New member
They're on my list to replace. I've gone longer than I'd like and going forward I'll definitely stick to a 9 month replacement time. Lol maybe it's time to consider LEDs lol. So the pieces I have had that were looking bad still don't look good and haven't bounced back, but those that were happy still are. I slowly raised my alk to 8.4, which seems to have my ph a bit elevated. It goes between 8.3-7.9. I don't seem to have the super fluffy PE I see some people getting but the stn seems to have stopped overall so I think that's a good thing.
Uploaded a new pic of the acro in the 3rd picture in post 54. Color has shifted significantly and it has grown a touch. This is about the health of most the acros in the tank. Just got a nice clear shot of this one. It's an ASD cotton candy
Uploaded a new pic of the acro in the 3rd picture in post 54. Color has shifted significantly and it has grown a touch. This is about the health of most the acros in the tank. Just got a nice clear shot of this one. It's an ASD cotton candy
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bobssecrtsn
New member
do you dip when you add sps? what do you dip with? the coral looks good! they may take 1.5 months to recover color and start to take off, i say your in the right direction! replace your bulbs as well!
Bpb
New member
Update. Bulbs are in and I'm picking them up from ups on Monday. I won't go this long again between bulb changes, if I don't go all led first. Growth is still going ok. Not as fast as I used to get on my last tank but ok. I stopped increasing my 2 part use and have basically peaked now at 150 ml per day of each ca and alk. To meet increasing demand I have begun supplementing my ato water with kalkwasser. This has had the positive side effect of bumping my overall ph by roughly 0.1 at any given point of the day.
Next step on this tank is to move away from liquid dosing entirely and transition to a calcium reactor. Dual stage regulator also arriving in the mail Monday, and next I will begin shopping around for a reactor body and pump. Probably a Geo but I won't turn down a good deal on a used "whatever"
Next step on this tank is to move away from liquid dosing entirely and transition to a calcium reactor. Dual stage regulator also arriving in the mail Monday, and next I will begin shopping around for a reactor body and pump. Probably a Geo but I won't turn down a good deal on a used "whatever"
