BB and Nitrates?

[Cody Ray]

Is it possible that you are getting incorrect readings from your test kit? Try testing your water with another kit or try switching to another brand.

 

[elephen]

I have purchased brand new Salifert kits and they read the same so I really doubt that, its been reading this way for a while and I'm finally stumped after trying different things.

 

[elephen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7248301#post7248301 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jthnhale
elephen,
I do think it's strange you have that much No3 in your system, a new BB 120, 3 fish, a shrimp, and a great skimmer. It does not add up.
As for the No3 being the cause of the brown coral, I'm not so sure. my local club has been discussing this for a while and we can't make this connection. A bunch of us have systems similar to yours with nitrates much higher like 30-40ppm, and the coral has been growing and displaying amazing colors.

I agree that the light period may be too little for the coral to color up.
Can you take some pics so we can see a before and after.

Before and after pics of what exactly? Not sure I understand what your looking for. The tank was brand new and I upgraded from a 75 ssb to a 120 bb so I have no pics to compare to in that matter.

 

[jthnhale]

I meant take pics of the coral now so you can track how long they take to color up.

 

[Wiskey]

I would also try upping the photoperiod, intitally when I went BB everything bleached, so I raised my lights and dropped my photoperiod. Everything went fine for a while, then coral started to darken up, so I started raising my photoperiod, now I am dropping my lights back down again because a coral in a perticurlarly dark spot is STN'ing on the base from lack of light (I beleave).

Rasing the photoperiod back up has only made things better, now that I have the food import thing down, and my CA/ALK demand keeps going up along with growth the more light I give them.

HTH,
Whiskey

 

[elephen]

Well I have an old 15g sitting around that I may try to figure out how to setup and run a 'fuge with a ball of cheato and see what happens.

I also upped the photo period 30 min today and on Friday will up it another 30 min. I love the ACIII, takes 2 seconds to change it

I'm also going to order 10-12 100 micron filter socks to see if that'll help clear up the particulate matter in the water along with wrapping filter floss around the closed loop intakes for a few hours to see if that'll also help with clearing up the water.

 

[JB NY]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7249202#post7249202 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Wiskey
I would also try upping the photoperiod,

I missed that, I think you need more than 6 hours of light in that tank too. I would up the photoperiod as well.

 

[elephen]

Thats what I'm doing, going to up it 30 min per day.

Should I do 8 hrs a day or what do you think I should run it at?

 

[JB NY]

I really like 9 hours. But nothing wrong with trying 8 and seeing how it goes.

 

[BreadmanMike]

I also run radiums for 6 hours a day, but on HQI ballasts. I have no brown corals, but have bleached some tips on stylo's. I have about 3ppm NO3 which I attribute to not running filter socks. I don't think 10ppm is bad at all.

Did everything brown out when you switched ballasts?

 

[elephen]

Aquaticman- I also run mine on HQI ballast.

I should clarify.

On my 75 when it was running it was a SSB and had the same lighting setup, everything was colored up GREATLY! (although I NEVER tested water perams since everything always looked good). My rose mille was bright pink, my pink scripps mille was bright pink and baby blue, my orange cap was bright orange and my blue tort was dark blue.

I setup my 120 in-place on my 75 and switched them over "cold turkey" with freshly cooked rock. This caused my tank to cycle and nitrite jumped up there pretty high. I lost most of my SPS except a few small peices which remain brown (browned during the 120 cycle at first).

About 2-3 months ago we did a large group order from Reefer Madness and I got 9 peices, all 9 are still alive today but they are just very bland in color. According to RM's images on the site these were very very colorful.

Everything has been doing well even my latest additions (minus color), there is good growth on my mille's.

BTW as I mentioned above I havn't switched ballast or lighting, its been the same all along.

 

[elephen]

After mentioning that its been almost 2 weeks since I put in my latest additions.

I fragged my ORA Blue Tort when I noticed all my SPS dieing when my 120 was first setup and cycling so I gave most of the frags to a buddy to hold for a few months. He had it in his frag tank which had a 1000w 20k SE bulb on a 1000w HQI ballast. The color was the most deepest blue and purple I have ever seen along with the pink prostrata. Both have kept their colors over the past 2 weeks so maybe they'll keep their color.

I wish I could take some before and after pics (pic now, pic in a month from now) but I find it very difficult to take pics of my corals under my lighting setup with my camera, everything always ends up being very washed out blue since the white balance on the camera is good but still sucks and I don't want to drop $700-800 on the EOS Digital Rebel

 

[jackson6745]

FWIW Some of the best colors that I have seen are on tanks with detectable to high nitrates and relatively low Po4 throught the use of GFO's. These are deep rich colors.

 

[elephen]

Hrm so maybe I don't have a problem?

10ppm Nitrate and ~0ppm Phosphate according to all my Salifert test kits

 

[jthnhale]

I don't think 10ppm of nitrates is anything to worry about.

My No3 level got much higher (30ppm) and my SPS continued to grow fast and kept their color.

I have since got the nitrates down to five or so. My Po4 is 0, my bulbs are 3 250 evc 10k's on electronic ballasts, they are on for five hours a day.

 

[panic]

Ph looks like an average of 7.9-8, bump it up to 8.2-.3.

ARC has an 8" Squamosa for $40 exactly like mine.

Why can't you put the fuge on the left side next to the skimmer? or behind it? Get a 15g and I'll drill a couple of holes for you. Drain into some socks in the refugium and then into the sump so you don't have to add any more pumps.

 

[elephen]

Hrm. I edited the program on my AquaController 3 and I'm upping the MH photoperiod by 30 min per day in hopes of not 'shocking' the coral if that could happen until I hit 8 hours. We'll try that for a few weeks and if no good response then I'll try 9 hours.

I'm also going to upgrade my flow, right now it is a VERY static hard flow, no randomness at all which I really do not like.

I'm going to add 2 Tunze Stream 6100's and a multicontroller and run them so I get a nice back and fourth motion in the tank. I'll probably stop using the Sequence Dart since it doesn't have much flow in the first place.

 

[elephen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7250918#post7250918 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by panic
Ph looks like an average of 7.9-8, bump it up to 8.2-.3.

ARC has an 8" Squamosa for $40 exactly like mine.

Why can't you put the fuge on the left side next to the skimmer? or behind it? Get a 15g and I'll drill a couple of holes for you. Drain into some socks in the refugium and then into the sump so you don't have to add any more pumps.

8.2-8.3 is the average pH. Read up top where I noted the *. I installed and calibrated the pH probe that day so any reading prior to the * is a false reading the controller was coming up with itself.

I don't have room under the stand for a fuge. I swaped out the 15g sump I had previously for a acrylic 42 g sump.

 

[JB NY]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7250947#post7250947 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by elephen
Hrm. I edited the program on my AquaController 3 and I'm upping the MH photoperiod by 30 min per day in hopes of not 'shocking' the coral if that could happen until I hit 8 hours. We'll try that for a few weeks and if no good response then I'll try 9 hours.

An easier way to increase the photoperiod is

MH ON at 12 PM
MH OFF at 4 PM
MH ON at 6 PM
MH OFF at 8 PM

Then decrease the amount the MH are off in the middle by 30 minutes every 3-4 days. You should have no bleaching problems.

Acros will peak out on the light in about 4 hours, shutting the lights off at that point lets them rest a little before the lights are back on. Slowly bring the lights back on earlier will help them get used to more light without them bleaching.

I've done this many times and never had problems using this method.

Actually since you are going to 8hrs from 6hrs, I would shut off the lights at 5 PM and slowly work off that 1 hour the lights are off.

 

[elephen]

Thanks for the input JBNY, much appreciated. I don't have my AC3 setup so I can access it from here at work so I'll do it that way when I get home. Seems to make sense, let them rest before you blast them again with light.