Birds nests problems

Tested my tank again tonight.

Ph 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate .17
Calcium 450
Magnesium 1350
Alk 9.6
Salinity 1.024

Still need to get the Kalk drip setup where it needs to be. It's a work in progress. The purple BN seems like a lost cause though. It is starting to die off some more on the bottom and the other BN has less polyp extension. I will give it a couple more days and try a different spot in my tank. Everything else is still doing good and growing fine.
 
Gills 619 said:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1671&pictureid=49542

This is a friend of mine's birdsnest grown from a piece the same size as yours, to this in about 5 months. If they get enough food, they grow like weed. He feeds his fish heavily and also uses plankton foods once a week. Notice the length of the growth tips!
Click to expand...

It has grown for sure. Can you tell me abit more about his tank?

If I start feeding too much my phosphates are going to go up even more. They are still high right now as it is. So what do you think I would need to change?
 
I used to have great success with birdsnest till i got court up in the ULN thing. Cut my feeding down and dosed heavily with bacteria and vodka. Nutrience levels dropped fast. First coral to go was the birdsnest. Lost its dark pink and got lighter and lighter till it stn'nd. I dont think you can run ULN without feeding the corals. I think the trick is to feed heavy and keep nutrience levels low. So high food import but very good export. Or like i do,run little higher nutrience (i have small amounts of gha from time to time) but dont starve the corals. Its a fine ballance.
 
The tank owner is Ian. He has always been a supper heavy feeder of his fish. He employs big skimmers and high levels of bacteria to help process waist. Ians corals grow super fast and most of the corals in his tank are third or more generation in the space two years. He also does 100L water change every day on the system. Total volume of the system is about 3500L. This is one of the main reasons he can feed so heavy, have awesome colour and maintain excellent water quality.
Your tank looks new or just very clean with few fish. If you put all your effort into getting nutrience close to 0 you will have to feed the corals either with coral food or lots of fish poop. Just remember to have a great filter system and husbandry to manage the excess food.
 
This is a newer tank that is approaching 1 year old. It has 8 fish. Yellow tang, melanarus wrasse, 2 clowns, banghai cardinal, flame hawk, potters angel and a mandarin. I feed everyday and heavy every few days. I feed many different foods and alternate between what I feed the tank every time I feed. I also use selcon every few days. I also feed the tank algae every couple of days.

So I am feeding the tank a good amount and have a good amount of fish as well as a good clean up crew. But nothing picks on the corals in my tank either. I am very anal on how my tank looks and mess with it everyday. I like it to look clean. I also have a decent filtration setup, so that helps out.
 
Sounds like you doing everything right. I know i will be chastized here for saying this, but i would run the tank and feed it on how the corals look and not chase the numbers. If you feed that much and you have no algae problem, you must have great export. That tells me your tank could handle more fish and more feeding, regardless of the numbers. Your export may be too good.... Its a ballance.
Are you bacteria and or carbon dosing in this tank. If so my experience with birdsnest, they dont do well.
 
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1671&pictureid=17012

This is a tank I started two years ago. It was my ULN experiment. I dosed bacteria- MB7, prodibio, vodka and a few other things. Could not find the right balance of export vs import and was a roller coaster ride of doom.
NOTE the birdsnest in the left top corner. It was a dark dirty pink in the tank before and after two months in this tank, just starved.Note how pale it looks. This pic was taken a week or so before it started to STN with no return. All other corals were fine but remained pale. Tried a few more pieces after that and every one went the same way. After a year I stopped the ULN quest as I was traveling a lot for work and had my wife looking after the tank. Birdsnest was reintroduced and I still have that same piece today. Unfortunately I have just moved and all my fish and coral are still back home at Ian's. I am setting up again here in Cape Town.
 
I only have one type of birds nest. I initially put him in direct line with a mp40,so it was getting alot of current.It did not like it.Now it's just under the the direct line,so it still gets really good flow.Getting good growth and the polyps are out all the time now.
picture.php
 
Gills 619 said:
Sounds like you doing everything right. I know i will be chastized here for saying this, but i would run the tank and feed it on how the corals look and not chase the numbers. If you feed that much and you have no algae problem, you must have great export. That tells me your tank could handle more fish and more feeding, regardless of the numbers. Your export may be too good.... Its a ballance.
Are you bacteria and or carbon dosing in this tank. If so my experience with birdsnest, they dont do well.
Click to expand...

I try to do my best. If I had more time, money and most importantly space the tank would be bigger and better. I have a really small house with no room for a better setup then what I have right now.

I really don't want to add anymore fish in the tank. I think that 8 fish in this size tank is more then enough. I don't want to over pack the tank, make the fish stressed and give them all room to swim. Plus everything is doing really well and I would hate too mess that up by adding more fish.

I am not carbon dosing this tank at all yet. Was going to, but I haven't yet and am not sure if i will while the tank stays this way. I have plenty of natural filtration, mechanical, chemical and skimmer setup. Although bio pellets seem like a good thing for me to possibly setup in the future.
 
What you are running is very different than the ulns that is talked about above. I wouldn't worry about what the other guy is doing and just keep on track. Carbon dosing is on the opposite end of the spectrum from your system. Those guys feed heavy because they have to. Their tanks are very clean. If you aren't dosing a carbon source of some kind (vodka,vinegar, etc.) than you aren't running a ulns in my opinion. I would still shoot for .03 on phosphates with gfo.
 
There was an article published a few months back about seriatoporas on Advanced Aquarist magazine. As far as I remember scientists found out that seriatoporas wont show any discomfort if placed in a zone they don't like. But once while moving it around if you find the right spot, it will grow like a weed. Please double check on the details, its all from my memory. Happy Reefing :)
 
My birds nests looked great until a month ago when I raised the amount of Rowaphos in my reactor (wanted to get PO4 down to zero). Now my birds nests look pale and unhappy too. So I concur that if nutrients are very low the birds nests seem to suffer.
 
I think one issue that nobody has addressed is the fact that his RO/DI unit is putting out 2 TDS. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're putting out anything more than 0, your media is most likely exhausted / on it's way to being exhausted.

Just a possible contributing factor among many that may be causing your problem. I've subscribed; I hope you get everything worked out!
 
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