I am having a problem with my sps bleaching and can't figure out what the problem is. I have a good idea but am not for sure and could use a little guidance. I have a 36x30x21 rimless aquarium that I set up at the beginning of the year. I have a DIY CREE fixture containing 54 3watt led's with 40 degree optics hanging 10 inches over the tank. The DT contains about 60lb of lr, 20 lb of sand, yellow tang, blue hippo tang, and a PJ cardinal, a couple of shrimp, a few crabs and a few snails and one MP40 . I will not list all the coral but it is mostly SPS with a few acans on the bottom.
Sump is a 30 gal sump with a filter sock, about 10 lb of rock rubble, a NAC6, and a mag 12 return pump. 250ml of ecobak pellets in a next reef reactor.
I just ran all my test and they are where they have always been for the past several months.
API Test
nitrate-0
Cal.- 460
DKH-10
Salfiret
Mag-1140
Hanna
Phosphate-0
This tank had an extremely fast cycle and I have never had an algae breakout since. I only have to clean the glass every week to week and a half. I feed 4 cubes of San Francisco Bay variety pack a week and feed pellets and flakes on the days I do not feed the cubes. I also feed reefbugs and reef chili three to four times a week. Over the past month I have increased feeding to this routine to try to color up the coral and have not noticed any effect.
My lighting ramp the blues up at 2pm and are 100% at 3pm, at three the whites come on and ramp up to 80% at four. At 9pm the whites ramp down until off and the at 10 the blues start to ramp down.
Nutrients and lights are my main focal points to cure the bleaching. The have increased the feeding and have not seen any positive color change although the frags seem to be growing faster. When I introduced the coral I had the lights set to the schedule above and changed the placement of the coral to acclimate them. When I notice the color fade I reduced the lighting power to 40% whites and 60% blue for a couple of months and I never noticed a change. Since then I started to slowly ramp up the power every week until I was back to the current setting.
What do I need to do to get my coral to color up? At first I thought it was the light but after reducing it I never seen a change. I am leaning to a lack of nutrients but with as much as I feed I do not want to keep dumping food into the tank to bring up the levels.
Sorry this is so long but I wanted to make sure I covered everything.
I forgot to add that the frags were added in May and I transfered a few from my old tank after the cycle. Everything in the tank is bleached except for the acans.
Sump is a 30 gal sump with a filter sock, about 10 lb of rock rubble, a NAC6, and a mag 12 return pump. 250ml of ecobak pellets in a next reef reactor.
I just ran all my test and they are where they have always been for the past several months.
API Test
nitrate-0
Cal.- 460
DKH-10
Salfiret
Mag-1140
Hanna
Phosphate-0
This tank had an extremely fast cycle and I have never had an algae breakout since. I only have to clean the glass every week to week and a half. I feed 4 cubes of San Francisco Bay variety pack a week and feed pellets and flakes on the days I do not feed the cubes. I also feed reefbugs and reef chili three to four times a week. Over the past month I have increased feeding to this routine to try to color up the coral and have not noticed any effect.
My lighting ramp the blues up at 2pm and are 100% at 3pm, at three the whites come on and ramp up to 80% at four. At 9pm the whites ramp down until off and the at 10 the blues start to ramp down.
Nutrients and lights are my main focal points to cure the bleaching. The have increased the feeding and have not seen any positive color change although the frags seem to be growing faster. When I introduced the coral I had the lights set to the schedule above and changed the placement of the coral to acclimate them. When I notice the color fade I reduced the lighting power to 40% whites and 60% blue for a couple of months and I never noticed a change. Since then I started to slowly ramp up the power every week until I was back to the current setting.
What do I need to do to get my coral to color up? At first I thought it was the light but after reducing it I never seen a change. I am leaning to a lack of nutrients but with as much as I feed I do not want to keep dumping food into the tank to bring up the levels.
Sorry this is so long but I wanted to make sure I covered everything.
I forgot to add that the frags were added in May and I transfered a few from my old tank after the cycle. Everything in the tank is bleached except for the acans.
