Could use a hand getting SPS on track.

[mkoop]

My tank is going on 2 years established. All LPS including frogspawn, hammers, zoas, palys, chalice, echinata are all thriving and have shown considerable growth and great color.

I am failing with my SPS and I am not sure why.

I have a green slimer that has polyps fully extended always, though has shown no growth (he's been around 2 months and was my initial test to see if he would do okay before I got some montis).

I got an acro and monti earlier this month as a trial and it has been a losing battle ever since. They looked gorgeous and I feel like it's been a constant struggle to keep them alive, and I'm not sure why.

My tank is a 180g display with a 75g sump of which ~40 is a chaeto/pod fuge. 2-3" sand bed in display. I have a SRO2000INT skimmer and 2x tunze 6105's pionting at one another on opposite ends of the tank.

Lighting is 3x AI sol blues, currently running at 80% whites, 90% blues and royals.

Only algae really is a small diatom bloom about 2"x3" on an area of the sand bad and a small bit of cyano in the fuge. There is a bit of particulate in the water column.

Up until tonight over the past month I have been running GFO in a reactor. I took it off line tonight in preparation of trying to get things on track with vodka dosing. I plan to start dosing this weekend and wanted to have the GFO off line for a few days before hand.

I am also doing weekly 10% water changes (*these coorespond with the alk drops seen on the 7th, 14th and 21st) which have kept up with Ca and Mg needs, I have been dosing alk(baked baking soda) though consumption is still very slow.

My acro isn't bleaching or turning brown really, it is a lighter brown I suppose, almost as if it just has no color (though it is not bleached bone white, it still has tissue). No polyp extension on the acro at all day or night.

Monti's turn brown and one has some bleaching from outside in. I'm really at a loss and have exhausted my resources. I think the right direction is to start trying vodka dosing to bring my nitrates down, though I would really appreciate some other opinions before I head down this road as I am very inexperienced in this. Nitrates have been stagnant ~10 on salifert low range.

I've attached some data that may be helpful.

 

[shlap]

If you don't have a hanna checker for your phosphates, definitely get one. I always thought mine was 0 until I got a hanna.

AI Sol Blues -- you definitely won't get as deep of color with whites/blues as you will with some full spectrum leds. Go Hydra 52s or Radions if you can, otherwise adding some T5s would help too.

If it's only been a couple of months I wouldn't worry. SPS need time (sometime months) to color up and start growing when moving to a new system. Just be patient.

 

[brad_G]

Why is your alk jumping half a point up and down? I know you said WC but I'm confused to weather its causing it to increase or decrease. Half a dkh probably isn't hurting just curious. It looks better later in the month but 3-2 thru 3-5 was kinda up and down.

I'm not sure how stable it needs to be. I check once every few weeks and I usually only see .6 drop max. I bring it up over 2 days and let kalk do its thing until I test again a few weeks later. I range from 8.4 to 7.8 dkh. Some people just don't have luck running it low.

I don't know a dang thing about al Sol but 80% white seems kinda high? You might look into that cause I want to think I seem to read people running white around 40%? Could be completely wrong on that though....

 

[TylerHaworth]

My experience is my own, but I hated and had terrible experience with white/blue only LED's and SPS... Everything else was great under blue/white only.

Also, your Alk is extremely jumpy... Gotta get those swings minimized.

Since your consumption is low and your water changes are regular I would recommend doing a water change on day 1, after the change you should test and dose to your desired parameters... Days 2-7 all you do is dose your maintenance of alk/calcium.

When you make it back to day 1, you repeat the cycle... Adjusting your maintenance dose to meet demand of your system.

Edit: I make this suggestion on a low demand tank because our tests are relatively inaccurate and testing every other day or so can lead us to chasing.

 

[diciple]

The corals pictured don't look bad where are they placed in tank as too lighting and flow also 10 nitrates need bring that down the acro with no pe place low in tank move up after you see pe
As others posted patience
Some corals don't show pe for weeks it's normal adjustment for them
Also you have a deep sand bed have tried cleaning sand?pick a small! Section on sand and lightly siphon you don't want too get crazy siphoning just say area 10"x10" use turkey baster to blow deritous off rocks this will help bring some of nitrates down
Remember what goes in your tank nutrient wise must come out keep us posted hope you success

 

[mkoop]

Thanks everyone, I'll address some of the questions and in regards to some of the practices I appreciate the advice very much. I think a few issues may be contributing and I'll be working to correct these.

I think the most difficult part for me right now is that I have no personal frame of reference with SPS. I'm in some what of a trial and error stage as I don't know specifically what to look for and what to adjust/how much etc. I feel I have several things that are "close to good" but not quite there yet.

If you don't have a hanna checker for your phosphates, definitely get one. I always thought mine was 0 until I got a hanna. I am using a the Hannah checker and have tested with reagents from two different batches, so I am fairly confident in that reading

If it's only been a couple of months I wouldn't worry. SPS need time (sometime months) to color up and start growing when moving to a new system. Just be patient. Thanks, it's not that I'm wanting to rush them, more that I don't have a frame of if they are doing okay or not and was afraid I was slowly killing them, they can take all the time they want to grow as far as I'm concerned as long as its not the opposite

Why is your alk jumping half a point up and down? I know you said WC but I'm confused to weather its causing it to increase or decrease. Half a dkh probably isn't hurting just curious. It looks better later in the month but 3-2 thru 3-5 was kinda up and down.Thanks - I was able to get things more stable later in the month, I think the bouncing represents my incorrect dosing practice, I was trying to adjust to the swings as needed as opposed to doing a WC, dosing to the appropriate level and then using my dosing pump to keep it there. Also in regards to your question on WC's, I've seen almost the opposite in regards to what I've read about WC's and alk spikes. My WC's almost always correspond with a drop in alk, don't really understand why

I don't know a dang thing about al Sol but 80% white seems kinda high? You might look into that cause I want to think I seem to read people running white around 40%? Could be completely wrong on that though....I'll look into this, it's possible I have the whites too high - thanks this gives me another lead to look into

Also, your Alk is extremely jumpy... Gotta get those swings minimized.

Since your consumption is low and your water changes are regular I would recommend doing a water change on day 1, after the change you should test and dose to your desired parameters... Days 2-7 all you do is dose your maintenance of alk/calcium.

When you make it back to day 1, you repeat the cycle... Adjusting your maintenance dose to meet demand of your system.

Edit: I make this suggestion on a low demand tank because our tests are relatively inaccurate and testing every other day or so can lead us to chasing.
Thank you very much for this, I found this very helpful. This leads me to believe I have been dosing incorrectly and brought me to some conclusions I mentioned above. I will start doing my dosing this way, I have been doing what I suspect you refer to as 'chasing' testing every other day and using a dosing calculator to then bring things back where I want them. I'll start using this practice.

The corals pictured don't look bad where are they placed in tank as too lighting and flow also 10 nitrates need bring that down the acro with no pe place low in tank move up after you see pe Okay, thanks, I'll move him lower and bring him back up gradually after I see the polyp extension. My fear was that I was not giving them sufficient light

The acro is about 8" from surface, lights are about 8" above surface. I assume them to be getting sufficient flow as I occasionally see the slime they are producing and it is normally removed in short order.

As others posted patience
Some corals don't show pe for weeks it's normal adjustment for them
Also you have a deep sand bed have tried cleaning sand?pick a small! Section on sand and lightly siphon you don't want too get crazy siphoning just say area 10"x10" use turkey baster to blow deritous off rocks this will help bring some of nitrates down I have been using the turkey baster on the rocks, I have done sandbed cleaning, about 5"x5" immediately prior to my WC. I'll try doing a bigger area and see if that makes an impact
Remember what goes in your tank nutrient wise must come out keep us posted hope you success

 

[dowtish]

If you are always getting a 0.00 reading on your hanna phos checker I would suggest feeding more. 0.00 will starve your SPS IMO. Get some nutrients in the tank for the corals to consume, otherwise they will starve, fade, or worse.

 

[mkoop]

If you are always getting a 0.00 reading on your hanna phos checker I would suggest feeding more. 0.00 will starve your SPS IMO. Get some nutrients in the tank for the corals to consume, otherwise they will starve, fade, or worse.

I took my GFO off line last night, I'm going to feed normal for a few days and see if that brings it up to a readable range.

I'm not entirely sure how to feed more to bring phos up without making a bigger problem of currently stable ~10 nitrates.

 

[adtravels]

Make the alk in your wc water match the alk in your tank......bingo
Dont chase phosphate or the like just stability with alk.

for me alk swings will cause coral discomfort.

alk 8-9 max swing
calc 420
mg 1200 to 1400

I have a 4 week old sps tank, it has an anemone, sps frags and colonies and is booming.

 

[rovster]

Brown is usually a sign of nutrients or too little light. 3 sols on a 180 is kinda lacking for sps. I would move the frags directly under the unit and see if that helps.

 

[mkoop]

Thanks everyone. I think I have a few great take aways from this:

1) My alk swings are too big, I need to change the way I am dosing and make my WC water match alk to display before change.
2) My nitrates and phosphates are close but possibly out of whack? My lack of phos may be starving my corals, while my nitrate level may also be causing issues.
3) My lighting is possibly out of whack? I may have insufficient lighting or have far to much lighting? As I was originally told 3 AI sols would be sufficient, then that my white intensity may be too high and lastly that my lighting may be insufficient, this bit still has me confused.

While I feel that I have a grasp on how to get 1 and 2 corrected, 3 still leaves me confused. I feel like I don't have a good handle on my lighting or what it should be. I've been trying to avoid purchasing a PAR meter but I feel that might be the direction I need to go to get this sorted out before I get any additional SPS.

 

[shlap]

3) My lighting is possibly out of whack? I may have insufficient lighting or have far to much lighting? As I was originally told 3 AI sols would be sufficient, then that my white intensity may be too high and lastly that my lighting may be insufficient, this bit still has me confused.

In regards to lighting, I think 3 sols is a bit underpowered. I have 3 Hydra 52's 10" above my 150 gal and I'm only getting 550 PAR on top of my rocks directly underneath the lights (maybe 7-8" below the water line). See my PAR readings here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22247686&postcount=16

Also, I think the Sols are 2:1 blue to white right? If that's the case I don't think the whites being at 80% is much of an issue. It does come more into play if the blue/white ratio is 1:1 though. This part is about spectrum, not light intensity.

Finally if you're absolutely certain your phosphate is always 0.00, definitely raise it up with a bit more feeding. Keep checking that nitrates don't go up any more but I wouldn't stress over 10. Just do what was mentioned, siphon off the sand in small bits here and there and blow off the rocks.

Good luck and just relax and enjoy your tank. You could probably change nothing and eventually your sticks will adjust and come around :beer:

 

[brad_G]

Some times it just takes a long time to get color out of sps ! I have several frags that show amazing color as well as a few small colonies. Then I have my in between stuff but I have 3 frags and a colony I just can't get color out of. I have one frag that has been in the same place in the same tank for 8 months that was brown and showed no signs of growing. About 3 weeks ago I noticed the tips were turning blue and now I can see steady growth.

Nitrates of 10 is on the high side but I think you should be able to pull color even at that. As long as your sps are brown I think they will survive. Light colors or washed out white makes me worry a lot more than brown (little good news maybe).

Really I don't see signs of stn and they haven't rtn. Don't make any huge changes because even if they aren't colored up at least they are still alive. You're close just might need a little tweak on nitrates.

 

[trueblackpercula]

Brown is usually a sign of nutrients

when you say that do you mean not enough or to much?

 

[brad_G]

when you say that do you mean not enough or to much?

Too much to achieve color.

The theory is the coral can use nutrients from the water to provide energy and rely less on photosynthesis.

 

[trueblackpercula]

Too much to achieve color.

The theory is the coral can use nutrients from the water to provide energy and rely less on photosynthesis.

To much nutrients meaning po4 and nitrates correct?

 

[Deadcalm]

Bacteria need both nitrate and phosphate at a ratio of 16/1. Without po4 the bacteria can't lower the nitrate. To get your coral back on track I would feed more and not worry about po4 as long as they're lower then 0.06. Your coral will get darker and brown and then start to color up and grow again. You might even dose Microbactor7 to get your bacteria population up.