Getting that color??

[allsps40]

mexican turbos will take care of that asperagopsis.

Nothing seems to be eating it. But if it stars to make a come back I will try to find some mexican turbos. I should put some in my fuge since thats where the CCA started and I couldnt get it all out of there without disturbing the sand bed.

 

[allsps40]

Ok I got all the CCA out of the main tank. I will need to hit the fuge again in about a week. All this in the last few days has equaled about a 40% water change. I started the 2x per week vodka dosing .1ml. So we will see if that goes well. All new fish seem happy and are eating well. I am now feeding more and have not seem an increase in N or P.

 

[allsps40]

Update. This one is mostly about me. I work as a mechanic, and yesterday at work I had a radiator blow up on me. I got second degree burns on my left upper thigh and first to second degree burns on my left arm. It was the worst pain I have ever been in. But it could have been worse. I will be off work for at least a week so I will play with the camera setting to get better pics. All is well with my reef, I did loose my blue lemonade to stn caused by the bleaching. I really liked this coral.

 

[allsps40]

I am starting to get a small diatom bloom on my glass, brown diatoms. Not to bad but I have not had this happen to my tank since I started it. Nitrates and phos still at 0 ppm, chaeto not growing much and dosing .1ml vodka twice a week.

 

[allsps40]

Update. My pink birds nest is all pink again, it went brown after I got it. It is pale pink but pink, needs to darken up now. I have started to increase my vodka dose again to .1ml daily to stop this diatom bloom. I still have not seen much growth in my chaeto. Should I also start dosing bacteria along with the vodka??

 

[Daniel Reef]

Can you post a pic? TIA

 

[allsps40]

Yeah here is a pic of the pink birds nest I just took. This camera sucks I cant get it to take good pic that shows the real colors . And what does TIA mean?

Sorry no before pic of it but there is one of it if you look at some of the pics at the beginning of this page. Its next to a monti cap.

 

[Alex T.]

Why not stop the vodka entirely? You said that you started to see improvement in color and started dosing again. Maybe it was nutrients that you were lacking. I'd stick with what's working right now and see where it goes. You can always tweak it later.

 

[reefyourself]

ive been dosing vsv now for two weeks. I feed my tank twice a day and dose potassium, iodine and a couple of drops of combisan. i have also hooked up a reactor with NeoZeo. My goal is toget my nitrates down between 1-3 and then cut vsv dose in half. I also dose zeovit products daily(phols, aminos, vitalizer, and zeobak for bacteria source). I do weekly water changes (religiously). Biggest thing ive seen for coloration so far is ultra stable params (hardly any drop in calcium and a -0.06 drop in 12 hours lights on to a +0.06 raise lights off to next morning).

for example, my alk in the morning is 3.15meq/L.... drops to 3.09meq/L in 12 hours then in morning is back at 3.15.

Ideally, alk is the main factor to sps coloration (IMO). Keep it as stable as possible.

Anything other is just tweaking. VSV is especially good for nuissance algae(still battling some bubble) but has complelty stopped growing )

did i mention my tank is a 20 gallon?

will post pictures of my sps tmr

 

[reefyourself]

plus isnt the purpose of vsv dosing or zeo or neozeo... any method actually.... is so that one can overfeed and provide a rich environment for their corals without getting any nuissances? Feed like crazy that is!!!! and also develop a source of bacterioplankton to further feed them?... the whole point for me to dose vsv and have neozeo rocks in reactor is to build a good source of bacterioplankton s well as feed 2-3 times per day...

 

[allsps40]

Why not stop the vodka entirely? You said that you started to see improvement in color and started dosing again. Maybe it was nutrients that you were lacking. I'd stick with what's working right now and see where it goes. You can always tweak it later.

I never stopped vodka dosing. I have thought about stopping and going the opposite direction by raising no3. But right now I am giving this a try. It seems to be working, the improvement in color as happened while vodka dosing.

 

[allsps40]

plus isnt the purpose of vsv dosing or zeo or neozeo... any method actually.... is so that one can overfeed and provide a rich environment for their corals without getting any nuissances? Feed like crazy that is!!!! and also develop a source of bacterioplankton to further feed them?... the whole point for me to dose vsv and have neozeo rocks in reactor is to build a good source of bacterioplankton s well as feed 2-3 times per day...

Yep that is very correct. This is 1 of 2 reasons why I started to dose. I have never had a problem with no3 or po4 so there was no to lower them. I did want to feed more and supply my corals with bacterial foods as well. For me right now carbon dosing is a test to see what happens and if it works for sps colors. Or if its the added foods that can be fed when carbon dosing. Oh and my alk stay stable at 8-9 dkh, Ca stay around 460-480. Ph is harder for me ranges from 8.2-7.8, saw the lowest ph yet yesterday 7.7 lights off. My tank is well oxygenated and sits next to a window that gets opened at night now to let fresh air in. Was trying to see if that would increase ph.

 

[allsps40]

Ok another update. I have stopped the vodka dosing for about a week now. I did this for 2 reasons. 1 being that my Lord Acan has started to recede and lost some polyps and my xenia has shrunken up. 2 I have not really seen an improvement in most of my sps, nothing to make me keep dosing. After picking the brain of 3 local reefers at Reef Culture (they are great) they all feel I may have a trace element issue. Switching salts is on the list and has been, Reef Crystals is a poor salt. I have never been happy with it. Tropic Marin Pro Reef, H2Ocean, Reefer and Tropic Marin are all possible to be replacing the RCs. Any opinions on the H2Ocean and the normal Tropic Marin?? I have also replenished my fuge's Mineral Mud. This was highly recommended by the guys at Reef Culture, to release trace elements. I had not replaced or added mineral mud since I started the tank 3 years ago. I will be taking a water sample to them to test everything. Skip @ Reef Culture thinks I may have po3 that is causing my color issues so I want to test for that to confirm my tests. Also dosing Coral Kolor if I dont see a change from new salt and new mineral mud.

 

[agsansoo]

At what rate have your corals been growing ?

I'm not a big fan of Phoenix 14k's. They look 20K but their par is very high with good reflectors. I bleached half my tank when I switch to those about 9 months ago. Do you have a PAR meter ?

My vote is for Tropic Marin Pro. Try it, you won't be disappointed.

 

[allsps40]

Yeah I have use Pro Reef in the past and love it. My grow has slowed a bit. No PAR meter. If you read the whole thread I had bleaching with my old dual 150 watt Phoenix 14k set up. I may use normal Tropic Marin, the Pro is designed for use with kalk or a Ca reactor. But I still swear by the Pro Reef.
I had my water tested today by LFS. Phos on Elos kit was 0.024 so thats good. My Potassium was way high at 800 high as kit could go, also on Elos. NSW is 400. SO I am not going to dose that or anything else but iodine in small amounts. I am making water now to do a large water change to get the potassium back down. I am going to get a new bulb very soon either another Phoenix or a XM 20k.

 

[epicurus84]

For some reason all LSP here (any color) grow greath. But SPS (any) mostly grow and show great colour/polyp extension if they are either red or green. Any other colors either turn into red or green or die.

Except for one acro that has green polyps but purplish growth tips.

I know its more expensive, but imho when the water is good, do not drop in one coral, but buy several tiny ones, less waste to get onto them, and for some reason, the more corals I got the better they all do.

 

[93Foxstang]

Im not sure I would worry about trace elements with the amount of water you are changing you may be losing good bacteria cleaning your sand and changing your mud seems like to much all at once for a small water volume. How many hours do you run the Halide?

 

[allsps40]

I run the light for 9 hours a day no actinics. I did not clean all the sand and only added to the mineral mud. I did the sand a few weeks ago and the mineral mud 3 days ago. I have plenty of mature LR so not worried about bacteria. Had 60 lbs before removing any and I still have 50-55 lbs.
Update on coral colors. I continue to keep pinks no problem porci, birds nest and stylo all looking good. My caps continue to slowly improve in color. My super man had some die off, dont know why it was doing great. Should recover fine. Scrips milli is still brown with some green to it. My lord acan low several polyps I think to much flow so I moved it. Oh I also took out a piece of LR to open up some space. A few other acros have yet to color back up but I can tell they are getting there. My large tubs birds nest is still brown with white growth tips, want to get it green again. I moved a frag off the frag rack today to its place in the tank, hope it will do well and color up. It bleached a little, it was under T5s when I bought it. I will post a pick of the new look since remove the piece of LR. Not a huge change but it opens things up more.

 

[allsps40]

Here is a pic of the new rock work, like I said not big a change.
before

after

some of the corals that are coloring up nicely

I think I have gotten the camera set as good as it gets colors are close.

 

[allsps40]

Under water video just click it
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