Having trouble keeping SPS happy.

[Alex T.]

I'm running four 400 watt Radiums on Galaxy ballasts for 5 hours per day on my 72" tank. I also have the bulbs 11 inches off the water in Lumenmax Elite reflectors that really penetrate deep. My tank is 27" deep with the rock structure only 13- 14 inches high and I'm growing SPS on the bottom 4 inches of the tank with light loving Crocea Clams on the sandbed. The rest of the 10 hour photoperiod the tank is VHO actinic only. It took me over 3 months to get my corals used to the intensity working up from only 1 hour per day. I know that 3 bulbs would have been optimal but I have a large 3 inch plastic brace in the middle of the tank, not the normal 2 braces every 2 feet on most stock 6 foot tanks. Hence, the four bulbs instead of three and my interest in upgrading to a more reef friendly and attractive tank.

Being that your tank is not that deep, like you said earlier it's a lot of light and par. Someone on the thread I started informed me that his friend has the ATI Powermodule fixture almost 20 inches off the water and is measuring 400 par on the sand bed. GrimReefer on the T5 Q&A thread even states that a 24 inch tank height does not need overdriven bulbs, and you've got the mac-daddy of overdriven t5 fixtures. That being said, 400 par is enough to make any newly introduced frag a little stressed and lighter in color like what you're seeing. I think we're getting closer to pinpointing your dilemma!

All in all, once they get use to this lighting you're probably going to see some explosive growth spurts and much better coloration. You'll be fragging those colorful sticks and planning your next upgrade. I have a frag of an ORA Purple Digitata sitting on my sandbed that I accidentally broke off the mother colony a couple weeks ago. It's already coloring up and encrusting on the disk. Maybe when we meet up you can take it and put it on your sand bed. If it starts to lose color and bleach out I think you'll be able to gauge if you have too much light.

 

[blakers82]

It runs 0.03-0.05 depending on the the test.


Yes, but it gets exhausted within a couple days. I think my rock must still be leaching small amounts of PO4


Was running zeovit but stopped that over a month ago. Haven't carbon dosed since.


I think I'd rather have brown corals then pale....lol


My RO/DI has TDS and zero PO4. I haven't tested the water freshly mixed with salt, but I'm switching over to ESV salt this week


Yeah I stopped like 5 weeks ago



I do 10% W/C per week and run HC-GFO, but like I said a few days after running it and my PO4 is back up t0 0.03-0.05. I just ordered Roggers Food and was going to start feeding that...I'm scared to dose specific coral foods in fear of polluting the tank

JG1,

First, you've got some nice corals. It will be nice to see them colored up and flourishing one day. I'm sure you know that stable routine is the way to success. (And I must say you have the dedication running that Zeovit schedule LOL ) Whatever you end up doing, I'll echo the one thing you've seen time and time again in this thread.

"Any changes should be done in small increments."
"Nothing good comes overnight."
"Don't crash race cars."

These are all good nuggets. I have a couple questions more on the micro level pertaining to the post above.

How much GFO are you using and at how much flow thru the Rx? And when you say you know you've exhausted the GFO are you actually testing 0 and then .05 a few days later? Is it perhaps simply staying put in the .03-.05 zone???

I'm a bit curious here as most of the experienced reefers I know are changing GFO at 4-6 weeks at the earliest (FYI: For the most part on non-carbon dosing systems). I just wanted to mention that possibility. As for the recent post about photoperiod, if you do decide to decrease your lighting period, which I can't recommend, be sure to do it very

Either way, relax and fall back into your water change schedule. Time is all you need.


Cheers man.



EDIT: "I wonder if i should turn the return pump off though when i feed......the vortechs quickly stir up everything into the overflow if I leave the pump on slowly." Totally! I've got my controller set for a 20-30minute fish/coral feed mode with the return and skimmer powered off and let my Vortechs feed away.

 

[JG1]

I'm running four 400 watt Radiums on Galaxy ballasts for 5 hours per day on my 72" tank. I also have the bulbs 11 inches off the water in Lumenmax Elite reflectors that really penetrate deep. My tank is 27" deep with the rock structure only 13- 14 inches high and I'm growing SPS on the bottom 4 inches of the tank with light loving Crocea Clams on the sandbed. The rest of the 10 hour photoperiod the tank is VHO actinic only. It took me over 3 months to get my corals used to the intensity working up from only 1 hour per day. I know that 3 bulbs would have been optimal but I have a large 3 inch plastic brace in the middle of the tank, not the normal 2 braces every 2 feet on most stock 6 foot tanks. Hence, the four bulbs instead of three and my interest in upgrading to a more reef friendly and attractive tank.

Being that your tank is not that deep, like you said earlier it's a lot of light and par. Someone on the thread I started informed me that his friend has the ATI Powermodule fixture almost 20 inches off the water and is measuring 400 par on the sand bed. GrimReefer on the T5 Q&A thread even states that a 24 inch tank height does not need overdriven bulbs, and you've got the mac-daddy of overdriven t5 fixtures. That being said, 400 par is enough to make any newly introduced frag a little stressed and lighter in color like what you're seeing. I think we're getting closer to pinpointing your dilemma!

All in all, once they get use to this lighting you're probably going to see some explosive growth spurts and much better coloration. You'll be fragging those colorful sticks and planning your next upgrade. I have a frag of an ORA Purple Digitata sitting on my sandbed that I accidentally broke off the mother colony a couple weeks ago. It's already coloring up and encrusting on the disk. Maybe when we meet up you can take it and put it on your sand bed. If it starts to lose color and bleach out I think you'll be able to gauge if you have too much light.

It's true...these PM's are par monsters I almost regret getting this Mack Daddy of a light fixture because it makes it hard to acclimate corals.

I'm going bring the daylight photoperiod down to 5 hours/day and leave the dusk/dawn at 10 hours still

 

[JG1]

JG1,

First, you've got some nice corals. It will be nice to see them colored up and flourishing one day. I'm sure you know that stable routine is the way to success. (And I must say you have the dedication running that Zeovit schedule LOL ) Whatever you end up doing, I'll echo the one thing you've seen time and time again in this thread.

"Any changes should be done in small increments."
"Nothing good comes overnight."
"Don't crash race cars."

These are all good nuggets. I have a couple questions more on the micro level pertaining to the post above.

How much GFO are you using and at how much flow thru the Rx? And when you say you know you've exhausted the GFO are you actually testing 0 and then .05 a few days later? Is it perhaps simply staying put in the .03-.05 zone???

I'm a bit curious here as most of the experienced reefers I know are changing GFO at 4-6 weeks at the earliest (FYI: For the most part on non-carbon dosing systems). I just wanted to mention that possibility. As for the recent post about photoperiod, if you do decide to decrease your lighting period, which I can't recommend, be sure to do it very

Either way, relax and fall back into your water change schedule. Time is all you need.


Cheers man.



EDIT: "I wonder if i should turn the return pump off though when i feed......the vortechs quickly stir up everything into the overflow if I leave the pump on slowly." Totally! I've got my controller set for a 20-30minute fish/coral feed mode with the return and skimmer powered off and let my Vortechs feed away.

Running about 3/4c of the HC-GFO (which you're supposed to run half the quantity of normal GFO) in a BRS Rx with just enough flow to make the top of the media tumble. What I was doing was measuring the effluent PO4 coming out of the Rx. My tank would measure anywhere from 0.03-0.05, and when I'd exchange the GFO the effluent would measure around 0.01 consistently. However, 3 days or so after I change the GFO the effluent PO4 is measuring the same as the tanks PO4. That's how I was determining that the PO4 was exhausted.

What mode are you running the vortechs in during your feed...constant? At what intensity are you running them?

 

[blakers82]

Mine are (anti)synced on reef crest mode and I run them at about 80% power. I will mix it up and manually go to feed mode on the Vortechs occasionally and I also kill them when trying to better target feed. For the most part, Vortechs do a good job of keeping Oyster Feast/Arcti-pods suspended, but not the Spectrum, LOL. I'm on a 6ft. 150gal and I have another 1200gph pump behind some rock work that is always on for flow around the back of my reef.

 

[DeathWish302]

I don't buy into the whole group that says you have to feed your corals too. SPS love clean and stable water. If this was a frag tank with no fish in it I'd say feed the corals. This is probably how all these coral foods got popular in the first place. The added nutrients seem more trouble than they're worth.

Feed your fish some good quality foods and your corals will pick up what passes through the fish. All the coral foods are supersaturated with phosphate.

Alex,

I know this is from a few pages back....

I've been trying to gainthe deep reds and purples from day 1 of sps. I have tried and killed about 3-4 specimens of Garf Bonsai. It's so frustrating! My Pink Mille from Sanjay has always been a skin tone since a month after I received it from him at a frag swap in '06 (?). Grows like a weed and is nearly the size of a canteloupe, but no pink coloration.

I've tried carbon dosing, dabbled in zeo and skimmed so aggressively I sucked the scales of my clowns (JK). I ran a Turf Scrubber for about 2 years and loved the zero nitrate/phosphate readings, but puked with the sps colors.

Within the past few years, I jumped on the Seachem Reef Plus, Reef Chilli, TLF Phyto, Coral Frenzy & everything including the kitchen sink. Now, I think your right about the phosphate sponge that these food represent. I partially disagree about no feedings though, but as you said every tank is different. I'm not basing my ideas on any one setup or individual, but I have to agree with Borneman about feeding.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-07/eb/index.php

I think 'what' you feed is the key. I now only feed DIY prepared food containing mussels, shrimp, smelt, scallops, squid, very very small amount of salmon for oil content, mysis, cyclopeeze, freshly hatched BBS & rotifiers with some spirulina algae wafers all blended together. This is my redneck version of Rod's ridiculously-priced food that does the same job for 10X the qty per $$$. I think these whole foods is what is not bad for a system. My 4 clowns in this tier system eat like pigs and result in a almost zero spike in nitrate with the caulerpra and mangrove growth in my lagoon.

I've found by ceasing all pellet and flake foods (EXCEPT for NLS), there seems to be very little impact of phosphate from NLS. I feed my clowns at least 3x week until they are saturated and 50% of the time feed a moderate meal twice a day. The scraps that are floating int he water act to feed the lagoon scavengers and the corals. I find no negative affect by this heavier feeding. I have found with some 300lb LR / 200lb LS in a 175gal system that this larger feeding regime is required to even keep nitrates at 1ppm w/o carbon dosing or zeolites. It was stunning the amount of algae growth that slowed when I ceased feedint eh dry powder 'coral' feeds.:mad2: I might as well have dumped Miracle Grow in the tank.

I guess my question is what is your feeding rate once you hit a stable plateau? I have spawning pairs of clowns and need to feed enough to supplement their metabolism for egg production, but feel this can be maintained laterally with good coral coloration. I'm still feeling the latest tiered-system upgrade out from a move a year ago. Unfortunately after many years on the East Coast with a sucessful 'profitable' (frag swap sales) sps display, one year later I'm almost at square one with no existing colonies prior to the move. My latest battle with reds and purples and some blues resulted in a near downward spiral as you stated...

After this read, I have to get back to my basics and take a deep breath. Quit dreading looking at my 'normal' tank and wait out the bounty again.

 

[Alex T.]

I'm no expert in the coral coloration department, however there are a couple things that I've personally figured out for myself and what works for me.

As for purples and reds, these seem to be affected by the same stimuli. I find that my purples and reds do a little better lower in the tank and most importantly with some "dirt" in the water column. I try to keep my nitrates detectable at around 2 ppm. Every so often they'll drop down to zero and my purples are the first to lose color.

As for blues, I know that many say you shouldn't dose what you don't test but I've had great success dosing 1 drop of Kent Lugol's solution per day. Within days I noticed better polyp extension and more blue pigment on an unidentified blue stag, a blue mille, ORA Roscoe's Blue, and a Wet Thumb Frags Blue Flame Acro. I don't think this was coincidence because nothing else was changed.

As for yellows and greens, I have no idea what they need specifically. My yellow maricultured bottlebrush is true yellow with some orange tips every once in a while. It is also the first coral to lose some coloration and polyp extension if things go astray, so it's literally my canary in the coal mine.

I don't feed anything else now other than NLS pellets and my reef is doing much better. I use to try and feed Oyster Feast, Amino Acids, and a host of other phosphate fuels when I was carbon dosing but all they did was shut down my skimmer for days and then created algae blooms. Then I got stuck in the neverending cycle of feeding the corals and running GFO. Now I feed the fish 3 healthy pinches of NLS pellets per day, run a more appropriately sized skimmer for my tank and change 15 gallons of salt water per week.

Also, I'm ashamed to say I don't even know how to load pictures. I've taken a good amount of my tank and would like to post them before I upgrade to a larger system in early Fall. My wife is much more saavy with that stuff and although she can't stand our hobby she agreed to sit down with me and help me. Hey, we're all lacking somewhere right?

 

[allsps40]

^ upload photos to your computer them put them on Photobucket, from there you can post them on threads by copy and paste. I also have to agree that Lugol's does help with blues.

 

[gary faulkner]

Alex, What is your total water volume?

Thanks

 

[Alex T.]

My set-up is actually a little tricky because I changed my design.

I have a 150 Marineland Reef Ready display with 2 overflows (72x18x27) that has approximately 125 gallons of water and about 90-100 pounds of live rock. There are two sumps. One is a 29 gallon tank that use to serve as a refugium. Chaeto did fine for the first year and then couldn't sustain itself anymore due to my vodka dosing stage so I pulled it. It's about half way full so I'm guessing roughly 15 gallons. One of the overflows use to drain into the refugium and the other overflow drained into a 29 gallon Rubbermaid container that is plumbed into the 29 gallon refugium. My intent was to have the refugium unskimmed so that pods could flourish and the chaeto could do its' thing. About a year ago I wanted to start a little pet project so now the overflow that originally fed the skimmer passes into a bulkhead in a 30 breeder tank with some SPS and about 20 pounds of live rock and shallow sand bed. The 30 breeder then feeds back into the Rubbermaid container where it is skimmed. Confusing enough?

So, all told I'm guessing I have 125+15+27+30=197 gallons in the total system. The beauty of the large sump volumes is that I can still run four 400 watt Radiums on my display and the tank never gets hot enough to warrant a chiller because of the water volume.

 

[gary faulkner]

Thanks, yea I know what ya mean. I have a 265 display with little rock, 90 fuge with lots of rock 29 fuge with sand and cheato and 50 sump. So I'm guessing that I have about 350-400 total.

Thanks again

 

[JG1]

Just throwing this out there.

What do you guys think about possibly just running 6 bulbs as my daylight photoperiod instead of 8?

 

[Alex T.]

What's the bulb mix you're running now?

 

[JG1]

I'm using 5 Blue plus & 3 KZ New Generations.

I have FP's and AB specials though to play around with

 

[Alex T.]

Aside from the bulb mix, I'm sure your corals can adjust to what you're currently running. Like I stated earlier, I'm running (4) 400 Watt radiums over my 6 foot tank with Galaxy ballasts that overdrive the bulbs like the old PFO HQI ballast does. It's a %$#@ load of light but they got use to it after a little acclimating. I think you just may need to start off with a lot less mid day brightness and work your way up.

 

[DeathWish302]

......It's a %$#@ load of light but they got use to it after a little acclimating. I think you just may need to start off with a lot less mid day brightness and work your way up.

I agree completely! I've started cutting my photo period from 9hrs halide to 7. Eventually I'll be at 4-5 with LED 'spotlights' as the ealry morning and late afternoon lighting. The tank receives indirect lighting from a bay window from 6-7am thru 2-3pm, so any additional spot lights will be for aesthetics.

I've completely pulled all carbon as of yesterday and will run that way for a few weeks to see if I can get some reds and purples to pop.

Other than feeding more pellet & DIY frozen mix, what can I do to up the nitrates? I'm feeding 4 adult clowns currently, 5 BTA and some rics/yumas probably an amount equivalent to 5-8 cubes of Ocean Nutrition weekly. I've shut down my turf scrubber completely in the past few months and have been pulling handfuls of the caulerpa out every week trying to thin the herd. I'm just having problems breaking the 1ppm nitrate barrier with so much LS, LR and macroalgae/mangroves per gallon. This lagoon is working out to be too efficient for it's own good.

I've tried dosing KNO3 before, and may consider another regime of this dosing.

Any ideas?

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

I agree completely! I've started cutting my photo period from 9hrs halide to 7. Eventually I'll be at 4-5 with LED 'spotlights' as the ealry morning and late afternoon lighting. The tank receives indirect lighting from a bay window from 6-7am thru 2-3pm, so any additional spot lights will be for aesthetics.

I've completely pulled all carbon as of yesterday and will run that way for a few weeks to see if I can get some reds and purples to pop.

Other than feeding more pellet & DIY frozen mix, what can I do to up the nitrates? I'm feeding 4 adult clowns currently, 5 BTA and some rics/yumas probably an amount equivalent to 5-8 cubes of Ocean Nutrition weekly. I've shut down my turf scrubber completely in the past few months and have been pulling handfuls of the caulerpa out every week trying to thin the herd. I'm just having problems breaking the 1ppm nitrate barrier with so much LS, LR and macroalgae/mangroves per gallon. This lagoon is working out to be too efficient for it's own good.

I've tried dosing KNO3 before, and may consider another regime of this dosing.

Any ideas?

I would simply up the feeding. Dropping an extra cube here and there should bump up those trates.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Aside from the bulb mix, I'm sure your corals can adjust to what you're currently running. Like I stated earlier, I'm running (4) 400 Watt radiums over my 6 foot tank with Galaxy ballasts that overdrive the bulbs like the old PFO HQI ballast does. It's a %$#@ load of light but they got use to it after a little acclimating. I think you just may need to start off with a lot less mid day brightness and work your way up.

That must look heavenly bright!! :eek2: You must get some crazy nice growth.

 

[Alex T.]

Growth is steady. I wouldn't say it's crazy. I do have a few SPS that seem to grow much faster than others. Keeping LPS is almost out of the question with this much light in an 18" wide tank.

Last I checked I was getting a little over 400 PAR on the sandbed. PAR readings are actually higher between two reflectors rather than directly under one bulb. This may be because the reflectors are only 1.5 inches apart. You could say that the whole tank is a "hotspot". When I upgrade to a larger tank I may just go with 3 halides and large Lumenarcs for more spread rather than the penetration that the Lumenmax Elite reflectors give. That way I'll be able to keep some nice LPS and zoas on the sand bed. The problem with the current tank is the design. A large center brace in the middle means I can't put a halide over it, and one on each 36" opening simply wasn't enough. But four 400's does just fine.:lolspin:

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Growth is steady. I wouldn't say it's crazy. I do have a few SPS that seem to grow much faster than others. Keeping LPS is almost out of the question with this much light in an 18" wide tank.

Last I checked I was getting a little over 400 PAR on the sandbed. PAR readings are actually higher between two reflectors rather than directly under one bulb. This may be because the reflectors are only 1.5 inches apart. You could say that the whole tank is a "hotspot". When I upgrade to a larger tank I may just go with 3 halides and large Lumenarcs for more spread rather than the penetration that the Lumenmax Elite reflectors give. That way I'll be able to keep some nice LPS and zoas on the sand bed. The problem with the current tank is the design. A large center brace in the middle means I can't put a halide over it, and one on each 36" opening simply wasn't enough. But four 400's does just fine.:lolspin:

Sounds like a pretty sweet setup. Have you considered going with 250's? I think you'd be able to 'mix' it up a little and cut down on electrical at the same time? Just a thought..