I'm a bit over a year and a half back into the hobby and I must say things are much harder this time around. First time I had a reef set-up was circa 2000 where I had a 180 with a berlin set-up, 3 175w 14k MH's and 4 48" VHO actinics and I had SPS,LPS and a 18" diameter hetractus anemone. Fish were healthy, Corals grew to the point of making me some money. Only supplements was Kalk and occasional epsom salts and baking soda. I never tested anything but Ca and Alk.
Now I have a 93 gal cube at my office and have had quite an issue with corals. I have been on this forum and others, pouring over advice and trying different things. First I thought It was poor Water quality and began carbon dosing and chasing numbers, added carbon and GFO, Polyfilters, Ceramic media, filter socks, upgraded skimmer and did daily water changes. Then I was advised that I was starving the tank so I removed carbon dosing, filter socks, dropped back to bimonthy WC's fed 4x per day and let nutients come up a bit. Still No luck.
So as of April this year I began focusing on acquiring what I need to set up a 120 at home because I apparently like to make my life difficult. And I took an attitude with my office tank of "what ever lives, lives, whatever doesn't, oh well" and I was not going to buy another coral until I figure it out. And what I have seen is all LPS/SPS is gone, Paly/Zoa's are retracted and diminishing and the rest is all soft corals/shrooms which are alive but not growing.
I know everybody loves numbers so here is the averages of my log over the past 5 months
No3- 1ppm (red sea)
PO4 - 0.02 (hanna)
Ca - 450 (hanna)
Alk - 10 (red sea)
PH 8-8.2 (APEX)
Temp 78
MG 1300
SG 1.025
Sorry for the rant, now on to the question. I have observed that everything left standing in the tank is lower light corals. Lighting has been the only thing that has been constant from day one and I assumed because I have an g2 ecotech radion over the tank that this was enough light. Could this not be the case? The light is set on a parabolic curve from 0-100% intensity. 11 hour on, 20k to start the day shifting to 14 k at midday then shift back to 20k at evening. The light is 12 inches off the water to get a full 30" spread.
When I think back to my old set up the tank seemed much brighter but I have heard countless warnings on "don't run the radions full throttle or you'll burn everthing" so I figured the light must be bright enough.
Do I change the program? Lower the light? get another one? ditch it and go to t5/MH?
Thanks for any insight
Dave
Now I have a 93 gal cube at my office and have had quite an issue with corals. I have been on this forum and others, pouring over advice and trying different things. First I thought It was poor Water quality and began carbon dosing and chasing numbers, added carbon and GFO, Polyfilters, Ceramic media, filter socks, upgraded skimmer and did daily water changes. Then I was advised that I was starving the tank so I removed carbon dosing, filter socks, dropped back to bimonthy WC's fed 4x per day and let nutients come up a bit. Still No luck.
So as of April this year I began focusing on acquiring what I need to set up a 120 at home because I apparently like to make my life difficult. And I took an attitude with my office tank of "what ever lives, lives, whatever doesn't, oh well" and I was not going to buy another coral until I figure it out. And what I have seen is all LPS/SPS is gone, Paly/Zoa's are retracted and diminishing and the rest is all soft corals/shrooms which are alive but not growing.
I know everybody loves numbers so here is the averages of my log over the past 5 months
No3- 1ppm (red sea)
PO4 - 0.02 (hanna)
Ca - 450 (hanna)
Alk - 10 (red sea)
PH 8-8.2 (APEX)
Temp 78
MG 1300
SG 1.025
Sorry for the rant, now on to the question. I have observed that everything left standing in the tank is lower light corals. Lighting has been the only thing that has been constant from day one and I assumed because I have an g2 ecotech radion over the tank that this was enough light. Could this not be the case? The light is set on a parabolic curve from 0-100% intensity. 11 hour on, 20k to start the day shifting to 14 k at midday then shift back to 20k at evening. The light is 12 inches off the water to get a full 30" spread.
When I think back to my old set up the tank seemed much brighter but I have heard countless warnings on "don't run the radions full throttle or you'll burn everthing" so I figured the light must be bright enough.
Do I change the program? Lower the light? get another one? ditch it and go to t5/MH?
Thanks for any insight
Dave
), so I've made a transition from MH and VHO/T5HO to LED. This is my opinion, take it as such. If you are having issues with a tank, I'd very strongly consider going back to the lighting that you know and trust. Don't get me wrong, I do think that LED lighting works to grow SPS if you have fixtures that have a significant UV/Violet output, and you're willing to put the $$$ in to get sufficient fixtures to cover the are of the tank. IMO, this limits choices to the higher end fixtures like the Radions, Kessils, Orphek Atlantik, AI Hydra 52s, etc., and you need about 1-1/2 times the number of fixtures to cover the tank area than is typically stated in the manufacturer's literature.
