Help Me Color My SPS. Timeline

[milsaltnewbie07]

Hey guys , first of happy Turkey Day to every one. I been struggling with my tank to get any good color out of my sps for a while now. Its really getting to me lately. Just seems, that few weeks after I get any new frag , I starts to loose its color. Specially reds and pinks. Yes I have LED, but I refuse to give in on the thought that they suck. Plenty of tanks out there that are thriving with them and getting good to decent colors. Anyways here are my parameters

n03 . Undetec Salifert
PO4. 0.01 hanna
Calcium - 400
Alk - 8.6dkh Salifert
Mag - 1400 Salifert
Temp - 81F

Dosing- TLF Calc-12ml A day , Alk 6 lm a day, 5ml of Acropower daily. Mag 5 ml EOD. All is done by Doser, Calc and alk are dosed in half doses 2 times a day. IMO im consuming almost no ALK, even dosing 6ml and im having trouble to bring it below 8 dkh. Also started on the prodibio program about 4 weeks ago. Since my no3 was at 10 and po4 at .40. I also had GHA everywhere. However surprisingly my sticks were growing very good, but color lacked. So I decided to give Prodibio a try.

Lighs
2 Ai hydras(1 26, and 1 regular). Im using Wazzels graph at 65 reduction.

I will try to document this as often as I can. Please Advice on what can I do to improve things Thanks in advace for the suggestion
Enjoy

 

[scrapz]

If youre coral are not dying, leave the system alone for a few weeka to stabilize. Getting good colors is all about stability, not chasing number. You'll see many great tanks with parameters in all sorta of ranges.

One of the tanks with the best color I've seen was full of algae and the owner never once tested his water. He just kept on his regimen of water changes and set his calcium reactor to keep his ph stable.

K.I.S.S. method.

 

[mhucasey]

Hey guys , first of happy Turkey Day to every one. I been struggling with my tank to get any good color out of my sps for a while now. Its really getting to me lately. Just seems, that few weeks after I get any new frag , I starts to loose its color. Specially reds and pinks. Yes I have LED, but I refuse to give in on the thought that they suck. Plenty of tanks out there that are thriving with them and getting good to decent colors. Anyways here are my parameters

n03 . Undetec Salifert
PO4. 0.01 hanna
Calcium - 400
Alk - 8.6dkh Salifert
Mag - 1400 Salifert
Temp - 81F

Dosing- TLF Calc-12ml A day , Alk 6 lm a day, 5ml of Acropower daily. Mag 5 ml EOD. All is done by Doser, Calc and alk are dosed in half doses 2 times a day. IMO im consuming almost no ALK, even dosing 6ml and im having trouble to bring it below 8 dkh. Also started on the prodibio program about 4 weeks ago. Since my no3 was at 10 and po4 at .40. I also had GHA everywhere. However surprisingly my sticks were growing very good, but color lacked. So I decided to give Prodibio a try.

Lighs
2 Ai hydras(1 26, and 1 regular). Im using Wazzels graph at 65 reduction.

I will try to document this as often as I can. Please Advice on what can I do to improve things Thanks in advace for the suggestion
Enjoy

Can you list the size of the tank and total volume of the system? Details of your filtration?

 

[ug.mac]

If youre coral are not dying, leave the system alone for a few weeka to stabilize. Getting good colors is all about stability, not chasing number. You'll see many great tanks with parameters in all sorta of ranges.

Couldn't agree more on this one.

I too had the similar issue with my tank, I have used most nutrient control methods available on the market just so I don't see algae. All these methods did very good job stripping NO3/PO4 out of water, but also starve all my coral to death, and algae still growing. Finally at one point I got BAD algae outbreak and STN on all the corals, so I did 100% water change, stop all carbon source and additives. I even stopped Ca/Alk/Mg dosing for a week so I can calculate new dosage.

Long story short, it has been about 2 month since and I'm very happy with my SPS color now, they are the best I've ever seen in my tank. Basically all I do now is dosing two parts in equal mount 8 times per day (via doser), test ALK once a week test Ca/Mg once per month to make adjustments. I have a small refugium growing chaeto, Puregin in media bag, GFO in reactor but very low water flow. I feed 1/2 frozen cube per day, Aquavitro Fuel/Coral Frenzy twice a week. I don't have any algae issues and all SPS are growing at the rate I have never seen in this tank before.

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

If youre coral are not dying, leave the system alone for a few weeka to stabilize. Getting good colors is all about stability, not chasing number. You'll see many great tanks with parameters in all sorta of ranges.

One of the tanks with the best color I've seen was full of algae and the owner never once tested his water. He just kept on his regimen of water changes and set his calcium reactor to keep his ph stable.

K.I.S.S. method.

Couldnt have said it better. The thing is for the most part asides from a alk spike to 12.5 i had last month , my parameters are very spot on. Only reason i even started prodibio is because of my insane algae outbreak was killing stuff. However my reds and pinks have never been there.

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Can you list the size of the tank and total volume of the system? Details of your filtration?

Tank is a 62 cube, plus 20g sump with a bm nac 5.5 skimmer , cheaton and matrix and gfo both in a bag. Return is a mag 7, flow in the tank is a gyre 130, and mp10

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Here are some pics. My blues and purples look good to me, but reds and greens are bad. Either brown or washed.

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[C.Eymann]

Is that last pic an ORA Verde acro?
I'll be following along as well, I'm about to start carbon dosing because I have to feed alot (anthias) I have also been considering trying red seas three part color trace element program as I have a really oversized skimmer and run carbon pretty regularly.
So I'm concerned I'm stripping the water of certain elements that contribute to coral coloring. I do run a calcium reactor and some think that there are trace elements delivered that way, which is probably partly true, but doubt all the essentials. Currently I dose kz coral amino, coralvite and lugols.

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Is that last pic an ORA Verde acro?
I'll be following along as well, I'm about to start carbon dosing because I have to feed alot (anthias) I have also been considering trying red seas three part color trace element program as I have a really oversized skimmer and run carbon pretty regularly.
So I'm concerned I'm stripping the water of certain elements that contribute to coral coloring. I do run a calcium reactor and some think that there are trace elements delivered that way, which is probably partly true, but doubt all the essentials. Currently I dose kz coral amino, coralvite and lugols.

The last pick is a tri color that wont color up. I have 2 different one athat were completely different when i got them and they both look horrible

 

[mneddy]

It looks like too much light for a long time and a lack of good flow. Good flow will get your polyps extended. Corals are clearly bleached to me. Can you please let us know for how long you run those lights and how far they're from the water surface.

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Lights are 12 awl. I run wazzel graph at 60% reduction. Which puts it at 48 all channels exept whites at 33 and uv 15. Flow its insane in my tank, doubt its flow related. I have to run mp10 at 10% and gyre at 50 otherwise if crazy

 

[C.Eymann]

It looks like too much light for a long time and a lack of good flow. Good flow will get your polyps extended. Corals are clearly bleached to me. Can you please let us know for how long you run those lights and how far they're from the water surface.

Hello neighbor

 

[mneddy]

Hello neighbor

Hey there

 

[mneddy]

Lights are 12 awl. I run wazzel graph at 60% reduction. Which puts it at 48 all channels exept whites at 33 and uv 15. Flow its insane in my tank, doubt its flow related. I have to run mp10 at 10% and gyre at 50 otherwise if crazy

Have you tried to run your lights at peak time for let's say 7 hours and then just low for a couple of hours until they're off. I think that's where people get in trouble with led for running what seems like low par to you for 12 hours. I personally used to have those exact issues and lost some SPS due to this. Switched to 7 hours constant high par with an hour before and after of low light and SPS started to regain colors.

 

[mneddy]

Have you tried to run your lights at peak time for let's say 7 hours and then just low for a couple of hours until they're off. I think that's where people get in trouble with led for running what seems like low par to you for 12 hours. I personally used to have those exact issues and lost some SPS due to this. Switched to 7 hours constant high par with an hour before and after of low light and SPS started to regain colors.

In addition, high par is still reasonable. It's at around 350 on highest SPS.

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Have you tried to run your lights at peak time for let's say 7 hours and then just low for a couple of hours until they're off. I think that's where people get in trouble with led for running what seems like low par to you for 12 hours. I personally used to have those exact issues and lost some SPS due to this. Switched to 7 hours constant high par with an hour before and after of low light and SPS started to regain colors.

Ok so i lowered my photoperiod to 8 hrs and cranked down the whites to 30 from 35. Also started to dose k to help reds , since those seem to be my greatest issues.

 

[lynchmob3000]

Iodine will help reds and pinks

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

I dose prodibio iodi and stroni + .

 

[milsaltnewbie07]

Also, i bumped up my doser to dose 7ml a day of acropower. On a good note i just noticed today , that my acros had nice p e something they never have during day. Could be that last night i dosed coralvits and reefbooster, or the new light schedule. Which is similar, just whites 5% less and only 8 hrs now.

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[mhucasey]

There have been some good suggestions as to ways to fix your issue, which is a combination of too much harsh light and not enough nutrients. For a big improvement I would bring your nitrates up from undetectable to between 2 and 10. You can do this with sodium, calcium, or potassium nitrate, which are readily available online. These fertilizers are typically used for freshwater planted tanks.

Raising nitrates through increased feelings or aminos is more difficult to achieve and control. Adding more fish is better than just feeding more to the fish you have if you don't want to directly dose nitrate.