Help with Acropora

[seamcintyre]

Hey everyone I am having some issues with the majority of my Acroporas. I have been reading as much as I possibly can but would like to see what some others with experience think.

Firstly here is my system specs, ext...
Also I know a picture is worth a thousand words and I will post the best pictures I can of said corals later this evening.

250G Marineland DD Display
100G Sump w/fuge. Cheato which is lit opposite to my DT
Iwaki 40rlxt return
x3 MP40 Antisync Reefcrest 100%
x4 Radion Generation 2
BRS GFO (high capacity) and Carbon (rox 0.8) Reactors
UV Sterilizer
BRS Two part dosing (automatic)
Eshopps S200 skimmer
100 micron filter socks changed every 48-72 hours

79F
Nitrate: ~1ppm
ALK: 7.2DKH (Hanna)
CAL: 430ppm (Hanna)
P04: 0.13ppm (Hanna)
SG: 1.025

Water Changes 20G twice a week with Reef Crystals RO/DI siphon substrate and debris out of sump (hardly any)

1 Lyretail Anthias 3"
2 Squareback Anthias 3.5"
1 Goldhead Sleeper Goby 3"
1 Foxface Lo 5"
1 Hippo Tang 5"
1 Yellow Tang 4"
2 Ocellaris clowns 3"
1 Algae Eating Blenny 3"

The tank has been up and running since Feb 22, 2013 which makes it a little over six months old now.

All coral is growing well and has polyp extension (including the acros) I have four colonies that are virtually the same distance from the lights, roughly 20"

Pink Lemonade
TriColor
Pearlberry
and an unknown species

like I said before they all have grown and have polyp extension however the Pink Lemonade and Pearlberry have become quite brown and the TriColor and the unknown have bleached? in the middle but have good color in the tips.

Observations I have. I know bleaching and browning can be caused by a laundry list of things. Things that I have been doing is changing my GFO almost daily in an attempt to bring down the P04. Cutting my feeding down to once a day. I have only some film algae that grows on the glass of the aquarium, no other in the display. However I do have cyanobacteria growing in my fuge. I am in the process of keeping the fuge lights off, manually cleaning it out and adding additional circulation to help.

I am hoping to be able to bring the P04 down to somewhere around the .05~ area and see if the color returns. In addition I am also considering either increasing the intensity of the lights or turning them down.

Any advice or information would be GREATLY appreciated because I am not sure what else to do exactly. I really do not like the idea of carbon dosing to help with phosphate or running any type of biopellets.

 

[jda]

PO4 issues in a new tank are not uncommon. It can take up to a year of the bacteria to full develop in the sandbed (if you have one) to manage nitrate and phosphate effectively. I might recommend a second test kit since it should be down to nothing if you are changing GFO every day.

Are you growing coralline very well?

The garbage spectrum the the razors could be making the corals unhappy. What do you have the whites set at?

 

[seamcintyre]

Yes I have quite a bit of coralline growing- mainly pink/red on the glass, rocks and overflows.
I have the radions set at-

100% Blue
100% Light Blue
75% White
0% Green
15% Red

Overall intensity is 60% for six hours. It is a ten hour photoperiod with two hour ramping up and down.

I am finding that I am having a hard time figuring out the best settings for the radions. I have seen people have horrible to fantastic success with them set on all different settings.

 

[seamcintyre]

Disclaimer: I have a crap camera and my photo skills are equally crap, I can only hope that the pictures help explain my issue.

Unknown Acro, it is starting to get quite white in the middle but the tips are still teal colored. It has PE and has grown quite a bit.

This is the Pink Lemonade, when I got it it was about 1/2" little branch. It is still quite small however it is encrusting and has PE. It has turned quite brownish.

This is the Pearlberry it also has PE and has about doubled in size, however quite brown.

TriColor, PE, encrusting and has about doubled in size. Tips are purple and polyps are green but the body is a light brown color.

 

[Spslvr]

they seem ok to me, they are only quite new, and it is not uncommon for acros to go through an adjustment period. ive had acros go brown for months before they start to color up again.

also once u get the po4 under control they will look much better

 

[seamcintyre]

Thanks for the info but anyone have any other suggestions? Lighting alright or should I change spectrum ?

 

[biggles]

I think the high phos is definitely contributing to the brown outs but i'd urge you to check out the spectrums some of the guys having success with LED's are running, pretty sure you need to turn down those whites some more and use the greens.
What foods go into the tank each day and have you tried swapping to something diff in case some of the phos is coming from those. Just throwing out ideas for you to consider, i don't think it's a big prob but the longer it goes on the longer it's going to take to get the colors back so hopefully you can nip it in the bud now mate. Btw try turning the blues right down so the tank looks yucky yellow and then take a few shots, they won't look yellow trust me

 

[Dsotto]

I'm new to SPS as well but from what I've read on others successful sps tanks the alk looks low. I think the lights need some tweaking as well. I think that's a little intense even for sps.

 

[seamcintyre]

Thanks for the reply. I agree that there needs to be some tweaking to the lights as well. However the I am not really comfortable raising my ALK any. I like to keep it near natural sea water, also from what I have read it seems that higher ALK is more in line with ULN tanks. Which is not what I am attempting to do

 

[bills tank]

From the many many years ive been in the hobby and the exstensive reading ive done spslvr is pretty on with what was said . Just about all sps but acros more go thru a period where they adjust there biochromes and zooanthelia to adjust and adapt to different lighting and photoperiods kinda like us using sunscreen to pertect themselves and when comfortable they will start to show their true colors again . Now with that being said it can be other factors but thats what ive learned and experianced over my twenty plus yrs in the hobby .

 

[seamcintyre]

A few updates in my situation. Firstly my hanna checker was giving me incorrect po4 readings because of a bad batch of reagents. It is actually much lower than I thought roughly 0.04~

Secondly based on the information in this thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2315500 which is the most informative r thing I've read regarding leds for use in aquariums. I've been running my radions as incorrectly as possible.

I've increased my feedings to twice a day and have reduced the amount of gfo by half.

I've changed my lights to
100% Rb
100% B
10% W
100% G
80% R

Overall intensity 65%

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[power boat jim]

A few updates in my situation. Firstly my hanna checker was giving me incorrect po4 readings because of a bad batch of reagents. It is actually much lower than I thought roughly 0.04~

Secondly based on the information in this thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2315500 which is the most informative r thing I've read regarding leds for use in aquariums. I've been running my radions as incorrectly as possible.

I've increased my feedings to twice a day and have reduced the amount of gfo by half.

I've changed my lights to
100% Rb
100% B
10% W
100% G
80% R

Overall intensity 65%

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

I have a stupid question, maybe I dont understand how your particular LEDs operate but how can you run the two blues and green at 100%, whites at 10% and red at 80 and call it 65% intensity? It seems to me the blues are at 100% intensity and the whites at 10% intensity and so on.

 

[seamcintyre]

There is a control for each color channel then and overall control for intensity which I have set at 65%

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[power boat jim]

OK, I knew there had to be a reason.