Help with SPS color

[danil]

from what I am learning is if you want to have good growth you need to have some nutrients, then you can raise the alk and calcium and get growth. In the research I have been doing and some advice I was giving was to raise NO3 to 1-2ppm, PO4 to .06-.08 at that point you can think of Alkalinity as energy for growth. The higher the Alk the faster the growth. Now ofcourse you have to raise calcium aswell. We will see I am going to tests this if I can ever get my nitrates to 1-2ppm.

To contribute to this thread I can share my experience with LNS. Exact same issue you're having. Same 'treatment' procedure - less water changes, more feeding, skimmer off for few ours after feeding time. It did help but I was doing my 'treatment' too aggressively and overshoot my target which gives me another set of issues. I would recommend to follow the treatment but very slowly. System has it's own inertia and might take you over your target with no brakes. GL.

 

[kissman]

To contribute to this thread I can share my experience with LNS. Exact same issue you're having. Same 'treatment' procedure - less water changes, more feeding, skimmer off for few ours after feeding time. It did help but I was doing my 'treatment' too aggressively and overshoot my target which gives me another set of issues. I would recommend to follow the treatment but very slowly. System has it's own inertia and might take you over your target with no brakes. GL.

I have worried that all of a sudden I will have high NO3 and PO4. I have been testing every few days to try and monitor it.

 

[.Marshall]

Feed them corals!

 

[barjam]

Yes if you have hair algae yours is already higher you just don't see it in the test becasue the algae is consuming the PO4 & NO3. You def need to get that out first. Are you running a HC GFO to get rid of the heair algae? Are you using RO/DI water?

It is bound in the rock. So to starve out the algae the corals starve. I can go 2+ weeks without cleaning the glass.

I run gfo changed every 2 weeks and carbon dose. It is just a slow process. The tank/rock are 8 years old and this is a new problem in the past year. Husbandry and bioload haven't changed otherwise. I suspect the rock just hit some saturation point.

To contrast my 10 gallon frag sps tank with no skimmer has no algae issues despite measurable nitrates and sometimes measurable phosphates.

 

[JPMagyar]

Just thought I'd "pop in" again with two thoughts:

1) There is no research of which I am aware that correlates increased nitrates with increased coral health.

2) Consider this abstract and what it says about the importance of alkalinity.

Abstract
The rise in atmospheric CO2 has caused significant decrease in sea surface pH and carbonate ion (CO 22
3 )concentration. This decrease has a negative effect on calcification in hermatypic corals and other calcifying
organisms. We report the results of three laboratory experiments designed specifically to separate the effects of the
different carbonate chemistry parameters (pH, CO223 , CO2 [aq], total alkalinity [AT], and total inorganic carbon
[CT]) on the calcification, photosynthesis, and respiration of the hermatypic coral Acropora eurystoma. The
carbonate system was varied to change pH (7.9–8.5), without changing CT; CT was changed keeping the pH
constant, and CT was changed keeping the pCO2 constant.

In all of these experiments, calcification (both light and dark) was positively correlated with CO223 concentration,
suggesting that the corals are not sensitive to pH or CT but to the CO223 concentration.


A decrease of ,30% in the CO223 concentration (which is equivalent to a decrease
of about 0.2 pH units in seawater) caused a calcification decrease of about 50%. These results suggest that
calcification in today’s ocean (pCO2 5 370 ppm) is lower by ,20% compared with preindustrial time (pCO2 5
280 ppm). An additional decrease of ,35% is expected if atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles (pCO2 5
560 ppm). In all of these experiments, photosynthesis and respiration did not show any significant response to
changes in the carbonate chemistry of seawater. Based on this observation, we propose a mechanism by which the
photosynthesis of symbionts is enhanced by coral calcification at high pH when CO2(aq) is low.

Overall it seems that photosynthesis and calcification support each other mainly through internal pH regulation,
which provides CO223 ions for calcification and CO2(aq) for photosynthesis.

Your Reefin' Buddy,

Joe

PS The term CO223 did not copy correctly and is short for CO3 (2-)

 

[barjam]

JPMagyar, am I reading that right? It says ph, total inorganic carbon aren't important but carbonate is. In the second part it says keeping co2 low, ph high is important.

 

[rbp 4 135]

JPMagyar: Thanks for the Information.

I tested some perams again last night,
N03: 0
Cal: 400
DKH: 8.5 - It was as high as 11, but have been bringing it down with a switch from RC to RS, over about a 2 month period.
PH: is always 8.1-8.3 in my tank per Milwaukee meter

Didn't bother testing the P04 as it has always read 0, and I wouldn't expcet that to change overnight. I'll Likely test in the am this weekend before the lights come on and see what I get.

 

[kissman]

Onething I have done to try and balance things out more. Is I changed my dosing times on alk, and calcium to run over a 24 hour period instead of dosing all my alk at night and calcium during the day. Both will be dosed every 3 hours throught the day. Not at the same time. I have also changed my top off to run throughout the day aswell instead of only at night since I am no longer dosing Kalk at night. Hoping to get a better balance or stable.

Thanks for the info JPMagyar great little read.

 

[kissman]

I want to thank everybody that has been in on this thread. Its amazing the hits, posts and the information that is in this. I thank each of you for the help. My corals are doing better but still have a ways to go. I plan on keeping this thread going and be able to post a really nice shot of growth and color in the future. I also hope that anybody that visits this site with the same problem will find it helpful to them! Thank you!

 

[kissman]

todays test results of NO3=0 and PO4=.06

 

[MHG]

I somewhat reject the theory that HA or nuisance algae means you have nitrates and the algae is consuming it faster that it can be measured.. If you had bright green algae I would agree because nitrogen is what will deliver bright green plant life. However most of those with HA issues in reef tanks have brown HA. Brown plant like is brown because of a lack of nitrogen...


If you had a Nitrate issue that was being consumed by the HA then a simple manual cleaning would result in a nitrate spike...

 

[kissman]

I have no algae issue. I am simply trying to raise my Nitrates a little because my water has become to clean

 

[gojk]

I somewhat reject the theory that HA or nuisance algae means you have nitrates and the algae is consuming it faster that it can be measured.. If you had bright green algae I would agree because nitrogen is what will deliver bright green plant life. However most of those with HA issues in reef tanks have brown HA. Brown plant like is brown because of a lack of nitrogen...


If you had a Nitrate issue that was being consumed by the HA then a simple manual cleaning would result in a nitrate spike...

The piece I don't understand is that the algae is consuming it making it read zero when measuring. And when this happens it is considered bad, but people create turf algae scrubbers that basically are doing the same thing and it is considered a good thing.

 

[kissman]

if you have an algae scrubber in the sump, you have some nutrients in the tank which is good. Its when you have zero nutrients in the tank and sump that it is bad. You want to have some nutrients. Its a balance some people us carbon dosing to remove excess nutriets and some people use scrubber. My issue is I stripped my water of nutrients

 

[rbp 4 135]

I just ordered a heatsink to mout some additional supplemental led's in the 420 & 440-470 NM range on.

We will see if color begins to impove in the mean time, if so I will hold off on adding the supplemental lighting as to not confound any findings that my color issues may be nutrient related.

 

[kissman]

I have a little frag table I have moved up near the surface of the water to see if increased light has any effect on mine. Been there for a little over a week now, frags don't look any different than the ones in the middle of tank

 

[barjam]

if you have an algae scrubber in the sump, you have some nutrients in the tank which is good. Its when you have zero nutrients in the tank and sump that it is bad. You want to have some nutrients. Its a balance some people us carbon dosing to remove excess nutriets and some people use scrubber. My issue is I stripped my water of nutrients

It depends on what you mean by nutrients. You want zero phosphates and nitrates but want a fairly frequent source of food.

 

[BrettH]

For all those following this thread I thought you might want to check out this thread in the Advanced Topics forum. It has some very good, relevant data...

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2253547&page=2

For the record, I am running ecotech Radions, po4 .12 and 0 nitrates. Dkh~10.8, Ca 400, Mg 1290, ph 8.3. My acros have been getting pale, but I do have great PE. So what next? I plan on reducing the intensity of my lighting plus reducing Dkh along with increased feedings. I have also stopped GFO.

I'll let you know how it goes in about a month.

Cheers.

 

[rbp 4 135]

I don't think I would take the GFO offline with a P04 reading of .12. What are you using to test it?

I tested P04 tonight, .04ppm. I fed rods and flake today, figured I would get a bit of a P04 spike from the flake.

 

[BrettH]

Hanna. And it has been as high as .25. I have to tell you the Hanna checker is not that accurate. I usually take three samples and the deviation is pretty bad, especially when you consider there is already a +/-. 04 error built into the test.

For example my three test will come out .12, .05, .17. Now factor in the +/-.04 and these samples are fairly off. Hence why I do three and then average. Maybe I should try the phosprous test kit. Anyway, I've been doing this a long time and I know po4 of .12 is ok for my tank.

Cheers.
Brett