Help with SPS color

[JPMagyar]

Hi Everyone,

Lots of great discussion on this thread, but I thought I might try to advocate a more precise methodology. First, I think it's important to understand what you are seeing or rather not seeing. Your corals are lacking zooxanthellea. Zooxanthellea eat light and nothing else, but lots of folks have the same lighting as you and have colorful corals so right off the bat I'd say you can eliminate light as your problem this means something else is KILLING your zooxanthellea. They do not eat any chemical additive or food you can put in your tank so it must be something with the chemistry. Now diagnosing anything in an aquarium is truly more an art than a science, but let me start with my personal guesses based on my own experience. I have seen coral bleaching like what your pictures show in two instances: low pH, and phosphate remover dust but neither of those seems likely given the data you have provided already. So really that leaves me scratching my head and when I do that I always fall back on the basics. If this were my tank, I would eliminate everything from my system except the absolute fundamentals of a Berlin System: Live Rock, skimmer, and light. I would dose nothing, take out all chemical filtration, and just rely on the biology of the tank. The worst case scenario is you get a steady rise in nutrients and a resulting algae bloom, BUT if your corals DO NOT turn brown but stay pale then you know you have a problem with your water and that could be high CO2 at home or a nail in your pipe or a million other problems. If your corals do get better than you can be certain that something in your previous routine was the problem.

I guess my main point is you need to tackle this step by step using a logical progression rather than throwing darts at a wall. Anyways, I hope something there ends up being helpful, and I also hope you will share your results over the long run no matter the outcome.

Truth be told I lean towards low pH as your problem, and there's an easy test. Take a bucket of tank water outside put a bubbler in it and see if your reading changes after one hour of bubbling outside.



Best of Luck!


Joe

 

[kissman]

Hi Everyone,

Lots of great discussion on this thread, but I thought I might try to advocate a more precise methodology. First, I think it's important to understand what you are seeing or rather not seeing. Your corals are lacking zooxanthellea. Zooxanthellea eat light and nothing else, but lots of folks have the same lighting as you and have colorful corals so right off the bat I'd say you can eliminate light as your problem this means something else is KILLING your zooxanthellea. They do not eat any chemical additive or food you can put in your tank so it must be something with the chemistry. Now diagnosing anything in an aquarium is truly more an art than a science, but let me start with my personal guesses based on my own experience. I have seen coral bleaching like what your pictures show in two instances: low pH, and phosphate remover dust but neither of those seems likely given the data you have provided already. So really that leaves me scratching my head and when I do that I always fall back on the basics. If this were my tank, I would eliminate everything from my system except the absolute fundamentals of a Berlin System: Live Rock, skimmer, and light. I would dose nothing, take out all chemical filtration, and just rely on the biology of the tank. The worst case scenario is you get a steady rise in nutrients and a resulting algae bloom, BUT if your corals DO NOT turn brown but stay pale then you know you have a problem with your water and that could be high CO2 at home or a nail in your pipe or a million other problems. If your corals do get better than you can be certain that something in your previous routine was the problem.

I guess my main point is you need to tackle this step by step using a logical progression rather than throwing darts at a wall. Anyways, I hope something there ends up being helpful, and I also hope you will share your results over the long run no matter the outcome.

Truth be told I lean towards low pH as your problem, and there's an easy test. Take a bucket of tank water outside put a bubbler in it and see if your reading changes after one hour of bubbling outside.



Best of Luck!


Joe

Wow Joe, great write up. I have seen a lot suggestions in this thread and I really appreciate them all. I love this forum and spend many hours reading threads. After reading your post I went and checked my PH again with my Milwaukee PH600 handeheld. It shows 8.1 will .3 make that much of a difference? If so what should I do to fix it? I have both my powerheads pointed at the top of my tank plus have a loc-line "y" pipe spraying towards different ends of the tank. I am sure that if I open my windows the PH would go up some. During the spring and fall it runs at 8.3 when windows are open. Its 38 degress outside and raining in Virginia so I can try the water outside with an airstone at a different time, lol! I think you make a great point about going back to basics and shutting down my reactors and see how it goes for a bit and stop dosing. Would you suggest stopping the Vinegar dosing all at once or a little at a time? As far as posting results I plan on keeping this thread going until I have a SPS tank worth posting pics of on here. When I have a issue with my tank I want to post everything I can in hopes it will help some else later or that might be reading along now. This forum is a big reason why I no longer have a 55g cesspool that I used to have with Nitrates of 160ppm. That I had all but given up on. Till I decided to quit smoking and needed a project to take my mind off of a smoke. My tank became it. There is like you said some great posts here and I trying to figure out which way to go. What you said makes since and some other people have suggested stopping or cutting back on GFO/GAC. I think I will give it a shot. Trying to decide if I should do it while I am out of town or Wed when I get back!

 

[JPMagyar]

I really think that folks like you are the heart and soul of RC. Sharing your experience is bound to help others. As far as changes go, I have a theory. If you take everything offline except skimmer and lights, I don't think you can "shock" anything because those items either remove waste which can only build slowly with them gone or they are the problem in which case you tank will slowly improve.

As for pH the issue would be if your pH were below 7.8. I have found my own meters to be horribly sensitive to e-interference and quick to go out of adjustment that's why I say look for a rise which would tell you as a matter of fact whether your pH is low. It's not likely, but it is possible that your meter reads 8.1 and the real reading is below 7.8.

More importantly though I think you need a plan of attack to eliminate one possibility at a time, and I want to emphasize that light is most definitely NOT your problem because 6 T5s are no way too much light and if they were too little light your corals would be greenish or brownish rather than whitish and that is highly unlikely.

Joe

 

[kissman]

I really think that folks like you are the heart and soul of RC. Sharing your experience is bound to help others. As far as changes go, I have a theory. If you take everything offline except skimmer and lights, I don't think you can "shock" anything because those items either remove waste which can only build slowly with them gone or they are the problem in which case you tank will slowly improve.

As for pH the issue would be if your pH were below 7.8. I have found my own meters to be horribly sensitive to e-interference and quick to go out of adjustment that's why I say look for a rise which would tell you as a matter of fact whether your pH is low. It's not likely, but it is possible that your meter reads 8.1 and the real reading is below 7.8.

More importantly though I think you need a plan of attack to eliminate one possibility at a time, and I want to emphasize that light is most definitely NOT your problem because 6 T5s are no way too much light and if they were too little light your corals would be greenish or brownish rather than whitish and that is highly unlikely.

Joe

Tomorrow evening I need to do a 5g water change I will put water in a bucket and place outside with an airstone and come back with a reading for you. Do you think I should wait till I get back on Wed or go ahead stop everything now and see what the tank looks like when I get back? By the way I went to your profile and look at the pics you have a beautiful tank with great colors!

 

[kissman]

I shut off GAC and Vinegar this morning.

 

[kissman]

Bucket with about 2 gallons of water outside with airstone, tested PH in tank and in bucket this evening before adding airstone and both read 8.2. I will check the bucket in about an hour. Will the cold air make a difference at all? Its like 30 outside with 20-30mph winds

 

[kissman]

I really think that folks like you are the heart and soul of RC. Sharing your experience is bound to help others. As far as changes go, I have a theory. If you take everything offline except skimmer and lights, I don't think you can "shock" anything because those items either remove waste which can only build slowly with them gone or they are the problem in which case you tank will slowly improve.

As for pH the issue would be if your pH were below 7.8. I have found my own meters to be horribly sensitive to e-interference and quick to go out of adjustment that's why I say look for a rise which would tell you as a matter of fact whether your pH is low. It's not likely, but it is possible that your meter reads 8.1 and the real reading is below 7.8.

More importantly though I think you need a plan of attack to eliminate one possibility at a time, and I want to emphasize that light is most definitely NOT your problem because 6 T5s are no way too much light and if they were too little light your corals would be greenish or brownish rather than whitish and that is highly unlikely.

Joe

water in bucket with airstone while outside is PH of 8.2 same as tank. Ran it for 1 hour exactly

 

[echopiece]

Hi Everyone,

Lots of great discussion on this thread, but I thought I might try to advocate a more precise methodology. First, I think it's important to understand what you are seeing or rather not seeing. Your corals are lacking zooxanthellea. Zooxanthellea eat light and nothing else, but lots of folks have the same lighting as you and have colorful corals so right off the bat I'd say you can eliminate light as your problem this means something else is KILLING your zooxanthellea. They do not eat any chemical additive or food you can put in your tank so it must be something with the chemistry. Now diagnosing anything in an aquarium is truly more an art than a science, but let me start with my personal guesses based on my own experience. I have seen coral bleaching like what your pictures show in two instances: low pH, and phosphate remover dust but neither of those seems likely given the data you have provided already. So really that leaves me scratching my head and when I do that I always fall back on the basics. If this were my tank, I would eliminate everything from my system except the absolute fundamentals of a Berlin System: Live Rock, skimmer, and light. I would dose nothing, take out all chemical filtration, and just rely on the biology of the tank. The worst case scenario is you get a steady rise in nutrients and a resulting algae bloom, BUT if your corals DO NOT turn brown but stay pale then you know you have a problem with your water and that could be high CO2 at home or a nail in your pipe or a million other problems. If your corals do get better than you can be certain that something in your previous routine was the problem.

I guess my main point is you need to tackle this step by step using a logical progression rather than throwing darts at a wall. Anyways, I hope something there ends up being helpful, and I also hope you will share your results over the long run no matter the outcome.

Truth be told I lean towards low pH as your problem, and there's an easy test. Take a bucket of tank water outside put a bubbler in it and see if your reading changes after one hour of bubbling outside.



Best of Luck!


Joe

This is all such great information! I too am having the same issues with pale color SPS. I feel I am running too much chemical filtration as well, now thinking about it. Good luck Kissman, hope you can get those corals turned around!

 

[kissman]

This is all such great information! I too am having the same issues with pale color SPS. I feel I am running too much chemical filtration as well, now thinking about it. Good luck Kissman, hope you can get those corals turned around!

If you are having the same problem, please join in the posts talk about whats going on with your tank maybe we both can figure it out.

 

[kissman]

I am not 100% sure I am having "coral bleaching" I am losing color but as I read and read on this and zooxanthellae and how to provide the correct conditions for it, I see pics of bleached corals and they are a lot whiter than mine. Are the just futher along than mine? I also see the need a good supply of Phytoplankton should I be adding it other than whats in the reef chili?

 

[echopiece]

If you are having the same problem, please join in the posts talk about whats going on with your tank maybe we both can figure it out.

Will do! I removed my bag of gfo tonight. I'm going to take one step at a time and try and figure out the cause. My parameters seem to be almost identical to yours. However, I am using a single 250w 14k mh bulb and T5 actinics.

I tested my ph and P04 tonight. Ph was 8.2 and P04 was 0.02 (Hanna). It could be 0.0 with the +- of 0.04 error.

What is your algae growth like on the glass? I only accumulate a very small amount over the period of 5-6 days. Its almost negligible. Makes me think I'm running a low nutrient system.

 

[kissman]

I am going to take my Reactor with GFO offline on Wed when I get back in town. I am scared to do it when I can't keep my eye on my tank.

 

[kissman]

Looking at the thread Best Tanks From Around the World kinda puts my tank in prespective, lol! Makes me want to just give up, lol! I would kill to have a tank like some of those. I hope the help from Reef Central can get me there!

 

[Finland]

I was having the same problem as you are having. Very pale corals and crap color. I was on a mission to get an ulns. 0 no3 and 0 p04. I was carbon dosing with biopellets and running gfo. I was dosing all kinds of things to try to get the corals to color up Didn't matter how much I increased feeding, tests came back 0 and corals stayed pale. I did weekly water changes religiously and all water parameters were stable. First I pulled the gfo offline. No change in colors. P04 stayed 0. Then I pulled the biopellets offline and N03 crept up to .25 and p04 crept up to .04(red sea test kits). The corals started coloring up and polyp extension increased dramatically. I have been monitoring levels closely, and when P04 starts rising I run some gfo for a few days to lower it back to .04. N03 is steady at .25 w/ weekly water changes and chaeto in the refugium. Corals never looked better. I do get green film algae on the glass after a couple days, but I can live with that. This is my experience with pale corals

 

[kissman]

I was having the same problem as you are having. Very pale corals and crap color. I was on a mission to get an ulns. 0 no3 and 0 p04. I was carbon dosing with biopellets and running gfo. I was dosing all kinds of things to try to get the corals to color up Didn't matter how much I increased feeding, tests came back 0 and corals stayed pale. I did weekly water changes religiously and all water parameters were stable. First I pulled the gfo offline. No change in colors. P04 stayed 0. Then I pulled the biopellets offline and N03 crept up to .25 and p04 crept up to .04(red sea test kits). The corals started coloring up and polyp extension increased dramatically. I have been monitoring levels closely, and when P04 starts rising I run some gfo for a few days to lower it back to .04. N03 is steady at .25 w/ weekly water changes and chaeto in the refugium. Corals never looked better. I do get green film algae on the glass after a couple days, but I can live with that. This is my experience with pale corals

Thanks for the info on your experience. I am hesitant to take the GFO offline because with it running my PO4 runs between .03-.05 I am scared it will climb higher but I am going to do it Wed when I get home. I have a brand new container of it from BRS so I have plenty if it goes up. I think its more to do with the nitrates beig 0 from the vinegar dosing. I think the new spectrum of lighting I am goi with might help to. Thanks again

 

[Finland]

I am I think its more to do with the nitrates beig 0 from the vinegar dosing. I think the new spectrum of lighting I am goi with might help to. Thanks again

 

[Duc1098]

I believe 0.03-0.05 ppm is were you want to be. I was doing a lot of the same things and didn't understand why I was having issues. I tried dosing things like Iron, Boron, Iodine and Potassium to improve my colors and saw now affects after about a month. I then learned about ULNS's, which was in fact what I had all along. I had since started feeding more and raised my PO4 to as high as .06ppm. Colors have never looked better and they are still improving even after two months of running PO4 higher.

 

[Finland]

I am I think its more to do with the nitrates beig 0 from the vinegar dosing. I think the new spectrum of lighting I am goi with might help to. Thanks again

I would have to agree with you that the vinegar dosing may be your problem.

 

[THE JOEY]

Kissman,

I'm going to jump on the to much light bandwagon. I agree with a lot of the info from JPMagyar in this post. Your corals are lacking zooxanthellea. I would fall back to basics. Moderate feedings, weekly W/C and moderate lighting. Keep it like this for a couple of months and look for small changes.

On my tank 36x18x18 I have a NEP 6x39 light. I using all ATI bulbs. I feel this is just to much light for some of my SPS. What I'm doing is keeping a focus on water quality by running carbon,GFO,W/C. Raised my light up to 12" off the water with a 8hr run time. After about 2 weeks I'm seeing a change in some of my SPS. I hope this helps G/L.

 

[JPMagyar]

Kissman,

I'm going to jump on the to much light bandwagon. I agree with a lot of the info from JPMagyar in this post. Your corals are lacking zooxanthellea. I would fall back to basics. Moderate feedings, weekly W/C and moderate lighting. Keep it like this for a couple of months and look for small changes.

On my tank 36x18x18 I have a NEP 6x39 light. I using all ATI bulbs. I feel this is just to much light for some of my SPS. What I'm doing is keeping a focus on water quality by running carbon,GFO,W/C. Raised my light up to 12" off the water with a 8hr run time. After about 2 weeks I'm seeing a change in some of my SPS. I hope this helps G/L.

Hey Brian,

Please, please forgive me if I disagree. I'm not wanting to step on any toes, but the absolute fact is that 6 T5 bulbs if placed right on the surface are producing 1000 to 1500 PAR. Mother nature provides more light than that on reefs at midday and I personally have run 1000 watt MH that did more than 2000 PAR at the surface. There is NO WAY possible that 6 T5s are providing too much light for the corals that were shown in the pictures at the beginning of the thread. My tank has 16 T5s plus 4 150 watt MH's that run 100% power for 10 hours per day. My daughters 38 gallon Innovative Marine tank has 6 T5s that run 100% 12 hours a day and a total of 16 hours illumination.


And here's my tank under 2500 watts of lighting a while back.


These corals are not pale from too much light. That is called bleaching and results in death very quickly where as the corals shown are languishing a slow death.

Again, please, please, please believe me when I say I am not wanting to be mean, but just disagreeing in a very collegiate and fellow hobbyist discussion way!

Joe