Help with SPS color
- Thread starter kissman
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deepseadan
New member
Get the apogee par sensor for $139 and hook it to a multimeter. It works just as good. I had a sunset montipora that almost greyed out completely even though it was 6" from a acro that was doing great. When I tested the par right near it, it read 125 par. I moved to an area with 240 par and it turned orange. Moved it to another area that had around 200 par and now it got its full red and green back. I know your t5's are probably a little more consistent than my mh, but it never hurts to see where you're actually at. Look at all the money you spend on every other part of the hobby, what's another $139 to see where you stand on lights. I do know that my brother has a 4 bulb t5 fixture with ati bulbs, and we couldn't get more than 240 par anywhere in his tank. Definitely not good for sps. Not an ati fixture though.
http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/sq-120-electric-calibration-quantum-sensor/
http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/sq-120-electric-calibration-quantum-sensor/
pnavarro170
S.T.A.R.S PRESIDENT
okay well i just read the entire 15 pages. lol, just got back into sps after a couple years out of it, i have always believed in a nutrient rich system. As of a few days ago i set up ATS and gonna run the skimmer in the morning for only 6hrs the time the ats light is off. While feeding at least some rods at night time, My color is is good but still can be better and some greens need to be blues.
Anyways, yeah i was gonna say test mag again with something else. And my thought also is can you check your heater with some other reliable temp measures. Ive had finnex not over heat but 3 crap out in a year or less each. So not sure how much i trust your temp really is your temp.
Anyways, yeah i was gonna say test mag again with something else. And my thought also is can you check your heater with some other reliable temp measures. Ive had finnex not over heat but 3 crap out in a year or less each. So not sure how much i trust your temp really is your temp.
greg1786
Active member
Just wanted to chime in on the light situation. I just upgraded from a 55 gallon tank that i ran for almost two years. I too ran the current usa nova extreme t5ho 48" fixture but only four bulbs. I ran all geisemann bulbs and while i never had a par meter i got excellent growth and color out of all my sps as long as they were no lower than 8" from the sandbed. And i kept my fixture on the stock mounting legs which raise it about four inches off the tank. My bulbs were 2x actinic plus, one pink plus and one 15 k blue plus. I would have to assume that with you running the same fixture with two extra bulbs that couldnt be the issue. Perhaps try getting a coral or two near the very top of the tank as close to your fixture as possible for a few weeks and see if anything changes color wise. After reading many other posts in this thread id have to agree perhaps your nutrients are too low. While sps love pristine water, all corals even the most touchy sps need some phos and nitrate albeit a miniscule amount in order to thrive. Good luck i really hope u figure it out!!
kissman
New member
I have been looking into this. I don't own a Multimeter but I could get one, is there and specific one I should look for?
I actually have 2 sensors, one in the sump with the Finnex heater and one in the display tank. They have always read very close never more than 1 degree. I have tested Mag with Red Sea Pro and Salifert
In moving some of my rock around the tank I have broke a piece of here and there on some of the SPS. I have a small frag rack that I glued the broken pieces and placed the plug right under the water line to test that very thing. Been at the surface for 3 weeks and corals don't look any different yet.
Wow....great thread with equally great information. I too was struggling with similar situations as you however some of my SPS look simply fantastic. I then fought a bout with AEFW, lost some colonies and was able to frag a few back to normal. I've since beat that.
In an effort to raise nutrients, I too started to feed the tank more. I run 250ml of ecobak biopellets on a slow tumble in a RO BR-70 reactor, passively run carbon, and no GFO. My nitrates are barely detectable and PO4 is .02 or less on Hanna. I'm topping off through a kalk reactor and supplementing alk to keep it around 8dKh and keep the pH at 8.1-8.3.
Since feeding more heavily and using a purple +, 4 blue +, and a 6000k mid day, I started to see some brownish HA. I removed the midday in favor of a coral +, and upgraded from an Aquatic Life 6 x 39W to an ATI Sunpower 6 x 39W. Color is coming back and growth has accelerated for me in the last few weeks since beating AEFW. The HA is slowly going away and what little is there I manually remove with WC each week.
I do run prodibio as well. I'm using bio optim, bio digest, and reefbooster every 15 days. In the middle of that 15 day cycle, I use a maintenance dose of special blend or MB7 alternating. I only feed one of 3 foods. Either spectrum pellets, a home made frozen made by a local LFS (stuff rocks) or Rod's. On occasion, I'll feed the LPS either fauna marin pellets or mysis. Other than that and the reefbooster, I do nothing else for SPS feeding.
I have 5 fish in a 40b footprint tank (tank is only 15" high, rimless with about 14" water depth). They are a green chromis, radiant wrasse, 2 true perculas, and a red scotter bleny. I'm going to keep testing and see how things progress as this has been going on for a few months. What kills me is that I'm not sure what affected the growth change, other than beating the AEFW. It's possible that AEFW may have been the cause all along, but I can't say that for sure. I did have a Kalk reactor failure that cause a HUGE alk swing and I think that really hurt the SPS.
Are you keeping a log of what you're doing? It's really helped me to do that and keep notes of my observations. I failed to keep many pictures, but have slowly been fixing that problem.
Hang in there and allow the system to stabilize. Stick to a routine for a few months and see what it produces. It always amazes me how it can sometimes seem to take 8-12 weeks to see the fruits of any system changes you make.
Good luck and keep the updates coming.
In an effort to raise nutrients, I too started to feed the tank more. I run 250ml of ecobak biopellets on a slow tumble in a RO BR-70 reactor, passively run carbon, and no GFO. My nitrates are barely detectable and PO4 is .02 or less on Hanna. I'm topping off through a kalk reactor and supplementing alk to keep it around 8dKh and keep the pH at 8.1-8.3.
Since feeding more heavily and using a purple +, 4 blue +, and a 6000k mid day, I started to see some brownish HA. I removed the midday in favor of a coral +, and upgraded from an Aquatic Life 6 x 39W to an ATI Sunpower 6 x 39W. Color is coming back and growth has accelerated for me in the last few weeks since beating AEFW. The HA is slowly going away and what little is there I manually remove with WC each week.
I do run prodibio as well. I'm using bio optim, bio digest, and reefbooster every 15 days. In the middle of that 15 day cycle, I use a maintenance dose of special blend or MB7 alternating. I only feed one of 3 foods. Either spectrum pellets, a home made frozen made by a local LFS (stuff rocks) or Rod's. On occasion, I'll feed the LPS either fauna marin pellets or mysis. Other than that and the reefbooster, I do nothing else for SPS feeding.
I have 5 fish in a 40b footprint tank (tank is only 15" high, rimless with about 14" water depth). They are a green chromis, radiant wrasse, 2 true perculas, and a red scotter bleny. I'm going to keep testing and see how things progress as this has been going on for a few months. What kills me is that I'm not sure what affected the growth change, other than beating the AEFW. It's possible that AEFW may have been the cause all along, but I can't say that for sure. I did have a Kalk reactor failure that cause a HUGE alk swing and I think that really hurt the SPS.
Are you keeping a log of what you're doing? It's really helped me to do that and keep notes of my observations. I failed to keep many pictures, but have slowly been fixing that problem.
Hang in there and allow the system to stabilize. Stick to a routine for a few months and see what it produces. It always amazes me how it can sometimes seem to take 8-12 weeks to see the fruits of any system changes you make.
Good luck and keep the updates coming.
kissman
New member
I have spent some time looking at my corals and have yet to have seen any red bugs or AEFW's. Thank god! LOL! I have not been keeping a log other than tests I probably should have. Only log has been photo's. I do have a book I had bought for that intention just never did maybe I should start. I keep saying one weekend I am going to try the Reefbooster I think I have a 6 pack of it. I may try it next weekend when I can start the skimmer back up in the morning and watch the tank. I hate to add something new and not be home to monitor the tank. Maybe I will do that dose it next Friday night and not dose Energy A&B for a week and see if I have any better result with Prodibio.
Newsmyrna80
Active member
Kissman, have your LPSs lost color as well? I'm following this thread closely since I have the same problem, even my mushrooms have faded out. I've spoken to Bob Fenner at WWM and he told me that I needed to up my nitrates as well. Right now my tank is running fallow (fish are in a QT) so feeding is out right now. I've been adding AA but really haven't seen much improvement. What other ways are there to up the nitrates? I did turn off the skimmer. Thanks!
kissman
New member
My Hammer and 1 frogspawn have lost color but not my shrooms, yellow polyps, red acan, and Zoa's are fine. I have one frogspawn that is still green with purple tips beside the hammer and other frogspawn that has lost color. They came from the same person same size tank, same lights. Only he was running Current bulbs and I am running ATI's. I have been dosing AA with Energy A&B and was seeing great results but that seems to have come to a stopping point. Nothing is improving anymore. One thing about my Hammer thats strange is the tips have not lost color just the tenticals. Like my Purple/Green tip Hammer purple is gone green tips still there. I have placed an order for some Sodium Nitrate and may give dosing that a shot.
deepseadan
New member
Greg, sounds like you have experiences that would exclude lighting as the issue. Kissman, it seems like it keeps going back to a low nutrient situation. I wonder if you could try to bring up your nutrients and keep control over po4 by hooking each one to a timer. Run your po4 reactor for two hours a day, and skim a couple hours a day as well. Then you will have some export of po4 and some nutrient export as well. I would let it go for a month and see how everything does. To be honest, I don't know how these zeovit and ultra low nutrient people do it. Are their tanks for real?
kissman
New member
The only thing I hate about running my skimmer on a timer is what if the skimmer motor doesn't crank up when it kicks on? I am away from home a lot of weekend and at times when I have cut my skimmer off I have to play with it to get it to crank up. What I have been doing is cranking it down a little each week let it run a week and test for NO3 and PO4. I am trying to control my export with my skimmer. If PO4 gets up I crank up my reactor and bring it back down some. I am really begenning to think the Xenia might be the problem. With the fact I can't raise NO3. I may have to replace the rock to get rid of the xenia.
CHSUB
"Certified Hobby Expert"
i have been reading your thread for a couple of days now, and it is quite interesting. i too i'm fighting pale colors with sps's and have not yet found an answer, so take my comments with a "grain of salt".
the idear of increasing po4 and no3 to increase color seems foolish. corals do not feed on po4 and no3 their zooxanthellae do, which are brown in color. increasing po4 and no3 increases zooxanthellae and you will no longer have pale corals but brown ones. my po4, no3 levels are .03ppm and 2.5 ppm and my corals are pale! i have been working on getting levels to undetectable on both. then when levels of po4 and no3 are low enough i will increase foods that the corals eat and limit zooxanthellae food.
the idear of increasing po4 and no3 to increase color seems foolish. corals do not feed on po4 and no3 their zooxanthellae do, which are brown in color. increasing po4 and no3 increases zooxanthellae and you will no longer have pale corals but brown ones. my po4, no3 levels are .03ppm and 2.5 ppm and my corals are pale! i have been working on getting levels to undetectable on both. then when levels of po4 and no3 are low enough i will increase foods that the corals eat and limit zooxanthellae food.
JPMagyar
New member
Guys, there is no such thing as a tank with too little nutrients. You may have a water parameter issues because your PO4 remover or GFO is stripping too many elements out or a lighting issue, or a temperature or pH issue or lack of O2 or any number of issues, heck you may even be poisoning your tank with "zeovit" style additives, but lack of nitrate and phosphate is NEVER the problem in a home aquarium. My daughter's 38 gallon Nuvo is growing colorful SPS like crazy and it has nothing more than LR, T5 lighting, a skimmer, and water changes. If you're doing more than that than some part of the "more" is your problem.
KISS is the principle that will bring you to success
Joe :beer:
KISS is the principle that will bring you to success
Joe :beer:
deepseadan
New member
Guys, there is no such thing as a tank with too little nutrients. You may have a water parameter issues because your PO4 remover or GFO is stripping too many elements out or a lighting issue, or a temperature or pH issue or lack of O2 or any number of issues, heck you may even be poisoning your tank with "zeovit" style additives, but lack of nitrate and phosphate is NEVER the problem in a home aquarium. My daughter's 38 gallon Nuvo is growing colorful SPS like crazy and it has nothing more than LR, T5 lighting, a skimmer, and water changes. If you're doing more than that than some part of the "more" is your problem.
KISS is the principle that will bring you to success
Joe :beer:
What salt mix is your daughter using? Does she have any fish?
Guys, there is no such thing as a tank with too little nutrients. You may have a water parameter issues because your PO4 remover or GFO is stripping too many elements out or a lighting issue, or a temperature or pH issue or lack of O2 or any number of issues, heck you may even be poisoning your tank with "zeovit" style additives, but lack of nitrate and phosphate is NEVER the problem in a home aquarium. My daughter's 38 gallon Nuvo is growing colorful SPS like crazy and it has nothing more than LR, T5 lighting, a skimmer, and water changes. If you're doing more than that than some part of the "more" is your problem.
KISS is the principle that will bring you to success
Joe :beer:
For as simple as it sounds, this may be more profound than any of us realize.
kissman
New member
Guys, there is no such thing as a tank with too little nutrients. You may have a water parameter issues because your PO4 remover or GFO is stripping too many elements out or a lighting issue, or a temperature or pH issue or lack of O2 or any number of issues, heck you may even be poisoning your tank with "zeovit" style additives, but lack of nitrate and phosphate is NEVER the problem in a home aquarium. My daughter's 38 gallon Nuvo is growing colorful SPS like crazy and it has nothing more than LR, T5 lighting, a skimmer, and water changes. If you're doing more than that than some part of the "more" is your problem.
KISS is the principle that will bring you to success
Joe :beer:
My GFO had been offline for over a month now, I cranked it back up because PO4 had started getting higher than I wanted. When I started adding AA my corals responded well so I have continued. JP what do you suggest I try? What steps do you suggest? I went back to basics with the exception of add the AA. My PO4 hit 40ppb yesterday and I started my GFO back up today its down to 24ppb.
JPMagyar
New member
I use ESV salt, but I don't believe that matters. I don't have any recent photos, but suffice to say that the OT, ORA Ponape, and Pink Pocci are doing great. The tank has 4 fish. Two Bangaiis that just had babies, and two clowns that just laid eggs. I can't emphasize enough that Aquarists had success with the advent of 3 technologies: skimmers, LR, and blue lighting. Water changes had always been a part of the equation, but the sum of all of them is what made saltwater aquariums possible. Not GFO, not PO4 removers, not additives or two part supplements, nor any other device or filter. Those simple elements are the foundation of reefing as we know it today.
JPMagyar
New member
The hardest part of this hobby is patience. Nothing happens in weeks or months except bad stuff. Put as much LR into your system as you can, keep up weekly 10% water changes, put your lights where others have had success, and test your alkalinity and salinity daily for 1 month and strive for 8 dKH and 35 ppm salinity or 1.0265 on a VG refractometer and of course keep up basic maintenance cleaning your glass daily, emptying your skimmer as often as possible, and feeding perhaps try feeding only Hikari frozen foods which have been shown to have the lowest phosphate out there. Sadly, I don't have a magic bullet, but I know it can be done. I will add that when mixing salt for a water change you MUST have a RO supply that is pure. Contaminants from the tap can be a killer and if you don't have a decent RODI filter you really don't know WHAT is going in your tank, but I know you have already said that you have good RODI so for you I don't think that's an issue. Patience is key as well as "stick to it" sense
Joe :beer:
JPMagyar
New member
You're posting faster than I can keep up
but basically yes that is my suggestion. Keep tabs on alk and salinity and do 10% weekly water changes. The rest will come, but it takes a LONG time for live rock to mature where you have lots, and lots of critters growing in your tank which is the "soup" that makes your tank thrive. My daughter's tank benefited from LR and Live sand that came from my system, and I really believe that is key. I'll try to get a better photo tomorrow of life in the crevices of my tank, but just look at all the "stuff" growing in the cracks of LR shown below.Joe
