I just can't win with SPS

[DustinB]

So I've never been able to get good colors with SPS. After taking my 90g down and moving to a 40B, things slowly lightened/bleached. I had a period of pretty high calcium spikes up to around 600 or so as well. Now I think I am on the right track after experimenting with the lighting. I thought it may have been too much, but things started turning brown after I dropped the photoperiod.

A few weeks ago I increased the photoperiod to 8 hours from 5 and I am seeing color coming back. This was about 2 months ago. I got a couple frags that seem to have kept their color so that is promising. I'm looking for any tips or potential causes for their current condition considering things have been stable for several weeks now.

I just bumped the photoperiod up to 10 hours today.

First, tank parameters:
40B w/20g Sump - Reef Octopus NWB110
ATI Sunpower 4x39w 2xATI Blue+/1xATI AB Special/1xATI Purple+
NO3: 0 (Salifert)
pH: 8.3
PO4: 0.00-0.03 (Hanna)
Alk: 9.2 dKH (Salifert/Hanna)
Cal: 460 ppm (Salifert)
Mag: 1290 ppm (Salifert)

Everything is kept stable via 2 dosing pumps running for around 5min 6 times a day evenly spaced. BRS 2 Part.

Now for the pictures:

First up is the $500 Efflo, lost all color and appears to be browning and bleaching?

Next up is A. Microcladus. Lost it's color as well showing the same symptoms as the efflo.

Now Pink Lemonade, appears to be slightly getting some yellow and pink back.

Tyree LE Bali Tricolor, slowly coloring back up. Purple hue and bright green polyps.

Copps Hulk Milli, getting color back in the tips but not the stalks.

Rainbow Monti, starting to get some decent color back. Definitely after the increase in photoperiod.

Superman Monti, never bleached or browned but did dull a bit, intensifying now.

Bali Slimer, never bleached but did dull, getting some decent color back.

Jedi Mind Trick Monti, got this 2 months ago after the tank stabilized. Maintaining color.

As you can see, some things are getting better as others are not. You can also see the new monti maintained it's color. The ones I am concerned about are the efflo and the microcladus. Any idea what may be going on with those? Any tips for the continued improvement of the others or anything to change/look for?

Thanks for reading this long post, but I am going nuts here. I just want nice colorful SPS like everyone else.

 

[mikezalewski]

I would say that it could possibly be the led's. I have heard a bunch of issues with getting them dialed in to the tank and the corals inside it. I am more of a mh fan but I do use LEDs for my swap tank! I am just telling you what I have heard!


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[GSMguy]

The tank is not using LED.

 

[gon08]

How about fish load? How much do you feed? In low nutrient systems the corals will appear washout or faded. Your NO3 is 0 which is too low in my opinion. I keep mine at about 5. Try feeding your fish a bit more and/or feed the coral, this will help compensate for the lack of nutrients.

 

[Achilles18]

do you run gfo or bio-pellets & dose carbon, this will help to get back all your sps corals color. yup sps needs more nutrients to thrive in your tank or if possible to feed atleast 4x a day? my sps got browned for the passed few months look onto this site how my tank slowly turn back all the colors lots of improvement since then. i keep my cal, 450ppm hanna, alk 125ppm, phos really don't check since im running my gfo change every 3 month or 2 months, carbon change every month, bio-pellets just started a month ago & the results amazing.

http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h461/Pete_1809/

 

[DustinB]

I run GFO and carbon, no carbon dosing. I have 2 ocellaris, 1 spotted cardinal, and a yellow wrasse. I only feed about 3x a week. I do dose AA every couple days. Maybe I should try feeding the Rod's food more. I mainly feed pellets.

Could that really cause the efflo and microcladus to look bleached? The part that is confusing is some look pretty decent and others look completely washed out. I'm not sure the tank is completely nutrient void as you can see in the firt pic, there is a weird algae growing on the frag rack and back glass. Not on the rocks.

 

[sanchoy]

it appears your light source may not be strong enough.. how high up are the corals? Try MH..

 

[gon08]

I run GFO and Carbon but I also feed the fish everyday and pretty heavy. I feed the corals three times a week. As for the algae it looks like diatoms.

 

[Achilles18]

yah you should do atleast 3x keep your nutrients high, because if your water is too clean then not enough to feed all the bacteria in your tank it ended up all your corals slowly get starb, i learned my mistake too before & i would like to share some of my knowledge how to keep a healthy sps tank system as far i can see now pretty much stayble everyday my corals doing much better than before colors just poping out what it used to be all sudden. to tell you the truth im only using bio-cal & kent dkh buffer this 2 combined together every second day , plus a bit of coral-vite nothing els aside on this 3 addietives.

 

[allsps40]

To me it took like a combination for light shock and stress from a tank move. I would just keep things stable and maybe lower light period to 8 hours. I agree, try to get no3 to around 5 not doing as many water changes (skip one), add more fish or feed more. I just did a tank upgrade and suffered some STN on many acros and millis, had a lost in color as well in any sps.

 

[DustinB]

Well the move was almost 6 months ago. The weird thing is I was running 8 hours, then switched to 7, then down to 5 as I thought it was bleaching. The things started turning brown.

After increasing the photoperiod back to 8 hours, things started perking up a bit. As of yesterday I'm at 10 hours to see if there is anymore improvement. The one that has me confused is the microcladus and the efflo. Basically bleached looking corals, but brown polyps. No improvement in color at all, while others are improving. You also see the hulk milli has a brownish base, it should be very purple. All of these corals are contradicting!

I'm thinking it may just be a combination of things, as in another thing preventing improvement. First the instability, then once that was fixed it was a light problem. Now that colors may be coming back it may be a nutrient problem. No idea... I just wish I could figure out the efflo and microcladus.

 

[Wet Dreamer]

To me it took like a combination for light shock and stress from a tank move. I would just keep things stable and maybe lower light period to 8 hours. I agree, try to get no3 to around 5 not doing as many water changes (skip one), add more fish or feed more. I just did a tank upgrade and suffered some STN on many acros and millis, had a lost in color as well in any sps.

Sorry for jumping in the middle of this thread, but it is actually better to have your no3 around 5? I though the closer to 0 the better always?

I have had some cyano growing lately and actually upped my water changes from every 2 weeks to once a week to get my no3 down to 0!?! Maybe this wasn't the best idea...

 

[blakers82]

I'll throw out my opinion here.

-6 months is a young aquarium. It will take some time to get there.

-SPS like fish poop, right? Feeding 3 out of every 7 days seems about 4 days short of what many SPS people that I know feed. Rod's Food could be a good thing too. If you use it, start slow before ramping up its use. (I personally does phyto regularly and OysterFeast every few days).

-Stability is the key. It sounds like you've got your dosers stable. My recomendation would by to keep your Mag up and to pick a light cycle and stick with it for goodness sake. LOL :wavehand:


Wet Dreamer,

Yes, many posters will indicate that they feel SPS like traces of nitrate in their systems...just keep it reeled in.

 

[gon08]

Sorry for jumping in the middle of this thread, but it is actually better to have your no3 around 5? I though the closer to 0 the better always?

I have had some cyano growing lately and actually upped my water changes from every 2 weeks to once a week to get my no3 down to 0!?! Maybe this wasn't the best idea...

The zooxanthellae it the coral tissue needs nutrients to survive. In a low nutrient system it borders on starvation giving the coral that washed out look. In the wild this is remedied through feeding by the polyps. In closed systems nutrients tend to accumulate and therefore daily feeding is not as crucial. When nutrients drift to high the zooxanthellae reproduce excessively giving the coral a brown color. If you keep your system too low in NO3 and PO4 you need to compensate through feedings.

As far as cyanobacteria goes, it is normal to have some in the tank at any given time due to low flow zones where detritus accumulates releasing small amounts of localized PO4 and NO3. Increase flow to those areas and it should go away.

 

[allsps40]

Sps feed off of no3 to an extent so having a small amount in the water will help feed and maintain sps color. 0 no3 is very rarely ever truly 0

 

[DustinB]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I guess I'm going to start feeding the Rod's food 3x a week for a week or 2 instead of the pellets, then switch to a bit of Rod's food every day. I'll keep my light schedule at 10 hours and see what happens in the next few weeks.

Sound like a plan?

 

[allsps40]

Rod's is good stuff just dont over do it. Only increase feeding by 1-2 feedings and do that for a month and change nothing. Watch for unwanted no3 increase and watch corals for improvement.

 

[blakers82]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I guess I'm going to start feeding the Rod's food 3x a week for a week or 2 instead of the pellets, then switch to a bit of Rod's food every day. I'll keep my light schedule at 10 hours and see what happens in the next few weeks.

Sound like a plan?

Give it a go. You can still do pellets for variety. I would agree that if you change over to Rod's keep it stable for a few weeks/month before you jump into an everyday Rod's feast. Those four fishies would sure like it though. lol