I Just Suck With SPS

[Felixc395]

For whatever reason, I suck with SPS. My current setup as far as equiptment is in my signature. My water quality is as follows:

Cal: 520! (yes very high, yet not harmful)
All: 10
Magnesium: 1400
Phosphate: recently 0.07, usually around 0.02
Nitrate: don't have an accurate test kit for nitrate
Salinity: has been low but for a week and a half now has been constant 1.026

So a couple things I'd like to point out. My phosphate, it's usually not very high, but has been recently maybe a problem? I also don't test for nitrate.... Maybe something to consider. Lastly, salinity. My salinity was as low as 1.022 at one point, this seems to be my biggest culprit IMO.

As far as corals, I have an Idaho grape Monti and a green with purple tips efflo. The montipora has begun to lighten in coloration, so I moved it down in the tank, i'll see what happens. The corals are about a month and a half old.

So, any help would be greatly appreciated! I'll try and get some pics up relatively soon.

 

[m.hudzinski]

I'm no expert, but it seems like you have a lot of instability in your take parameters.

 

[sullyfish]

why does your salinity fluctuate so much ? sounds like you may have ATO issues, but you are aware of the problem and if you stabilize your salinity I bet that will go along way. Try not to get discouraged it sounds like your other param's are in line. ( just get a NO3 test ) My tank has great parameters similar to yours but once I did a water change and my salinity dropped just a point from 1025 to 1024 and my SPS's were ****ed for a few days. I cant imagine what would've happened if it got down to 1022.

 

[Felixc395]

Yeah, the salinity really should help! It does sound like a lot of instability yes! However this is throughout the last 3-4 months not just through 1 month! That would be insane! I'm just frustrated and looking for an answer that seems so hard to find.

 

[Allmost]

what is your maintenance like ?

how much do you skim ?

how do you dose for CA++ and ALK ?

water changes ?

 

[Felixc395]

My maintenance is:
-about 10 gallon water change every 2 weeks, I like to shoot for 15 gallons really
-dose a teaspoon of sugar everyday and have seen decent results
-run 3 cups of GFO, but still have two small patches of algae! Usually switch the GFO every two weeks

With the sugar dosing, my skimmer has gone crazy. Last week alone, when I started dosing sugar, I probably skimmer around 3-4 full cups of wet skimmate. It has been reduced, but still doing well. Before carbon dosing with sugar, my skimmer did very minimal, now I love it.

As far as calcium and alk, I've bumped calcium up with BRS calcium chloride, but water changes keep alk up with reef crystals. It's like my corals don't use any calcium or alk, and it just builds up. Which leads me to believe phosphate is an issue and inhibits calcification.

Overall, I have three fish. Two small clowns and a medium sized lyretail anthias. Ad the tank has been running for around 5 months now. About 1 with coral I'd say. Maybe 1 and a half actually.

 

[Allmost]

your observation are very good andcorrect, IMHO [and trust me, there are ALOT of opinions] you need to shoot for stability more. specially in KH.

your salinity is fluctuating due to huge amount of skimmate removed. but you want that, so just mix the NSW a bit more salty. to compensate for that.

higher po4, does reduce and could stop calcification, BUT, when dosing carbons [sugar in your case] the bacteria consume your carbonates ALOT more ! so KH is used more. if you do not dose it, it means it starts from 10, drops to like 6 by the time you do a water change which is a huge shock to corals, and then you do water change, and push it back to 12 ! which is another shock !

ca++ , dose as needed, althogh higher calcium is not THAT bad, it causes precipitation, which can take out alot of other elements which corals need form your system as well !

Id do weekly water changes now on, 5-10G.
test no3 and po4, and read the carbon dosing article on reefkeeping magazine, and follow it ! it is important.
test KH and CA++ daily, and dos as needed, once you are able to guess th value, and test to confirm it, you ar ready to test less often.

JMHO.

best of luck

 

[Felixc395]

I agree completely. I didn't realize until last week that my salinity was going down and I always replaced evaporation water with just straight RO. Not knowing that the skimmate was dropping my salinity! Stupid mistake on my part!

Will also watch KH and Cal closely.

Finally, how can I get my phosphates down?! I dose sugar in addition to 3 cups of GFO, twice the amount recommended for a 75 gallon. I can't keep I down lately! It used to be consistently low! And I hardly overfeed! I feed the fish very lightly.

 

[BrassMonkey]

You know that to do. Just takes time. All the sudden you will notice your tank looks great.

 

[Felixc395]

You know that to do. Just takes time. All the sudden you will notice your tank looks great.

I certainly hope so!!! To be honest I wouldn't say that I know what to do! Haha, but for the post part I understand. Everything except for why my phosphate stay up!!!! Argh.

 

[Allmost]

I agree completely. I didn't realize until last week that my salinity was going down and I always replaced evaporation water with just straight RO. Not knowing that the skimmate was dropping my salinity! Stupid mistake on my part!

Will also watch KH and Cal closely.

Finally, how can I get my phosphates down?! I dose sugar in addition to 3 cups of GFO, twice the amount recommended for a 75 gallon. I can't keep I down lately! It used to be consistently low! And I hardly overfeed! I feed the fish very lightly.

read this article : and the ones linked to it
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

just replace ** with reefkeeping

basically, the sugar, is supposed to fuel up bacteria, which consume nitrate in your system to grow. in order for bacteria to make DNA and cells, they take up po4 as well, but at lower rate ! now if bacteria, have too much carbon source, they could use that, instead of po4, making it counter productive ! so it is important to follow the guidelines, to find the perfect balance we all envy !

runnign GFO, meanwhile, in a upflow reactor is a good way of lowering po4, but not adviced, as you ant no3 and po4 to be removed equally ...

play around with those a bit, and keep the po4 in line for now, but aim to remove it fully one day, as once the bacteria population has "cycled" to its equilibrium, you will have nutritions removed, and converted to skimmable objects, and /or food for corals !

sorry about the story telling lol the article should explain it better.

 

[Felixc395]

No problem story telling! I love the advice and will give that article a read! Thanks everyone for the advice so far! I'll find the solution eventually! I'm determined to have a great tank!

 

[fq600]

Or use a Algae Scrubber and removed P and N naturally.

I scrubbed and never looked back.

 

[allsps40]

Just keep things as stable as possible. Keep po4 near 0.00 and no3 below 10. And give it time. Good husbandry and stability will make all the difference.

 

[REEF SMAC]

Just keep things as stable as possible. Keep po4 near 0.00 and no3 below 10. And give it time. Good husbandry and stability will make all the difference.

Totally agree with this advice.

Takes a little time and experience to get good at keeping parameters stable. This hobby can be a little discouraging sometimes, but it does get easier.

I would advise starting with sps that are easy to keep. Some are just really sensitive, some are hardier.
Some come with pests, and it doesn't matter how good your parameters are.

 

[Felixc395]

Thanks to the last two posters! My corals doing fine, colors just fine, and no bleaching whats so ever. They just don't grow! Maybe I'll get some pics up soon.

 

[allsps40]

Some of my sps will "fall asleep" and stop growing for awhile. Then then will just start to take off.

 

[gp2]

if your sps are doing fine I would not worry about it. I dont know why exactly, but they seem to just need to sit in one spot for a bit before they start growing. Sometimes a bit is a couple of months and sometimes quite a bit longer. Then one day you notice they are growing and then it seems they can just explode with growth (exploding can be subtle for some species LOL). Anyways, that is what I have found. Seems to be some magic number for a tank to stabilize enough to grow SPS, 6 months or so.

 

[Felixc395]

Interesting, seems like I'm not doing anything wrong! Except being impatient! :lol:

 

[Felixc395]

Here's the pics as promised! Tell me what you think!

Green Efflo, purple base. More vibrant green/blue in real life.

Idaho Grape, looks way more purple in person.

FTS, slow shutter speed so you can see my LED's(not intentional of course) !

Still need to work with my camera a little but this should suffice for now. Hopefully these will answer some questions though!