Ideas on what to put in area of tank?

[xCry0x]

Here is a FTS I just took - sorry for quality - camera phones, what ya gonna do?

I have a mushroom leather, zoas, ric, shrooms, torch, hammer, brain favia & acan all low in the tank or on the sand. Have a xenia & clove in the upper mid part on the far left of the tank.

My question is what to start placing in the tank to fill up the mid-top range.

I have one SPS - some sort of acro? - in the mid of the tank straight under the light. It has somewhat browned out even thought it was only a light greenish color to start with . Also have a chalice I am moving up on the right side.

My tank info is:

Lighting: 24x3W LED - 60/40 mix blues/whites 60* optics, bridgelux LEDs; the lights are about 4" off the water so the intensity is fairly high.
Flow: mp10, Mag5 return
Skimmer: Tunze 9002 w/ airline mod
Nitrate: 0
MG: 1350
CA: 430
Alk: 9
Salinity: 1.025
PO4: <0.06

Have a PO4 & carbon reactor going so PO4 is typically very low.

25G truvu nano

Currently everything is coloring up great except the lone SPS.

I would like to get some ideas of what to place mid tank. The lighting is intense and I think that could be why the SPS is not coloring up well although it is not bleaching - kinda just browned out.

I have put off on more SPS because I dont know if they will all get nuked high up in the tank - or if this one sps is just unhappy since I have no idea what it is.

Here is the SPS I have. ANy ideas on what to put in the mid/top range would be appreacited thanks!

 

[steevareno2002]

How long has the tank been up and running? SPS require a 6 month plus mature tank. Are your LED's controllable? If not, 6 hours of intense lighting should be enough so as not to bleach your SPS. You can also add a fiji pink or purple plus T5 to help with coloration of some corals. Give your SPS a couple months of stable parameters and they should color nicely...

 

[xCry0x]

Going on 8mo.

It is a mixture of royal blue, blue, cool white LED - everything colors up very well as is.

I read acropora valida are notoriously finickey - maybe that is what my acro is and why it is browned up.

I think I need to try something easier like a slimer and see what happens.

 

[trameaa]

Plenty of folks here with quite a bit more knowledge than me.
That being said, shades of purple/blue in my experience are the most difficult to keep. I struggled with them for a long time myself, and still don't have it perfect.
One of the key things I've noted in my system is that rock solid alkalinity numbers seem to be one of the most important variables in good coloration.
I didn't understand that fully until I got a dosing pump for alk and tuned in my system's demand level.
After that, I started to get bright red, and my blues are coloring up slowly but surely.
I think you mentioned green slimer - that's a great one, and in my system it grew really fast and with great color, even early on.
(until I introduced a large Angel that had a taste for SPS polyps) :facepalm:

 

[xCry0x]

ha yea that is the reason I opted against a flame angel even though I wanted one.

I top off with kalk currently, just really started testing the ca/alk/mg levels on a regular basis and just finished raising my mg up to 1350. CA is typically fine - last I checked my Alk had dropped down to 8 and I had to get it back up to 9 where I wanted it. I have a JBJ ATO coming so hopefully that helps maintain things more constant.

 

[stevedola]

looks like that acro has burnt tips from lighting. Did you acclimate it to your light?

also the most important aspect of keeping sps is consistant water chemistry. you will have nothing but problems if your sg and alk are unbalanced.

as for what to put there..it all depends on what you want to pay. you could prolly get a nice piece of a teal stag. green slimer, or red planet to give the middle some height but the problem is that the LED lighting you have maybe too intense for sps at that height. LEDs are difficult to gauge with corals and their response. Its going to be a trial and error so of thing where you acclimate the coral on the sandbed and slowly move them up.

 

[stevedola]

btw that acro looks more like a tort than a valida. in my experience a valida is not a difficult coral to keep. torts on the other hand are a bit more 'finicky'

 

[xCry0x]

Thanks, I have honestly no idea what it is exactly. I just wanted an SPS and the LFS said green are easier to keep than other colors and this one was the biggest frag for the price range.

The white tips is because of the crappy picture - I noticed that when I posted it. The whole thing is brown. I acclimate all my corals by starting them on the sand/edge of the tank and moving them towards the middle then up to their final location. This one has just never colored up, where it is now is where it finally started extending it's polyps.

It was $10 or $15 frag, I bought 1 single sps and 1 frag as a 'tester' to see how it would fare.

I have a miami hurricane chalice frag that you can kind of see in the FTS picture that is off to the right of the sps frag. The chalice was moved up there a few days ago and is maintaining its color just fine, even the yellows.