is it ok to just run actinics a few days a week.

[mos90]

on my 300g mixed reef i have 3-400w radium mh's with 2-80w ati blue plus's and 2-80 actinics.

i would like maybe 2 times a week to give the corals a cloudy day effect and only run the actinics.

has anyone tried this?

will i run into problems?

also im thinking a might be overkilling my tank with 400's tank is 25" deep.

 

[jda]

What is your goal? Unless you want to slow the coral growth or save some money on electricity, then just keep the halides on every day. However, I have gone almost a week without lights (power outage and only ran the pumps, heater and cx reactor) and everything was just fine.

 

[mos90]

im was thinking that it might be good for the corals. corals in the wild do have cloudy days here and there . no real goals

 

[Allmost]

you could try lowering the hours the MH is on, to see what the effects are on corals, they might color up more ! [then you can find the sweet spot for hours to run the MH.]

a day with MH off ... would mean corals not taking up the nutrients they usually take up, which in turn means more nutrient in water, which something has to take up ... usually algae.

 

[mos90]

i have been dosing vinegar to lower nutrients and help with some algae issues. i ve notice a few corals toward the top paling out and less p/e. i even notice a few burn spots on my birdsnet.

even though ive been dosing 65ml of vinegar my nutrients are still a little high. so i dont think im starving the corals.

nitrate -2
phos .03

here is what i did.

raised the light up 1" and lowered the mh time from 5 1/5 back to 5 hours.

 

[Allmost]

here is what i did.

raised the light up 1" and lowered the mh time from 5 1/5 back to 5 hours.

take some pics now, and compare it to a week from now, see how it changed.

HTH,

 

[mos90]

will do.
what is your opinion on the 400w radiums?

i was thinking of changing the outside bulbs to 250w reeflux 12k's and leaving the center with the radium

 

[MammothReefer]

400w radiums on a galaxy ballast are as good as it gets. 25" is plenty deep. Just because you have N/P doesn't mean you aren't starving your corals you could still be leaching from places or have detritus breaking down but if you aren't feeding enough you aren't feeding enough. Isn't your tank still fairly new? How many hours a day do you have your lights running? I wouldn't worry about trying to replicate "cloudy" days. It's a bit gimmicky we don't offer anywhere near the same lighting situation as most areas where are corals are from. But you could get away with 250w depending on where you are putting your SPS in the tank.

 

[shih87]

i have been dosing vinegar to lower nutrients and help with some algae issues. i ve notice a few corals toward the top paling out and less p/e. i even notice a few burn spots on my birdsnet.

even though ive been dosing 65ml of vinegar my nutrients are still a little high. so i dont think im starving the corals.

nitrate -2
phos .03

here is what i did.

raised the light up 1" and lowered the mh time from 5 1/5 back to 5 hours.

I am not too sure your lights are too strong to cause coral burn alone. My tank is less than half size of yours (125gallon, http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2308288), but with 400w x2 HQI + 54w T5 x 8, and coral just doing fine and reach water surface. Could there something else cause burn tip?
Your nitrate do looks high, but not unacceptable IMO.

Please keep us updated of your findings. If it is really the light issue, I better watch out mine.

 

[jda]

Even on cloudy days, it is not dark. There is still light that gets through. I am old school, but I just turn my MH on at 1:00, or so, and off at 11:00, or so. No ramp up, or ramp down, just a cheap mechanical light timer from a hardware store.

400W radiums are best-of-breed for both color and growth. The only lights that are equal, IME, are 250W HQI with 14K Phoenix bulbs and 10K (pick your brand Iwasaki, etc.) with VHO Super Actinics. There are some other good ones as well, like the 15K.

If you did not have them already, I might suggest some 250W HQI Pendants, but I would not replace 400W Radiums with anything.

It is a double edged sword when you dose carbon sources in a reef tank. You might have done it to get the phosphate down, but you could have killed the anoix bacteria in your sand and rock since the did not have nitrate to consume any more. Most healthy reef tanks that are not super-overstocked should not have nitrate issues. Phosphate? Maybe? ...but not nitrate.

 

[mos90]

i am also doing super heavy skimming. maybe the combo or skimming and vinegar are reducing nutrients too quickly. ive noticed even my algae scrubber not producing much. maybe i should take it easy with vinegar and back off the dosage some

 

[jda]

I personally don't think that it is a good idea to dose much carbon in a reef tank, except perhaps in some very specific circumstances where the hobbyist is very in tune with where they are at and what they want to do short term. I do think that you can disrupt the end of the N cycle and is probably not a good idea for everyday maintenance. Most mature reefs can easily handle the NO3 unless you are just really full of fish. If you have aragonite based sand and rock, it will bond with excess P04 for a while (years) - you just need to replace the sand after a while with fresh or else you can end up with what some call old-tank-syndrome.

However, your low algae growth might be tied to lack of iron. Do you dose iron? Will the algae grow better after a water change (new iron in the tank) and then kinda stop? I might suggest that you Google macroalgae and iron. I think that RHF or the reef keeping crew did an awesome article on it.

 

[mos90]

i do not dose iron an i just did a waterchange and did not see any difference. i saw that article.

it could be possible that i am doing too much vinegar. i will back off for a few weeks and see what happens.

 

[Allmost]

I personally don't think that it is a good idea to dose much carbon in a reef tank, except perhaps in some very specific circumstances where the hobbyist is very in tune with where they are at and what they want to do short term. I do think that you can disrupt the end of the N cycle and is probably not a good idea for everyday maintenance. Most mature reefs can easily handle the NO3 unless you are just really full of fish. If you have aragonite based sand and rock, it will bond with excess P04 for a while (years) - you just need to replace the sand after a while with fresh or else you can end up with what some call old-tank-syndrome.

However, your low algae growth might be tied to lack of iron. Do you dose iron? Will the algae grow better after a water change (new iron in the tank) and then kinda stop? I might suggest that you Google macroalgae and iron. I think that RHF or the reef keeping crew did an awesome article on it.

its your personal opinion and I respect it, but I respectfully disagree about your view on carbon dosing, and bonding po4 with whats in the tank, to just change it. the reef would never mature that way.

if you said Fuge and po4 remover, I would have agreed more than just letting things sink and then change everything.

 

[Allmost]

mos, some pics would help us understand the problem.

if its a low light coral you are placing on top, then its light. if your KH is high and you are getting bruned tips, then thats the problem .. it could even be a crab in there !

 

[mos90]

this is the coral.. definately high light. my alk is 9dkh cal 420. no crabs as far a i can see

i think it may be a combo of a few things. added light schedule, vinegar,less nutrients

http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemDisplay.cfm?c=2733+2&ddid=194656

 

[mos90]

im going to do a large w/c tonight and back off the vinegar to 1/2 dose.

 

[Allmost]

if you are going to dose carbon, then drop and keep KH at 7.

so this coral is on top, and getting pale and loosing PE ?

how long has the coral been in the tank ? did you start from bottom and move it up ?

if new, how are the other pieces doing that were around the same height before ?

 

[mos90]

this piece did start on the bottom. moved it to top over 4 months ago. was doing great on top.

here is the list of changes done to the tank. alk was always 8.5-9.6.

vinegar dosing started about 2 months ago. started with 20ml now 67ml

added 2 powerheads for dead spots in corners. no change in direct flow to problem coral.

stopped to weekly 25g w/c's due to what is either cyano,dinos or diatoms. could be the problem

phos was always .01-.04
nitrate was always between 2-5pmm.

i always keep 2-3 cups of carbon running that i change out every 2 weeks/
i always keep 2 cups of gfo running i change when i see a rise in phos.

 

[jda]

We might be talking about different things. If so, I apologize. The tank does mature. Rock and sand get seeded with appropriate amounts of anoix bacteria to keep nitrate at very low levels - equilibrium. The rest of the nitrate is used up with most of the phosphate when things grow (hopefully). Any additional phosphate is boned permanently with the aragonite (unless you later melt the aragonite). This can last for many years. Eventually, the aragonite is all bonded up and needs to be replaced slowly - I replace a bag of sand every six months and over three years (takes 5-6 bags) and then I will then do it again in 5 more years (mostly - I don't get under the rocks too much since I don't want a landslide). I will do this in about year five of a tank, give or take depending on load that I had in the tank. There are lots of reef tanks that don't have fuges, vinegar or GFO that are nitrate and phosphate free - there were awesome reef tanks 10+ years ago before anybody did these things. I have one of these current tanks - undetectable on both N and P on salifert kits - I have a return pump, lots of light, wavebox, heaters and I barely skim (I have lots of clams) - nothing else. This is Berlin Method 101 only changing the sand slowly before it is all bonded up prevents "old tank" syndrome. It works.

I think that dosing carbon in a tank routinely will inhibit the natural Nitrogen cycle on the back end by not allowing the anoix bacteria to establish... this, then disrupts the ability for things in the tank to grow and use both nitrate and phosphate together.

I don't know what you mean about sink, but if it is the gunk that sinks into the sand over time, that will happen no matter how you remove the N and P. Most of that junk is broken down as far as it can go, and will just sit there. The sucking out of the sand removes this too. It is usually pretty gross.