Lighting/Feeding Question for Successful BareBottom'ers

[naterealbig]

Hey everyone, about 3 weeks ago I took all the sand out of my aquapod in an attempt to get rid of a bryopsis problem I have had for months. I actually ended up taking down my 90 cube because it got so bad. All of my corals (mostly sps) came out of the 90 and are in the Aquapod now. I know that I will have to adjust feeding and lighting to fine tune things, but I'm getting "mixed reviews" from my coral, and want to make sure I'm starting with reasonable barebottom husbandry. Here are some specs of the tank which I'm sure you will want to know:

Tank - 24 Gallon Aquapod, false back removed

Skimmer - Eshopps HOB - rated for 75 gallons - skimmed wet as I can

Flow 2x Korallia 2's, 1x MJ1200

Temp - 81-83F

Lighting - 150w DE Radium - 10inches off the water surface - 17" from the highest coral. The bulb is about 2 months old

Photoperiod - 8hrs

Feeding - about the equivalent of 2/3 of a cube of frozen food (mysis, or own seafood mix) in the morning between 2 feedings. During the day, I have an automatic feeder which feeds a mix of nls pellets, salifert pellets, and cyclops (all ground up) four times during the remainder of the photoperiod. The total of dry food daily adds up to about 1/8 of a teaspoon.

Paramaters
Ca - 450
Alk - 9.9 dKH
NO3 - 1ppm
PO4 - .03pmm
Mg - 1390
pH -7.7 (stopped dosing alk for a few days, should come back up when I resume dosing)

Maintenance - I blow out LR and siphon out detritus about 5 times a week. I do a 25% water change with ReefCrystals once a week. I dose ESV A,B, & Mg 3 times a week (usually M,W, & F).

Stock - 2 med. Percs, 1 tailspot blenny, 1 sm 6-line wrasse, and a coral beauty.

Now here are my questions. Almost all of the corals turned pretty brown, between their crappy state in the 90, the transfer to the Aquapod, and then removing the sand. A lot of the corals have colored up, but some have gotten worse. For example: My Oregon tort is blue, but it is drab, brown in areas and the "skin" on it looks very rough. The milli's I have colored right away and appear to be doing good. The monti caps have color, but not the intensity they once had. I added an ORA tricolor acro to the mix after I took out the sand bed, jut to get a baseline of how my tank was. It has turned almost white, despite the fact it is growing quickly, and has ok polyp extension. Both my garf Bonsai's are still brown, but are slowly getting some of their purple back. A lot of the other corals are starting to change colors, and some are just staying plain brown.

Are their changes I need to make to my husbandry, parameters, etc? If so, I would love quantifiable answers and specific recommendations. I prefer to keep my 8hour photoperiod, so if I need to cut back on the lights, can I raise them as opposed to cutting back the time they are on? If I need to feed more, how can I do it with an automated system? The automatic feeder is an aquachef, and either feeds to little, or an enormous amount. What could I use in addition to this, to feed the tank while I'm at work & school? Do I need more fish? If so, how many, what kind? Should I siphon out the tank more, less? Should I dose more often? Should I suppliment coral feeding with AA's, or products targeting coral color?

I love the bb look (with a white bottom anyways - which I will maintain), and have seen so many sps tanks run successfully (and beautifully). I am having a custom 150g built right now, which will be a barebottom as well. I'm using the Aquapod to help develop a system, but at least would like a "baseline" starting point as far as feeding/lighting/husbandry goes. Thanks in advance!

Nate

 

[beeker]

the rough skin can be fixed with more food (oyster eggs and pyhto and mysis/Rotifers) or Amino acids can help

I'd also lower your 150w radium, my BC29g was 20 inches high and my sunpod 150w was about 7 inches away from my sps, so IMO you could move the fixture down farther to improve PAR(this IMO would improve the color as well over time once the tank gets stable again)


only do water changes once a week, a change of 2-3 gallons a week should be enough

Also i don't ever skim wet on my 200g BB, i set my skimmer so that the darkest skimate is always just barely overflowing into the cup it makes what is pulled out thicker and IMO gets more waste out of the tank as opposed to wet skimming which takes more food and water out...

8 hours is perfect for a photoperiod but a 10 hour photperiod can be achieved with the 150w MH without issue as long as you aclimate your corals slowly to the increase's i ran my photoperiod on my 29g BC for 10 hours a day noticed that after 9 hours it had little affect it was more for my own viewing

Your temp could be a little lower, on the 78-80 degree range it will be more forgiving when you lower the light

feed when you can, i feed my tank only 1 time a day but i feed heavy when i do

I dose oyster eggs and phyto and pe mysis and prawn roe all at the same time, so my tank has food moving around it for a good 10 minutes but only feed 1 time a day to reduce the amount of algea

main thing is keep up with feeding nice and heavy but only 1 or 2 times a day and keep up on weekly water changes

and make sure your Alk/Calc and Mag are always consistant 500ppm calc, 1500ppm mag and a DKH of 7-8 and your tank will be good after a few weeks or months...it will take time for the corals to recover

i just read how much you feed IMO cut that in half and cut out the dry food

I only feed my tank frozen food never dry, Dry food IMO promotes a ton of algea growth and is harder to skim out of the tank, this could be causing your brown corals, it looks like you offer a lot of food more than often enough

Drop your feedings to 1 time a day, Feed only the frozen cubes and the cylop but stop feeding the dry food and see if that doesen't help in a month

 

[naterealbig]

Beeker,

Thanks for the response, and your advice. You know, in all the BB threads I have read, people are always claiming that you have to feed a ton of food and reduce the amount of light on the tank. I'm not questioning your methods, as your tank and corals look great, it just seems that your recommendation goes against what most consider barebottom protocol.

I know that some of my color "woes" are due to the tanks fluctuating chemistry, and other stresses. I will cut back the feeding to once or twice a day with frozen/cyclops only. I'll keep my photoperiod the same, but move the light closer to the top of the tank. If I can, I'll keep the temp a couple of degrees lower, and I'll also shoot for the parameters you have listed for Ca/Alk/Mg. Additionally I think I will run my skimmer a little more dry. I'll try this out and post results in a month.

As far a daily maintenance goes, should I continue with the daily siphoning/blowing off rocks?

Thanks!