Mhucasey's SPS obsession

[mhucasey]

Matt your Tank is looking fantastic!!!

Thanks Ryan, I've been on a little coral spree lately:lolspin:

 

[ryanrid]

Thanks Ryan, I've been on a little coral spree lately:lolspin:

Lately =how many years

 

[mhucasey]

Lately =how many years

I don't have a problem. I can stop anytime. Im not hurting anyone. Why are you attacking me?

 

[biggles]

Easter is two days away Andrew:reading: You'll just have to wait:spin3:

The Death Star began orbiting the undefended rebel home world......... pigment missiles began spinning up in their silos....... :smokin:

 

[biggles]

Yellow what ?........... :strooper:

 

[mhucasey]

In an unprecedented show of galactic unity, the AF Rebel is reaching out to Darth Acro for some advice:strooper:
I have had a lot of things change over the last few weeks and the tank is doing phenomenally well in general. I have noticed that there have been a few pigment shifts that have happened over the last few weeks that I am a little concerned about.

Background:
I switched to an 8 hour all bulbs on schedule a few months ago when I was still loaded up with old T5 bulbs. I saw improvements in growth and have left it in place because it appeared to be working. Historically I went with 6.5 hours. Lights were 8 inches above the water.

About a month ago I replaced 8 bulbs out of the 14 and added the two blue LED tubes. Then 11 days ago I replaced the remainder of the bulbs. I didn't change the photoperiod or height.
I am using 2 Aquablue Azure, 5 Blue Plus, 2 Blue Pop LED Tubes, Two Fiji purple, and 3 Coral Plus.

Two or three weeks ago I increased my dosing of Micro E from 3 drops per day to 8 drops to up my Manganese levels. The Cyano retreated noticeably and the colors overall seemed to be pretty good.

What I have been seeing is amazing growth, great PE, etc. However, the reds/pinks have shifted a bit toward orange a little. The vibrant red has muted somewhat.

Here is an example:
January:

This week:

And a newer piece that was bright pink:

Has changed toward dull red:

And finally the crown jewel, the Tierra del Fuego:

Has faded a lot:

I suspect the increased light from the new bulbs is cooking the corals a bit too much. The corals look fantastic from the side, color is great from there, but from the top there is a little bit of a washout of some of the more sensitive corals, especially reds. The other possibility is that there is just a bit too much Manganese, Andrew you said you tried test overdosing KoralColor and saw some pigment shifts from doing that.

 

[mhucasey]

Continued:
There are so many factors at work in the tank, so I am exploring all options. Using the zeolites has brought the Potassium levels down from around 430 to 400, I will need to start dosing that. I have been using the Phosphate minus for about 3-4 weeks as well, though I don't think that is the cause. Phosphate is low, but stable at 0.04-0.06.

Here is an example of the color on the side VS the top:
Side:

Top:

The pale parts in the crooks of the branches were identified by BigE as an effect of too much light. Some pieces look a little sunburned to my eye. Others, like this shortcake, are growing like crazy with bright green everywhere, even under the branch, which I believe you said was an indication of high light:

The red planet has almost no green in it and from the side looks pure red, but from the top looks more brownish red:

Anyhow, i was hoping to get your thoughts on whether the higher amount of light is responsible or perhaps too much Manganese. The coral growth has really picked up since the lighting was swapped out, so I know this is picky and all but thats me. I have raised the lights two inches and reduced the all-on photoperiod from 8 hours to 7 to see if that has an effect.

This is the Mr Pacman a month or so ago:

and last night:

 

[joshky]

Wow that bright pink acro is stunning. Great documentation showing color changes too, I imagine it's probably just the light shock. I did read that right, you switched 8 bulbs at once correct? Maybe I just baby my tank too much but I've been switching 2 bulbs out a week, I replace my last two this upcoming week. Then again my acros are nothing to go by at the moment! LOL

 

[mhucasey]

Wow that bright pink acro is stunning. Great documentation showing color changes too, I imagine it's probably just the light shock. I did read that right, you switched 8 bulbs at once correct? Maybe I just baby my tank too much but I've been switching 2 bulbs out a week, I replace my last two this upcoming week. Then again my acros are nothing to go by at the moment! LOL

I switched out 10 at once actually, then about 2 weeks later switched out the remaining 4. You're probably right, one thing I forgot to add is that corals lower down/on the edges have had less issues with color and seem to even be growing faster. One nice thing about T5s is the diffuse light makes them much less likely to burn or damage corals. When I first switched to T5s from the initial LED setup i put 8 brand new bulbs about 5 inches above the water and went right to my normal photoperiod. One small frag melted almost immediately but the rest took the change without missing a beat.

 

[reefmutt]

In an unprecedented show of galactic unity, the AF Rebel is reaching out to Darth Acro for some advice:strooper:
I have had a lot of things change over the last few weeks and the tank is doing phenomenally well in general. I have noticed that there have been a few pigment shifts that have happened over the last few weeks that I am a little concerned about.

Background:
I switched to an 8 hour all bulbs on schedule a few months ago when I was still loaded up with old T5 bulbs. I saw improvements in growth and have left it in place because it appeared to be working. Historically I went with 6.5 hours. Lights were 8 inches above the water.

About a month ago I replaced 8 bulbs out of the 14 and added the two blue LED tubes. Then 11 days ago I replaced the remainder of the bulbs. I didn't change the photoperiod or height.
I am using 2 Aquablue Azure, 5 Blue Plus, 2 Blue Pop LED Tubes, Two Fiji purple, and 3 Coral Plus.

Two or three weeks ago I increased my dosing of Micro E from 3 drops per day to 8 drops to up my Manganese levels. The Cyano retreated noticeably and the colors overall seemed to be pretty good.

What I have been seeing is amazing growth, great PE, etc. However, the reds/pinks have shifted a bit toward orange a little. The vibrant red has muted somewhat.

Here is an example:
January:

This week:

And a newer piece that was bright pink:

Has changed toward dull red:

And finally the crown jewel, the Tierra del Fuego:

Has faded a lot:

I suspect the increased light from the new bulbs is cooking the corals a bit too much. The corals look fantastic from the side, color is great from there, but from the top there is a little bit of a washout of some of the more sensitive corals, especially reds. The other possibility is that there is just a bit too much Manganese, Andrew you said you tried test overdosing KoralColor and saw some pigment shifts from doing that.

first of all... these corals are just stupid crazy!!
That was a pretty big jump in coral E..
I think you are on the right track with your suspicions about the color shifts..
maybe you just need to retrace your steps a bit and come in half way..

 

[reefmutt]

Matt, have you ever played with switching half your tubes off once or twice throughout the day (like cloud cover) instead of increasing or decreasing the photoperiod at either end of the period?
I do have a few corals that are light stressed - even with only 150w mh.. Some you just can't move, I know..
I have my mh switch off for two aprox 30 minute periods during the day.. Started doing it a long time ago as an acclimation thing but I just never stopped... Gives the corals a chance to wind down once or twice during the intense photoperiod..

 

[mhucasey]

Matt, have you ever played with switching half your tubes off once or twice throughout the day (like cloud cover) instead of increasing or decreasing the photoperiod at either end of the period?
I do have a few corals that are light stressed - even with only 150w mh.. Some you just can't move, I know..
I have my mh switch off for two aprox 30 minute periods during the day.. Started doing it a long time ago as an acclimation thing but I just never stopped... Gives the corals a chance to wind down once or twice during the intense photoperiod..

No, I've never tried it like that, in the case of the 2 Sunpowers I can either have 4 bulbs, 10 bulbs, or 14 bulbs on. So turning off half isn't possible. I think that the photoperiod along with the new bulbs is probably the issue, I have almost always run a 6.5 hour all bulbs on photoperiod with great results. With 8 hours I got more growth, but color went down a little at first, much more in the last few weeks. I'm looking at a lot of pictures to try to pinpoint it.

 

[reefmutt]

I guess it doesn't have to be half.. Maybe 30%.. Enough to give them a break from extreme photosynthesis for a bit..
Anyways.. Just a thought..

 

[mhucasey]

Well I went back through raw top down pics of several red corals that I have seen shift colors. I put them in an iPhoto album and then clicked through them in chronological order and marked where the color shift occurred. I then went through this thread and noted big changes and those dates. It became clear that the colors shifted a bit after going from 12 bulbs to 14, but then there was a big change after replacing 10 bulbs. I computed the output difference between the old 12 bulb fixture and its par output(theoretical using the Spectra program) and the current 14 bulbs and all bulbs being equal the increase in par between that mix and this is +29%. Add to that that the new bulbs put out way more par than the old ones that were in the fixture and I may have increased par by 60% or more. I need to get a par meter...

 

[reefmutt]

Wow! That's a serious increase.. And you increased photoperiod..
I remember you had good results with raising the fixture last year.. Any thoughts?

 

[mhucasey]

Wow! That's a serious increase.. And you increased photoperiod..
I remember you had good results with raising the fixture last year.. Any thoughts?

Yeah, it seems pretty obvious to me now:facepalm:

I did raise the fixture, I had always kept is roughly 6 inches above the water but ended up with it 10-11 inches above the water, With it higher up, colors did much better. As the bulbs got older I lowered the fixture a bit to compensate, but only down to 8 inches above the water. When I was changing the bulbs I didn't think to raise it again, that's why having a PAR meter would be ideal.

One thing that is clear to me also is that older tubes can still put out a lot of measurable PAR but it is in the blue/actinic area where the tubes age the worst. The new Blue plus were way more "blue" and less blue-green than older tubes. Having tested them before(older tubes) I know that they can still read high numbers for PAR, but the spectrum is probably shifting to produce more green light. I'd love to see spectral comparisons between new and used bulbs.

 

[markalot]

I paid big bucks for an Apogee but now you can get just the sensor and USB it to a computer to take measurements.

 

[reefmutt]

That's cool.. I like that idea. I assume you'd need a program on your computer to interpret the sensors readings..

 

[DiscusHeckel]

One thing that is clear to me also is that older tubes can still put out a lot of measurable PAR but it is in the blue/actinic area where the tubes age the worst. The new Blue plus were way more "blue" and less blue-green than older tubes. Having tested them before(older tubes) I know that they can still read high numbers for PAR, but the spectrum is probably shifting to produce more green light. I'd love to see spectral comparisons between new and used bulbs.

The same thing happened to me last year. After 11 months of use, I observed that PAR readings of my old ATI tubes actually went up rather than down. I hypothesised that this was due to spectrum shift towards green/yellow/orange/red. Coral colours started to suffer slightly despite increase in PAR. I then changed my tubes swiftly.

 

[nemodan]

Matt

In my system, with the fuge and Matrix, do you think will there be a benefit if I dose daily Pro Bio S , to keep the bacteria population. Just only the AF bacteria suspension.

What do you think ? , Could it be positive or negative ?

Thanks
Daniel