no growth and pastel color

Yeah I remember ya. :D

I guess since no one believes that I know anything about my own tank...I can try these more extreme measures. I can take the bp reactor offline. And frank, I finally figured out how to liquify the papone' so im going to be dosing it liberally till its gone. I'll leave the lights alone for now...just to be safe. I still do not see the link between a growth buffer zone and anything but lights, but we shall see. Wouldn't low nutrients just cause overall lack of growth and color? I have great growth and color now under the bottom 2/3 of the tank...the upper 1/3 can not seem to grow or hold color.

So on to the new experiment to either find out if its lack of nutrients, or light.

Wish me luck again...
 
The synergy between light and nutrients is absolute.

Excess carbon leads to excess bacterial blooms. It has been said in a thread by Randy that while he was hoping the C from pellets was local in the reactor, it really is not. Another way to look at it is to assume that the pellets use the N & P, leaving all the C from food (which is also a very heavy source for C) in the system causing the cyano and other bacteria.

As long as you feed lighter, you can remove biopellets instantly. Again; -monitor your N (ammonia) and P over a week or 2. It's not dramatic. Keep your pellets and increase feeding. Reducing your lights will let the corals restore them self. Again, it's not dramatic. 50% Light, see if your corals brown out, and increase lights slowly.

There is a lot of other factors like water clarity and toxic compounds, pH swings (from photosynthetic activities) that will add in on the overall health of your tanks, however, the description, symptoms and your equipment generally points towards too little nutrients / too much light or too little light, too little nutrients. I hardly think it's too little light, and it's hardly too much nutrients since you cannot measure. So, eliminating what it cannot be too much nutrients or too little light, and your left with too much light and/or too little nutrients. Since these go hand in hand, you improve coral recovery by increasing nutrients. Remember, algae on SPS is symbiotic algae, and needs nutrients, preferably ammonia, but it's really irrelevant what source of N, only it's more toxic and harder to keep "stable" as it's not a end product. A small part of the nutrient budget comes from consuming inorganic N&P, another is from predating and hunting (which also gives the coral N&P&C).

Consume of C&N&P is a factor for coral growth
Photosynthesis is a factor for coral growth
Limiting factors can be toxic compounds and excess of either above.

Think of it as CA / MG / KH etc. Without these, the coral won't grow, with too much, the coral will die.

You cannot view these factors isolated.
 
I completely understand all of that. But again...I see this tank everyday. I have grown to notice and hopefully understand its quarky changes. It all comes back to this...

All was ok with the tank till I added new lights to replace my very outdated lights. The lights were very low because the bulbs were so old. I didn't raise the lights much at the time...because I figured that two bulbs at a time would remedy that and slowly acclimate the corals to the newer light. This is when it all went south. As for nutrients, I still feel that a few more fish is all I would really need. I have never had fast growth...but this is NO growth... :(

But I'm changing from what has worked in my past with all my tanks...and am now trying something completely new. So again...wish me luck.
 
I definately wish you luck, and will help in any way if you need. I like the idea of taking some of the biopellets out, it sounds more reasonable than shutting them down or drastically increasing feedings. I just think the more light you've got the more food you need for long term success and pretty corals that grow. It's all about finding what works for your system, and then keeping it up over time. A year ago you couldn't even keep SPS alive, you are definately making headway IMO. I still like to try the new products but I always seem to go back to the way I've been doing it for the last few years and that's feed more food, high powered halide lights, and changing 25-40% fo the water every other week.
 
daveonbass said:
Wouldn't low nutrients just cause overall lack of growth and color? I have great growth and color now under the bottom 2/3 of the tank...the upper 1/3 can not seem to grow or hold color.
Click to expand...

I am far from an expert here but that actually does make sense to me. I have been dealing with a very similar situation and many of the posts here have helped confirm my suspicion of have too low of nutrients in my tank. Every SPS I put in there would bleach out within 2 days and stay that way. The affected tank is an 80 gal frag that shares a sump with another identical tank next to it. I started it off with a 400w MH over the SPS side and was running 0 nutrients. I never fed the system, my nitrates were at 0 even without a water change for 6 weeks. The other parameters were all in line and nothing made sense. I can't even get a speck of algae or diatom to grow in the system and have onle a few blue leg hermit crabs in there. I have just started to feed the system but it is far too early to tell if it is working. I am also still looking for good supplements to use to help provide nutrition as well. What I think is happening in your tank is you have a nutrient "ceiling" that is limiting the growth. What I mean is that you have enough ntrient to support growth to a certain level but once they get closer to the light the nutrient level is not high enough to support the coral's growth beyond that. Of course, I may be totally off base and wrong. Like I said- I'm trying to fix the same thing myself!
 
I think your on to the right idea Richard, More light=need more food. When you upgrade or change lighting it upsets the balance and you have to raise the nutrient cycle up a notch. But when you add carbon sources into the mix it makes it hard to calculate the variables, so to speak. I dose vinegar or sugar if I see green algae, I stop when it goes away. The food I overfeed has sugar in it, so no regular carbon dosing other than feeding. Dave you have those pellets and maybe they are just using up more of the nutrients than you need them to, I honestly thought like Dave did that they would only use as much carbon as they needed to but after a some reading it seems that may not be the case. I may try the pellet route on my next tank when a little more is known about these pellets and the kinks are all ironed out. Any update on your tank?
 
yeah... :(

ever since I took the BP reactor offline...and started dosing Papone' regularly...the tank has pretty much started a slow crash. It's worse than when I started...and obviously was not the right move for me. I'm mad that I didn't stick to just raising the lights at this point but I can only blame myself for not going with my gut.

I'm basically going back to the start again and I'm putting it all back the way it was and raising the lights (lowering the intensity on the tank/corals) till the tank stabilizes again.

I'm surprised that it went from improvement to worse in just a couple of days after the change.

Back to the long road of recovery. I hope it will all be at least stable again by the time I go to Next Wave in Dallas.

:(
 
Giv it a week or so more to clear all the old stuff out and get used to the new cycle. Did you ever do a WC? Are the corals STN or just remaining bleached? Just hard to understand slow crash over a few days. When did you take it offline, I thought you were going to remove half of the biopellets? Hate to see this happen.
 
What is a slow crash, and what else did you change beside removing the Biopellets? Feed coral food?

Has your N changed? (Ammonia)
Your pH and SG?

That's basically all that is important at this stage. I hardly think you can crash a tank by removing biopellets and increasing feeding. I you get algae growth that's a "good" thing in the long run.
 
By slow crash I mean that the corals are now ALL losing color, and a few of the frags appear to have stn, brown algae has started to grow on the corals (mainly on the monti caps) replacing what used to be color. The sps also had almost zero PE while the bp's were off. The LPS also look like crap...my duncan which is always open and happy was receded, chqlices were closed up, candy canes were losing color and tissue. Even my trash polyps were receded and unhappy looking. Cyano started growing everywhere and the tank overall looked awful. I have since turned the bp's back on and everything looks better after just one day. I can see the PE is returning, and cyano is receding, but color is still gonna take time to return. Also, my skimmed pulled practically nothing out of the tank till I turned the bp's back on...then it started working normally.
I've been dosing papone' in diluted form every night and morning. Everything else has remained the same. Frank, I never said I was going to take out half the bp's, I only have a very small amount in there and trying to remove half would be way more difficult that just turning them off.

Having said that; I'm now wondering if the problem is that I don't have enough bp's anymore. I used to have much more than this and thats when things were running great with vibrant colors and growth. I'm at about a quarter of what I used to have (they do slowly get eaten) so I wonder if I don't have enough to filter all the excess nutrients. My biggest pet peeve is that the sps wee now getting brown algae on them where they were pale, like its bleached and dead.

None of this is comforting...not to me at least. I'm half asleep right now but when I get up I'm going to start testing the water again. Like I said...I'm gonna get back to what I was originally going to try and work from there.
 
No...its not in the sump...its external and I made sure that it had lost siphon so that nothing back washed into the tank.
 
I believe you know best what's happening to your tank yourself. However, if your measured nutrients was kept at bay around 0 on a hobby kit prior to the removal of Biopellets, I really can't see any reason why that would result in a "slow" crash, other that not having a sustainable bacterial flora going on in your tank (on the live rock) which is nigh impossible.

Biopellets does not have any magical properties. It would be interesting if you could try another carbon source. VSV or any of them alone. Add for instance 5ml vinegar for ever 10 liter of water you have before setting the pellets back up again.

And, if your skimmer didn't remove anything after removing the pellets, this would point toward mechanical malfunction. The skimmer should remove waste, with or without a carbon source. The reason why many report the increase and stink in skimmer product is because bacterial growth is promoted by extra C.
 
I've said it many times, at this point I don't have any good advice other than to do a WC, sorry it's just my idea on how to fix everything at this point. I've decieded against any of the newer products though, might try some LEDs. I just don't see it to be a big benefit vs traditional carbon dosing, thought the results vary for sure. How's the nem doing under the LEDs?
 
The nem is dying slowly cause I can't afford to add what I need to to the tank till we get some tax money back. I've said this a lot lately, but its a money issue. (and bad location with no LFS)

I ran all my tests again...and I'm going to stop dosing till I see a change. Basicly, nothing is growing at the moment...so none of the ca, alk, or mag is being consumed. Since I took the BPs offline (now back on) the nitrates went from around 5ppm up to over 20ppm now. And I'm fairly sure thats one big factor as to why things suck right now. PH and salinity are above safe levels...8.43 and 1.029. So for now I'm just going to do a good sized WC tomorrow and basicly try to reset the water params to levels that bring my tank back to equalibrium. I also put the lights back to 6 on because now some corals are browning out. Even though others are still bleaching out. So...well...I'm flying by the seat of my pants.
 
I may set up a smaller nem tank, thinking about a 40b and adding it right over my sump and just plugging it into the system. I gotta have a nemo tank per wife's request. As far as flying by the seat of your pants I can definately understand, if you need a place to send any frags let me know.
 
Oh, BTW, I meant to add that I have switched from leds to mh over the nem but im going to put the led back. The mh has caused the nem to lose all color, so its obviously not enough light. All the other little corals in there have also gone down hill since the switch back to mh. Granted its an old 150w 20k bulb, but remember, the glory days of that tank were under those lights. So clearly the leds are pitting out more. But again, that tank needs more than just a new light. That's the one where all the rocks that are exposed to light are covered in black...explain that one. Haha. It's like black coraline.

I can't wait to be getting a little more money soon...then I can start saving more for this hobby.

Have you thought about nextwave at all? It's march 3rd and we have our tickets. I just hope she doesn't have a schedule change and can't go. I'm gonna be busy cause I have to drive down, attention the event, then drive immediately back at 6 when its over, all to be home by 9 to get ready for a gig I have in texarkana. Thankfully our band isn't first... O_o
 
Probably not going to nextwave, defiantely gonna hit up MACNA. I've just got so little room and even adding another tank isn't going to allow me to get much more coral at this point, plus I know how rediculous the prices are gonna be. If I try LEDs further it's gonna be with a Kessil for sure, I'm not worried about PAR I'm wanting the color and shimmer. I think Kessil has the best idea for furthering the technology with the beer can fixture, we shall see. I remember the 150w sunpod on my 30 tall and thinking I was going to melt the silicone, hell Cathy told me I wouldn't be able to keep anything in that high of light, 5 whole watts per gallon. The good ole days
 
I don't like the kessil for its lack of color. It's ok...but its limited just like the mh technology. To me its just a lower watt version of a mh. I'm sold on the Radion. And after having seen the way the program intergrates with the light and the pumps...wow. I'm hoping to see one (of each) at nextwave, I saw an ai sol blue last year...so hopefully someone will have the new stuff.
 
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