SPS and Water Parameters

Omie

Omie

New member
I'll like to see some SPS tanks with the actual water parameters. When I started this hobby all LFS told me that I need to have my nitrates and P04 at 0ppm. Well, I bought some reactors and made it happen. I had good success with LPS but my SPS weren't to happy. Reading lots of threads and trying to understand the SPS world, I found that the corals need the nitrates and phosphates! I turned off my reactors and started to feed my tank more. I'm trying to give the corals more nutrients and I'm expecting to get the results everyone wants (at least I do).

That being said, I want to know the actual water parameters of the pics you are posting and what you are doing to keep it that way. I don't care if the tank is brown or like a rainbow. Also, I will like to know which test kits you are using (I don't want to compare them, just want the info). Adding to the list, bc it is essential, pls mention the lighting and water flow. Let's see them!!!

I'll start with mine.

I have a 60 gallon cube tank 24x24x24
For lights I have the Radions G3 pro
Flow I have 2 mp10.
My water parameters are:
Salt: 1.025
Temp: 76.9
Alk: 7.7dKh (Salifert)
Ca: 410ppm (Salifert)
Mag: 1680ppm (Salifert)
Nitrate: 0ppm (Salifert)
PO4: 0ppm (Hanna)
Ph: 7.68 (AquaController)

<a href="http://s1014.photobucket.com/user/omie11/media/reef%20central/BD4DF0B1-4BE3-4C1D-B5C2-8599B85800AF.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/omie11/reef%20central/BD4DF0B1-4BE3-4C1D-B5C2-8599B85800AF.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo BD4DF0B1-4BE3-4C1D-B5C2-8599B85800AF.jpg"/></a>

From left to right:
-Garf Bonsai, it's brown with little green color
-Top one: SSC that turned dark brown
-Middle one: it's yellow (the color it's suppose to be), but the tips are supposed to be pink and they're not.
Middle one: Garf Bonsai and it's light brown. It's one branch is growing and has the purple color.
-Top right: Candle light: supposed to have bright yellow tips. It's just white with yellow.

In my case I have lots of brown corals...

Changes I made:
*I turned off the reactors
*Feeding more often
*Changed the intensity of the lights. Was at 35%. I'm in the process to go to 50% (will take 2 weeks) and the white lights are increased to 4.5hrs of a 12hrs cycle.
 
Which Hanna PO4? Because I have the ULR Phosphorous and my buddy has the Phosphate LR and while his has shown a reading of 0 my ULR Phosphorous never has. Lowest it has ever shows was 3 which is 0.01 ppm phosphate.

Also since you are ULNS are you feeding the corals with anything like Aquavitro Fuel, Acropower, etc?
 
The only thing it says on the P04 box is HC (I have it for 4 years +/-)
I'm feeding SPS max and oyster magnifique (SPS max during the day and oysters at night). Fish are fed twice during the day.
 
I ran my tank for years with 0ppm on both, no growth issues. I did see more growth moving from 76 to 79F though.
 
One thing I see is that your pH is kinda low. Not dangerous low but definitely a lot lower than the 8.2-8.4 optimum. If you have a skimmer you might have too much co2 in the air.

Also high co2 can be indicative of not enough lighting. Reason being is photosynthesis converts co2 to o2 which is why ph tends to naturally be higher when our lights are on. Your tank looks pretty stocked so your o2 levels when lights are on should be high.
 
Ca. 430
Mg 1350
Kh 7,5
PO4 0,1-0,3
NO3 5
(triton lab test)

My experience with PO4 is to be careful removing it. Removing it too fast, or hitting 0 from any active removal of PO4.
Measuring 0,0 with my hanna url is no problem, if the system it self uses the PO4 without my help.
NO3 is necessary in my tank. All off my corals appear light sensitive if NO3 gets to low. Green corals gets effected the most, getting pale when NO3 drops <5ppm


 
Omie, your tank is too clean, SPS corals do like low nutrient ambient but not sterilized ! The only thing i strange is the fact you saying that LPS are ok!?

When you said:

Omie said:
In my case I have lots of brown corals...
Click to expand...
For me you don´t have brown corals, instead you have very pale corals, resulted from your ULN system. You need to feed more your system but stay low with NO3 and PO4, the success is balance the import/export nutrients!
 
PederP said:
Ca. 430
Mg 1350
Kh 7,5
PO4 0,1-0,3
NO3 5
(triton lab test)

My experience with PO4 is to be careful removing it. Removing it too fast, or hitting 0 from any active removal of PO4.
Measuring 0,0 with my hanna url is no problem, if the system it self uses the PO4 without my help.
NO3 is necessary in my tank. All off my corals appear light sensitive if NO3 gets to low. Green corals gets effected the most, getting pale when NO3 drops <5ppm


Click to expand...

That's really nice tank!
I had the mistake of removing P04 to fast when I started my new tank. Now I'm feeding enough to try to increase it. Slowly...:facepalm:
 
gus6464 said:
One thing I see is that your pH is kinda low. Not dangerous low but definitely a lot lower than the 8.2-8.4 optimum. If you have a skimmer you might have too much co2 in the air.

Also high co2 can be indicative of not enough lighting. Reason being is photosynthesis converts co2 to o2 which is why ph tends to naturally be higher when our lights are on. Your tank looks pretty stocked so your o2 levels when lights are on should be high.
Click to expand...

I know that the lights was Another problem. At first I increased the intensity to 35% and after 5-6month I bump it up to 45%. I thought was to much and dropped again to 35%.
It's being almos a year at 35%. Now I'll increased it to 50% (will take 2 weeks) and will wait to see how they respond. Hope with that my ph will increase to!
 
Johnyman said:
Omie, your tank is too clean, SPS corals do like low nutrient ambient but not sterilized ! The only thing i strange is the fact you saying that LPS are ok!?

When you said:


For me you don´t have brown corals, instead you have very pale corals, resulted from your ULN system. You need to feed more your system but stay low with NO3 and PO4, the success is balance the import/export nutrients!
Click to expand...

I figure it out lol! Late, but im doing changes slowly.
About the LPS, I don't have any problems at all. I have a thread of my new tank and you can see some of my lps there. So far they look good.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2431161
 
PederP said:
Ca. 430
Mg 1350
Kh 7,5
PO4 0,1-0,3
NO3 5
(triton lab test)

My experience with PO4 is to be careful removing it. Removing it too fast, or hitting 0 from any active removal of PO4.
Measuring 0,0 with my hanna url is no problem, if the system it self uses the PO4 without my help.
NO3 is necessary in my tank. All off my corals appear light sensitive if NO3 gets to low. Green corals gets effected the most, getting pale when NO3 drops <5ppm


Click to expand...
Is that a ponape in the first picture top right?
 
I got this frag a week ago, it's an ORA Joe. When I got it the color was kinda pale. I run low nutrient with a gfo/carbon reactor with po4 at 0.01 and no3 not detectable on API. Over the course of a week the base has started to get bright green as you can see in the picture and is spreading more and more. Low nutrient does not necessarily mean pale colors.

IMG_20151221_165957.jpg


I am switching this weekend though to matrix in the sump and seeding with probidio biodigest to ween off the gfo reactor.
 
I'll be focusing on the Garf Bonsai. It's close enough to take a clear pic and it's easy to compare if colors changes.

<a href="http://s1014.photobucket.com/user/omie11/media/reef%20central/27E9BC3B-82D4-45DD-9C8F-C04377F0F816.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/omie11/reef%20central/27E9BC3B-82D4-45DD-9C8F-C04377F0F816.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 27E9BC3B-82D4-45DD-9C8F-C04377F0F816.jpg"/></a>

It's been a little more than 2 weeks feeding my tank. I started to feed sps max during the day for corals and pellets for the fish. At night, I use oyster fest. My lights went from 35% of intensity to 50% (will be increased again to 75% in like a week). And day light from 1.5hrs to 4.5hrs.

Positive:
More polyps extension and faster growing. It's pretty amazing how fast are growing now.

<a href="http://s1014.photobucket.com/user/omie11/media/reef%20central/IMG_2781.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/omie11/reef%20central/IMG_2781.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_2781.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s1014.photobucket.com/user/omie11/media/reef%20central/IMG_2782.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/omie11/reef%20central/IMG_2782.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_2782.jpg"/></a>

Negative:
Some GHA growing on top of the back flow. And just a little bit on a back rock. The sand is getting cyanobacteria (front of the tank) and the glass a little bit of green algae instead of diatoms.

<a href="http://s1014.photobucket.com/user/omie11/media/reef%20central/IMG_2784.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/omie11/reef%20central/IMG_2784.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_2784.jpg"/></a>

My water parameters:
Salt: 1.025
Temp: 78.9
Alk: 8.3dKh
Ca: 420ppm
Mag: 1650ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
PO4: 0ppm
Ph: 8.11

Even though didn't detect nitrate or P04, I bet it's a false reading, bc of the GHA. Also, my Mag dropped from last time. And my ph increased drastically after I turned off my reactors.
 
How is the extra feeding going? Are you seeing positive results on the SPS? I expect you should see better colours starting to appear and less brown etc.
 
I had this same issue as well, for awhile I thought my browned/tan bonsai and tri color was from too many nutrients. I started feeding heavier (specifically more meaty items) but it still wasn't enough to bring up my po4 and no3, so I started dosing Potassium Nitrate to keep levels up.

Here you can see how pale and tan it is:


This is today, granted that the MH is off and only the T5's are on but you get the idea :)



I wont say that just dosing potassium nitrate did the trick, but adding and allowing more nutrients in the tank certainly helps. I still don't register po4 on the hanna but no3 stays around 10-20
 
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