SPS Before and After Pictures, Need Advice From the Experienced

LED and T-5 are different. You never mentioned your LED settings. There is a long thread on hydra setting in the gear forum. You should check it out. Lots of folks sharing experience and settings.

I have been using Sonicboom's exact settings.
 
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Your problem definitely looks like a feeding issue.
Remember there must be a balance between exporting and importing.

Start feeding things like reef roids, oyster feast, coral frenzy and in a few weeks watch the difference in your polyp extension!

GFO may be a little heavy, as long as you are keeping up on tank maintenance and have a good skimmer IMO GFO doesn't have to be used in a home aquarium.

Try feeding, watch what happens
 
I would say lower intensity if lights and feed more. This is a good situation for some Pohls Xtra or acropower.

rovster is right about the arcopower. I had perfect everything,even colors. Guess what happened when i used acropower? nothing besides a algae bloom lol.
 
I started feeding Oyster Feast, Rod's and Reef Chili. When you say a couple of drops of amino, what exact product is that that I can add to food in such a manner?

I would love to hear how much of what and how often you all are feeding including tank size and how heavily stocked with fish.

This will give me an idea of what to shoot for.

Your problem definitely looks like a feeding issue.
Remember there must be a balance between exporting and importing.

Start feeding things like reef roids, oyster feast, coral frenzy and in a few weeks watch the difference in your polyp extension!

GFO may be a little heavy, as long as you are keeping up on tank maintenance and have a good skimmer IMO GFO doesn't have to be used in a home aquarium.

Try feeding, watch what happens


All you need is acropower :beer:
 
I have been using Sonicboom's exact settings.

I do not recall his settings but know he has good results. Like what others has said look to feed more coupled with good export. Remember corals are animals not plants. They need to eat.
 
Definitely feed more. As far as nitrates and phosphates, just keep them below 1.0. Say .05 would be a good target. Every tank is different. You will have to find the sweet spot with import and export. Once you find it keep it there and stable.

Looking at you fish list, If you like fish add a few more, and feed them. I think fish poo is the best coral food . You are definitely on the low side as far as fish go...
 
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I see a lot of "feed more" comments but want to caution you to not overdo it.
In my experience when it comes to feeding corals - less is more. I agree with Dartolution regarding GFO - I personally think it is overrated, over used and unnecessary in many reef tanks that are using it.
 
I see a lot of "feed more" comments but want to caution you to not overdo it.
In my experience when it comes to feeding corals - less is more. I agree with Dartolution regarding GFO - I personally think it is overrated, over used and unnecessary in many reef tanks that are using it.


How much and how often do you think is too much?

When do you think GFO would be a good idea?

Thanks
 
How much and how often do you think is too much?

When do you think GFO would be a good idea?

Thanks

I personally would only use GFO if my phosphates were really high and I was having algae blooms. Dosing amino acids or acropower or whatever you do, I would suggest only about twice a week not every day.
 
I personally would only use GFO if my phosphates were really high and I was having algae blooms. Dosing amino acids or acropower or whatever you do, I would suggest only about twice a week not every day.

That is what I was doing, feeding Reef Chili twice a week.

And everyone is recommending to feed more.
 
So I brought up my nutrients with feeding more. My nitrates are now at 2. Phosphates remain at 0 even though I stopped running GFO a week ago.

Some of the corals seem to be gaining some color back.

Problem is, I now have HAIR ALGAE EVERYWHERE starting to form on all the rocks!

Now what?
 
Ime, anytime you remove an export method, the tank goes through an ugly phase until it balances itself out again. Can last a month in some cases. I had a similar problem when I removed gfo. Po4 went from .01 to .04 and the tank looked a little furry for a while. I added a couple more mexican turbos and sat on my hands and turns out it was one of the best things I did for this tank. Be patient and let your tank come back inline before you do anything else.

Just my .02 and I am far from a SPS guru lol
 
Ime, anytime you remove an export method, the tank goes through an ugly phase until it balances itself out again. Can last a month in some cases. I had a similar problem when I removed gfo. Po4 went from .01 to .04 and the tank looked a little furry for a while. I added a couple more mexican turbos and sat on my hands and turns out it was one of the best things I did for this tank. Be patient and let your tank come back inline before you do anything else.

Just my .02 and I am far from a SPS guru lol


In my case I substantially upped my feeding plus started dosing 5 ml of Acropower daily.

At the same time removed gfo.

What is strange is that my p04 still reads 0 - same as while running the gfo. So although I stopped an export process, it wasn't even exporting anything anyway, was it?

Only nitrates increased from 0 to 2 because of feeding.

When you say wait until the tank balances, what exactly does that mean in terms of getting rid of "furry" rocks?
 
It means doing nothing and waiting for the tank to return to a balanced state without the assistance of gfo
 
Beef up your CUC and wait. I would stop dosing acro power daily. You added a bunch of nutrients and dropped GFO at the same time.

Just because your test reads 0 po4 doesn't mean it's not there. The hair algae is saying otherwise
 
Beef up your CUC and wait. I would stop dosing acro power daily. You added a bunch of nutrients and dropped GFO at the same time.

Just because your test reads 0 po4 doesn't mean it's not there. The hair algae is saying otherwise

Are turbo snails safe for sps, clams?

I added 10 trochus per the recommendations of others and I notice absolutely no reduction in algae.

I am blasting the rocks once a week with a turkey baster. I am just scared of the hair algae getting out of control because that is what I read - if you dont intervene it can spread like wild fire and once it gets a foothold, its hard to beat.
 
i believe the phosphates could be bound up in the hair algae. not sure how others feel about nopox... or carbon dosing but my bacteria are beating algae for now.... just throwing it out there im no expert.... good read tho
 
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