Sps doctors! Diagnose my tank, before I throw in the towel!

[tripdad]

I will have to look for it but I remember an article I read that when nutients in the form of nitrates and phosphates are driven low to zero that bad algae's can "change" there food source and become bacteria feeders instead. This would jive with what your getting. If nutrients in traditional form are zero'd then corals will starve and if algae is consuming bacteria then your tank will become even harder to get a true balance in as it needs bacteria to run the cycle. I may be remembering wrong but this is what I remeber. I will look for the article. I would think that any detectable phos or nitrate would be enough but who knows for sure, kinda "black art" stuff coloring these things up. Best advice so far is go slow with any changes.

 

[Koralcrazy]

Summary of Treatment Plan:

1. Up water changes to 20% weekly
2. Put GFO back on, but minimal amount and flow through it
3. Feed fish NLS pellets twice per day & 1 cube frozen once per day
4. Add 'Fuel' Aminos and Oyster Feast every other day at lights out
5. Bulk up clean up crew and add Urchin

**I've thought about adding some microbacter as someone suggested, but I just don't know enough about it and whether it would do more harm then good...any further input on that?

I will update everyone at 2 weeks and then 4 weeks.

Here's to hoping for some improvement.

 

[sahin]

You took the words right out of my mouth....food is being 'dumped' in the last two days....I will update with results.....I will take the green hair algae, as long as my sticks are colorful! Thank you for your post, you have provided some great help...and motivation to feed, regardless of my brown algae issue!

One thing I have always thought when looking at my tank....it just seems like it is stuck in mid-cycle....and can never get to the final algae bloom and then recede.....anyways, I will update with results from the heavy feeding.

I have had salinity checked multiple times, it is usually always sitting around 1.025....

Thank you for everyone's feedback....Instead of throwing in the towel, I might as well throw in the food....

As long as you keep the PO4 around 0.03ppm but throw in lots of food, I cant see how it can get so much worse. Plus if you beef up your CUC they should deal with extra algae.

 

[sahin]

Summary of Treatment Plan:

1. Up water changes to 20% weekly
2. Put GFO back on, but minimal amount and flow through it
3. Feed fish NLS pellets twice per day & 1 cube frozen once per day
4. Add 'Fuel' Aminos and Oyster Feast every other day at lights out
5. Bulk up clean up crew and add Urchin

**I've thought about adding some microbacter as someone suggested, but I just don't know enough about it and whether it would do more harm then good...any further input on that?

I will update everyone at 2 weeks and then 4 weeks.

Here's to hoping for some improvement.

Good luck. As for MB7, I used it in the past on two different tanks and didnt notice any real difference.

 

[barjam]

You took the words right out of my mouth....food is being 'dumped' in the last two days....I will update with results.....I will take the green hair algae, as long as my sticks are colorful! Thank you for your post, you have provided some great help...and motivation to feed, regardless of my brown algae issue!

One thing I have always thought when looking at my tank....it just seems like it is stuck in mid-cycle....and can never get to the final algae bloom and then recede.....anyways, I will update with results from the heavy feeding.

I have had salinity checked multiple times, it is usually always sitting around 1.025....

Thank you for everyone's feedback....Instead of throwing in the towel, I might as well throw in the food....

Does your tank grow green algae of any kind? What about coralline? My tank will not support GHA or Cyano to any extent unless I get lazy and a bit of detritus pools up somewhere. I have a kole/yt tank though so that might explain GHA.

Before my new feeding regimen coralline would only grow under rocks and not all that much. It would not take hold on the bottom (bare bottom tank) at all or really much of anywhere in direct light other than the power heads. It is now growing very quickly and filling in the bottom glass.

For what it is worth my phosphates are now reading ~.09. I started (today) to run a bit of GFO to keep it under one. Nitrate measures absolutely zero and has *always* measured zero (salifert). There has never even been a tinge of color on that kit.

You know how this goes... you tweak a lot of stuff at once hoping for improvement. In the interest of full disclosure I have recently changed a few other things. The color improvements were happening before the other changes though.

* More proactive on detritus (running a sock now).
* Raised my lights up (Phoenix 250 x 2 LumenBright) from 12 to 16 inches.
* Letting alk fall from 9 to closer to 7.


It is hard to tell by the pictures but the red/purple SPS has lost most/all of its red right? I have two frags different types of red milli (red planet and a some other $ one) that have basically done nothing in a year. They now have a pinkish tinge.

 

[trueblackpercula]

haha I am glad to see their are others that experience this with high salinity...i thought I was the only one...but yes in my case it is always associated with high salt and low nutrients

well i must admit that after reading this thread and many others this may be the cause of my pale colors as well with a ULNS. My salinity was 1.0285 last night after checking it. so I guess this is one more problem solved in my system once i get it down to 1.025
Thanks

 

[Koralcrazy]

First week of treatment done - been dumping in the aminos and oysterfeast....

No difference in coloration
No difference in vertical growth
Perhaps slight improvement in encrusting speed
No difference in algae growth (not more, or less)

It is starting to seem like a chore to feed so much...with little change....I am tempted to shut down GFO completely and perhaps even shut down the skimmer for a week to jump start things....

 

[Boa1277]

Rome wasn't built in a day patience is the toughest impulse to deal with. If you don't notice something good or bad in a month then I would consider your options. Good luck!

 

[Koralcrazy]

I wanted to formally thank all of you that responded to my thread.

In short, I am enjoying the hobby once again after months of frustration. Also, I wanted to be sure to close this thread out properly, so those future hobbyists don't experience the frustration I did without any clear answers.

The prescribed treatment plan worked!! The advice on feeding was correct!!! I don't have time to bust out a real camera, and will likely start a new tank thread in a few more weeks once the color improvement peaks.

But here are couple iphone pics showing the differences I am already seeing...granted my coloration is no where near close to where to it should be, but the fine tuning will hopefully continue!


Before....pale as a ghost...

After...starting to see improvement, deepening of coloration, improvement in polyp extension, notice the green color at the base coming through....

Thanks again everyone, I won't be throwing in the towel after all, and find myself excited each day my lights come on to see what transformations are taking place!

 

[greg0385]

Congrats on fixing your issue, you have inspired me to start a thread to see if these great people can help me as they have helped you. Just like you i am ready to throw in the towel with sps after a year of troubles and wasted funds beyond belief.

 

[sahin]

Well done! Its so good to see the change. Is that a Cali Tort? I have the Cali Tort and I saw the same exact change you see. The Blue is more intense and the green has replaced the pale brownish body.

Can you please describe in some detail exactly: This will help others, as well as affirming for me what I thought was the problem.

1. What foods you feed?
2. How often?
3. How long did it take to see the change?
4. What if anything happened to the PO4? If it went up what did you do to control it?
5. Did you get increased algae?
6. Are you going to continue this feeding trend?

Many thanks. This is a VERY good record for others to see. Most people dont come back to complete the thread etc. So I appreciate your coming back to complete the thread. :thumbsup:

 

[aqua80]

Thanks for the feedback !

 

[StarF]

I wanted to formally thank all of you that responded to my thread.

In short, I am enjoying the hobby once again after months of frustration. Also, I wanted to be sure to close this thread out properly, so those future hobbyists don't experience the frustration I did without any clear answers.

The prescribed treatment plan worked!! The advice on feeding was correct!!! I don't have time to bust out a real camera, and will likely start a new tank thread in a few more weeks once the color improvement peaks.

But here are couple iphone pics showing the differences I am already seeing...granted my coloration is no where near close to where to it should be, but the fine tuning will hopefully continue!


Before....pale as a ghost...

After...starting to see improvement, deepening of coloration, improvement in polyp extension, notice the green color at the base coming through....

Thanks again everyone, I won't be throwing in the towel after all, and find myself excited each day my lights come on to see what transformations are taking place!

nice change.
did you use the Pappone" Recipe Italian Coral Food reciepie??

 

[dunc101]

This has been a great thread to read and follow and the initial diagnosis and solution presented here has definitely hit home with me as well. I too used to have very similar symptoms with my SPS as the OP presented and also very similar tank parameters: very little growth and not so good coloration on my SPS. The solution for me as well was also to increase feeding even though I had some hair algae issues. I now have an automatic feeder that feeds 4 times a day and I also feed a pinch of cyclopeeze once or twice a day. My Kh and Ca consumption rate has gone way up as well in the past four months from about 60 ml per day to around 100.

From my experience, the key is what sahin suggested earlier: high import and high export. From when I started keeping SPS almost three years ago all I heard was "keep your PO4 and nitrates low" when in practice it seems to be more of feed as much as you can while still keeping PO4 around 0.03 and low nitrates. This has been my experience at least and what I have learned about my tank.

Also, I have very little HA any more, lol. This is reverse of what I would have thought as well, however; I did increase my water changes from 1 gallon a day to still 1 gallon a day plus a 5 gallon WC once a week (90 gallon system).

Congrats Koralcrazy!

 

[animalkingdom]

nice turn around and thanks for updating the thread with your success. glad to see your tank is on track again!

 

[Koralcrazy]

Thanks everyone for the additional comments. Let me try to better explain what I did. Hopefully what I discuss will cover any questions. If not, bug me some more.

Since I was on the verge of throwing in the towel, the measures I took were somewhat extreme. So please be careful if you are trying to battle pale coloration with the methods I employed.

My treatment summary:
1. Fed Oysterfeast daily, no measurement, literally dumping the stuff in, until tank became cloudy...lol..usually at lights out
2. Added a Kole Tang and few other fishes....I wanted a Kole tang because of the fear of the algae increase I was about to witness....but I never witnessed it, and in fact the Kole Tang has taken care of some existing algae, so at this stage I actually have less algae....ironic I suppose!
3. Turned Off Skimmer, GFO, Carbon, etc....I really had this feeling I need to push this tank through a heavy cycle....it seems with the advancements in nutrient control you can setup a fully STOCKED reef tank in a matter of days....I wanted to shut all of that stuff off and feed the tank hard and let it get through a cycle....just a feeling I had. This tank was stocked within a few days of setup from the beginning (18 months ago), so I was wondering maybe it never got quite to completely cycle and I was riding a rickety teeter totter of nutrient import/export, with poor bacteria stability.
4. Fed fish NLS pellets, frozen mysis, frozen emerald entree, and frozen enriched brine (1 cube of each frozen food) daily....this is why in addition to the Kole Tang I added some other fishes....it seemed weird to pollute the tank without having something that could eat it.
5. Added back a refugium with chaeto only, lit 24 hours a day. This is what I did many years ago and it worked well, it seems more gentle than GFO and water changes in keeping nutrients controlled, and it allows you to keep everything (good and bad I suppose) flowing throughout the tank that a skimmer may take out.

I also am now using chaeto growth and dusting of algae on glass as a means to "test" phosphate. I am done with my green egg, I haven't tested phosphate in the last 4 weeks and don't plan on it again. However, I can do a test tonight if parties are interested in the actual number, but it won't change a thing for me. I now have so many technologies for the tank I never use to have, yet my tank was more beautiful and experienced greater growth back in the day that it ever has with all my expensive crap.

I plan to keep the skimmer off and continue to feed heavy until I am happy with the deepness of coral coloration. I believe the cali tort is easier to manipulate, the real test will be to see how my reds and pinks bounce back.

I think the most important thing I have regained is my (I lost it temporarily with all the advancements) ability to diagnose my tank by simply looking at the corals, nothing else. I feel I can look at my corals once again each day and determine if something is off or amiss.

I think in the last 10 years, nutrient control technologies WITH advancement in lighting has caused my pale coloration. Take away one (powerful lighting or nutrient control means) and I think I would have been better off. To our demise, we have become obsessed with the most powerful light fixture and most efficient way to reduce nutrients. I think I will keep a hold to the strong light concept going forward, but let the nutrient rich water stay! The challenge will be.....when do I want to turn my skimmer back on? :rollface:

 

[Koralcrazy]

Well done! Its so good to see the change. Is that a Cali Tort? I have the Cali Tort and I saw the same exact change you see. The Blue is more intense and the green has replaced the pale brownish body.

Can you please describe in some detail exactly: This will help others, as well as affirming for me what I thought was the problem.

1. What foods you feed? See above
2. How often? See above
3. How long did it take to see the change? 4 weeks, but once skimmer was turned off (@ 2 weeks), results came really fast
4. What if anything happened to the PO4? If it went up what did you do to control it? Beefed up cleaning crew, added a tang, but never tested phosphate, fuge is back online with chaeto
5. Did you get increased algae? Not really, but I did notice the current tank algae morphed into a different looking kind....clean up crew is working on it and I think once my coloration and feeding habits stablize, I'll scrape it off back wall and see if it returns, rocks look pretty good!
6. Are you going to continue this feeding trend?Yes, tank still needs to come a ways further, especially reds and pinks...

Many thanks. This is a VERY good record for others to see. Most people dont come back to complete the thread etc. So I appreciate your coming back to complete the thread. :thumbsup:

Thanks for all your help and support Sahin!

 

[sahin]

Thanks for all your help and support Sahin!

Many thanks for the feedback. I've seen so many "Pale SPS" threads here over the years...this is one of the few with known success. I know you still have some way to go, but you are on the right track.

It would be great if you can come back in 3-4 months time and report back on the rest of your SPS.

 

[reef80]

I think I have the same problem...water testing with 0 nitrate on salfert. ..so iam gonna try to raise it...thanks for sharing...

 

[Tek]

This thread helped me a lot and I have been following since the beginning. I just got a new salifert nitrate test kit yesterday and the color does not even change. For the past month I thought my nitrates were high and have been doing the opposite of trying to reduce it. Today the feeding will be increased and maybe add a couple fishes. My phosphates hover around .02