SPS loosing color

[Curt2199]

I havea 105g reef tank with a 100g rubbermaid sump. Haven't been doing SPS long so I'm not very experienced with them. I have a dosing pump and have been dosing vinegar and lanthanum chloride (have quite a bit of experience with it for phosphates). I bought a staghorn acro around a month ago and the blue tips have since gone and the tips look almost white although I still get polyp extension. I also picked up a bonsai acro a little over a week ago and it is gradually losing it's purple color so I'm wanting to get a handle on this quickly.

I have only been feeding a little brine shrimp a couple times/week and the docs eco egg brew almost every day as the corals seem to like it a lot. Fish load is small (leopard wrasse, firefish, cardinal, dottyback)

Here are my specs and params:

105g acrylic tank (36x30x22), 100g rubbermaid sump
Reef Octopus XS200 skimmer (lots of bubbles but next to zero skimmate production out of it)
Pan World 200ps return pump
10 micron filter sock containing carbon
Maxspect 27" 10k LED ramping up to about 70% on both channels daily. Acros at about 6-8" from surface.

Alk 7.5 dkh (trying to get it higher, have started dosing Randy Holmes baking soda recipe)
PH 7.7-8.0 (is always low, house is tight, sump is in basement)
S.G. 1.023 (working on slowly getting it back up to 1.02654)
Temp 78-78.5 steady

Phos 1.5-2ppm (adjusted LC dosing to help bring it back down)
Nitrates 5ppm
Amm 0
Nitrites 0
Calc 420
MG 1100

 

[PaleHorse]

are you okay with mag being that low? i also had that poblem with my skimmer.. turns out my tank was to clean. i was running purigen and that thing was working awesome,apparently to much. took it out and now skimmer is working as it should.

 

[Piper27]

Why are your phosphates so high and your nitrates so low, comparatively at least? Is the coral food your feeding daily adding the phosphates to your water? I would get your mag up before messing with all too much.

 

[Curt2199]

I'm assuming the coral food or something else rock/sand leeching phosphates? I have fed coral frenzy some too but maybe only once/week or two. I also have some cyano showing up that had went away when I started dosing the LC and vinegar. I have been dosing diluted Lanthanum Chloride into a 10 mic filter sock so it's either something leeching phosphates or maybe it wasn't as mixed as I thought? I also had my dosing pump go nuts and dose about 750ml of vinegar in about 4 days when the calcs called for 16ml/day. The tank actually looked fantastic and everything was happy but I developed a bit of a bacteria slick. I've since gotten the dosing pump working correctly again and the slick went away.

I'll work on the magnesium. I also dosed Kent Marine Strontium and Molybdenum last night for the first time to see if it would help as it has potassium chloride.

The Nitrate, Nitrite, and Phosphate test are all Seachem. The others are Red Sea Pro.

 

[Curt2199]

a couple pics... the stag horn is top left. This is with the lights ramped down so everything is closing up.

 

[Curt2199]

And the Bonsai when I got it vs now.

 

[Curt2199]

I added magnesium last night. I'll add more tonight and run another test tomorrow.

 

[rovster]

Moar fish!!!

 

[trueblackpercula]

I havea 105g reef tank with a 100g rubbermaid sump. Haven't been doing SPS long so I'm not very experienced with them. I have a dosing pump and have been dosing vinegar and lanthanum chloride (have quite a bit of experience with it for phosphates). I bought a staghorn acro around a month ago and the blue tips have since gone and the tips look almost white although I still get polyp extension. I also picked up a bonsai acro a little over a week ago and it is gradually losing it's purple color so I'm wanting to get a handle on this quickly.

I have only been feeding a little brine shrimp a couple times/week and the docs eco egg brew almost every day as the corals seem to like it a lot. Fish load is small (leopard wrasse, firefish, cardinal, dottyback)

Here are my specs and params:

105g acrylic tank (36x30x22), 100g rubbermaid sump
Reef Octopus XS200 skimmer (lots of bubbles but next to zero skimmate production out of it)
Pan World 200ps return pump
10 micron filter sock containing carbon
Maxspect 27" 10k LED ramping up to about 70% on both channels daily. Acros at about 6-8" from surface.

Alk 7.5 dkh (trying to get it higher, have started dosing Randy Holmes baking soda recipe)
PH 7.7-8.0 (is always low, house is tight, sump is in basement)
S.G. 1.023 (working on slowly getting it back up to 1.02654)
Temp 78-78.5 steady

Phos 1.5-2ppm (adjusted LC dosing to help bring it back down)
Nitrates 5ppm
Amm 0
Nitrites 0
Calc 420
MG 1100

So after seeing your set up I would like to know about your lighting? how long is it on and how much or what type of lighting are you providing? this sometimes is over looked and under estimated. If you are giving too much light your SPS will bleach out on you. 10k lighting for long periods of time can result in pale looking sps. you may want to rethink your intensity level by lowering it by 25% to 30% for a short while and see if your sps improve.

You mention that your skimmer is working but not producing skimate. this simply means you do know have high nutrient level in your tank for the skimmer to pull anything out. I never say this because its really hard to tell a person how much to feed to their tank. But in this case you need to add nutrients to the tan. how and what you use is really up to you for feeding the fish and the sps.
when I see my sps start to decline in color or my nitrates and PO4 levels to low I feed the fish 1 frozen Mysis shrimp cube unfinished as it is high in PO4 and I feed my SPS homemade pappone food to enhance my SPS colors. by the way I am out of it and will be making a batch this weekend LOL great stuff.

Alk is good and I used Randy's two part for a while and finally gave up on it as there are premixed solutions sold for really cheap ( not as cheap as Randy's two part) So i have since switched over to B-ionic two part with a automatic dosing pump and have no regrets. If your Alk is dropping all the time and your calcium is at 420 this simply means your sps are consuming it and that's a good thing. Remember it's all about keeping the ALK,MAG, CALCIUM balanced.


Now for the dosing you are doing I cannot help at all as i have no knowledge at all about dosing vinegar and lanthanum chloride combined. But I have and still do carbon dosing and Vinegar is not one i have tried yet. but from what I have seen and read about it if dosed too much at the wrong dosing levels it will also cause SPS to become very pale.

So try either lowering the dosing amount or stopping it until you see positive results and then go back to it at a lower rate. Carbon dosing take some time to get the correct dosing amount adjusted based on your tank and livestock.

Now i see you also talk about your tips of your sps turning white. This is very common these days on reef central since the explosion of LED lighting. Again i really think your lighting is set to high and with ALK swings this is your problem. try lowering your intensity as the light fixture you have is top notch and should not be under estimated.

I hope i was able to help with some of your questions and take it slow do not change too much too fast.

Michael

 

[Curt2199]

Thanks for the info. Aside from mag being low I'm sure the phosphates are part of the problem. I'm not sure where it came from as I've now stopped feeding and and having more cyano on the sandbed but I also don't want to bring the phosphates down to fast and cause problems that way so I increased the lanthanum chloride dosing and am going to monitor them.

I also moved the stag and bonsai to the bottom. The LPS are loving the light which is why I assumed it would be fine for the SPS. That and I was concerned about my 10" squamosa getting enough light.

Here is the lighting schedule. The light is mounted about 14-16" over the water. Both channels are the same except for the 1% and 5% values which are blues only for night.

1-45% from 7 to 8 am
45-50% from 8am-12:30pm
50-75% from 12:30-2pm
75-45% from 2-8pm
45-5% from 8-8:30pm

Blues only ramp from 5-1% from 8:30pm-7am

 

[PaleHorse]

Get rid of the sand!!!! If your having problems with it just get rid of it. It looks better barebottom anyway