SPS-need some guidance from a pro

[benchland]

Hello,
to start off- had i known that i would become obsessed with SPS corals i would have built my own tank. As it stands though i bought a RSM 34g several years ago, have modified it with a reeflife overflow, 15g sump/refugium, vertex in80, vortech mp10es, 2 AI super sols, gfo/carbon reactor etc. i house 2o some sps frags.

my question: the purples in my tank will not color up.
-garf bonsai
-purple plasma
-atl limeade (combo blue, white, purple)

my red planet is also struggling.

parameters:
ca-455
mg-1350
alk-8.3
temp-78
phosphates- .31 (hanna ulr checker)

i have raised the lights since speaking with a retail online vendor, from 4 inches to 8, adjusted the levels- white-40%, blue 60%, royal blue 100%.
my bioload is relatively low, i have one skunk shrimp, 2 clownfish which are in a Rx tank currently.

i feed elos pro skimmer, and am cutting back big time on the amino acids as it is now my understanding that they act as steroids on corals (literally make the corals puffy). i dose 1ml vodka nightly.

i have moved all purple frags to the bottom of the tank today.

comments, advice, anything?

 

[gasman059]

try to keep it simple
dose only what you can measure and keep up with your water changes.

How old is the tank?

 

[benchland]

the tank is about a year and a half old. i do 10% water changes weekly with 5ml microbactor7. from what i've read and been told, i may have been frying them with the leds. i have:
-phils granulosa
-oregon tort
-cali tort
-plum crazy
-hawkins echinata
-borealis
-valida
-tyree tricolor

all of which have great polyp extension and colour. i have a strawberry shortcake which has just started colouring up (had it for 2 some months). curiously though; its colored up since i started dosing elos pro skimmer and brightwells coralamino- about 2 some weeks ago.
i spoke with a fellow at an online vendor place and he told me that he has all his purple corals low in the tanks that he is running Ai's on.

what got my attention, which seems obvious now- initially i could see the parts of the garf that were in shade had some brown pigmentation, though the areas facing light are pretty much white. with the exception of the garf (which has probably 25% p/e), the plasma, limeade, and mille have great p/e, so i know its not too late. the plasma hasnt even bleached totally, just lost the the color of the polyps/coralites (i believe thats what they are called). i have half dollar sized colonies of coralline algae on the back which my urchin keeps up with. probably 20lbs of rock in the sump with a 2 softball sized piece of chaeto w/ a light that comes on at night.

also- thank you for your reply

 

[sanddollar789]

Are you running T5s?

 

[benchland]

No, i have two Ai super sols 8" above the water. before yesterday i had them at 4", it wasnt until about a month ago i figured i needed to dial them down a bit and cut the light cycle from 14 to about 12 hours a day. i now have them:
white 40%
blue 60%
royal blue 100%

 

[reefgeezer]

Lowering phosphates might help. I think .31 is pretty high. IMO, additives other than maybe a carbon source don't really help. Other than ca, mag, & alk water changes should do.

 

[Soy]

If it were me, since my phosphates are wayyyyy too high. that would be on the top of my priority list. I would never ever put amino acids in there ever again unless I'm running a ulns system such a zeo. I would change my lights next with mh and t5 or all t5. vivd aquariums is doing a mh/led experiment with their 800 and the mh has better results for them. I would stop dosing anything else except for esv b-ionic alk and cal and a magnesium supplement.

 

[jbannick18]

If it were me, since my phosphates are wayyyyy too high. that would be on the top of my priority list. I would never ever put amino acids in there ever again unless I'm running a ulns system such a zeo. I would change my lights next with mh and t5 or all t5. vivd aquariums is doing a mh/led experiment with their 800 and the mh has better results for them. I would stop dosing anything else except for esv b-ionic alk and cal and a magnesium supplement.

 

[Soy]

Maybe dosing the carbon source is creating lots of bacteria. since you're bioload is very small there's a lot of die off? Im not very knowledgable about all that stuff. why don't you just pull everything off line and let your tank catch up naturally?

 

[benchland]

thanks for all the advice. definitely cutting the amino acids, dont have any more $ to switch halides though. just switched out my gfo/carbon tonight.

some more food for thought-
for the first 5 some months i used "treated" tap water, though i only had soft corals at the time. after some huge algae outbreaks i switched over to ro/di. i think that the rocks are actively leaching phosphates into the system. i saw some improvement with the gfo/carbon reactor, a few months later i started vodka dosing, no more algae and the (now sps) corals started growing like crazy.

have any of you guys had any experience with elos pro skimmer? i started dosing that with coralamino 2 some weeks ago and my shortcake has developed amazing colour. since i was dosing elos omega a few times a week for a few months (on and off to be honest) i feel inclined to attribute this progress to pro skimmer. also i have seen AMAZING polyp extension on almost every coral. would anyone say that pro skimmer should be stopped?

 

[benchland]

thanks for all the advice. definitely cutting the amino acids, dont have any more $ to switch halides though. just switched out my gfo/carbon tonight.

some more food for thought-
for the first 5 some months i used "treated" tap water, though i only had soft corals at the time. after some huge algae outbreaks i switched over to ro/di. i think that the rocks are actively leaching phosphates into the system. i saw some improvement with the gfo/carbon reactor, a few months later i started vodka dosing, no more algae and the (now sps) corals started growing like crazy.

have any of you guys had any experience with elos pro skimmer? i started dosing that with coralamino 2 some weeks ago and my shortcake has developed amazing colour. since i was dosing elos omega a few times a week for a few months (on and off to be honest) i feel inclined to attribute this progress to pro skimmer. also i have seen AMAZING polyp extension on almost every coral. would anyone say that pro skimmer should be stopped?

 

[JDK]

I am NO sps expert but have researched tons and tons about the AI SOL units. These are my 3 observations for what its worth:

-8 Inches AWL does not seem high enough. I feel like 10 inches minimum and 12 inches best.

-Which optics do you have? I would switch to all 70' optics

-Whites are way too low IMO. I would not go so heavy on the blues. Up the white to the blue level slowly or bring down the blue or a combination of the both. Strong light is what brings out the colors. White on the SOLS is very important in this regard.

If the other SPS in your tank have color I would think that excess nutrients would not be the issue. Just my .02

 

[karsseboom]

Elps amino acids works wonders on sps. The pro skimmer is to be used in conjunction with there amino acids. The catch is you need to be careful about using them since your po4 is already high.

 

[tpallas]

Ditto on the optics. The 40 degree optics created narrow beams that fried anything in their path. I switched them out to 70 degree and the corals that were affected have done a 180 degree turnaround (no pun intended).