SPS not coloring up

Btw I had the ushio 14k se bulb and hated it. Made the tank look funny and the 2 bulbs never burned in the same. That 20k radium is supposed to be great for color and a ton of people run them. I on the other hand have not run them. Good luck.
 
Yeah actually I did take the GFO offline. I seem to recall a loss of color around the same time I started aggressively using GFO and it hasnt returned since. May be related or may not, but I figure taking GFO out for a month will let me know
 
Retested PO4 today without the GFO and its at .1

When I use a ELOS test kit its not readable at all. I really dont think thats the problem as I believe most tanks, unless you have a Hanna meter, will have PO4 somewhere in this neighborhood. Also like I said before I went a good 5 months or so changing out GFO every three days to keep my PO4 at zero for that whole time, and colors remained like this.

I took a sample of water to a LFS and my chemistry was spot on for what he tested (alk/ca/mg). My salt I recalibrate my refractometer with the calibration solution and it was spot on, 1.024. I do use only 0 TDS RODI water. Only thing that fluctuates is my temperatures from 77 to 81 but I don't believe its that either, many tanks have fluctuating temps with fine colors. I feel like there is something in the water that I do not test for which is causing this, but I dont know what that could be. Is there somewhere I could send a sample of water to get properly tested for a number of elements which could be causing this?

Should be receiving my new bulbs on Wednesday which I will try, but by all accounts people love the Radiums 20k 400w and report good results with the bulb. I cant really find any threads of people who changes to radium 20k and lost colors, so again, dont think its that either but its worth a shot at this point
 
I read through your intro post, had a look at the pic at the end of the post and could not recall what this tread is about, lol. Simply looking fantastic. If you have found a solution to the colour question, please let me know as I have just ventured into SPS myself.
 
It can be bad to run to much GFO to soon or just to much at all. Taking it off line should not hurt just watch your levels, good my to test the theory. As for the Radiums. If I had SE fixtures I would be using Rabiums, great bulbs, the give good color and great growth. If you run them on an electronic ballast you will need to change them at 6 months, they shorten the life of the bulb. I have heard the Ushio 14k looking more 10k, the Ushio 20k I have heard decent things about. Stick with the Radiums IMO.
 
allsps40 said:
It can be bad to run to much GFO to soon or just to much at all. Taking it off line should not hurt just watch your levels, good my to test the theory. As for the Radiums. If I had SE fixtures I would be using Rabiums, great bulbs, the give good color and great growth. If you run them on an electronic ballast you will need to change them at 6 months, they shorten the life of the bulb. I have heard the Ushio 14k looking more 10k, the Ushio 20k I have heard decent things about. Stick with the Radiums IMO.
Click to expand...

Fyi, the 6 months applies to 400 watters not 250's..
 
SeabassSA said:
I read through your intro post, had a look at the pic at the end of the post and could not recall what this tread is about, lol. Simply looking fantastic. If you have found a solution to the colour question, please let me know as I have just ventured into SPS myself.
Click to expand...

Wrong person the OP is jimrawr.
 
allsps40 said:
Thought is was all Radium bulbs due to the type of bulb it is.
Click to expand...

Nope, 400W radiums are over driven using something like 430-450w whereas 250's don't have this issue for some reason. I was a little surprised myself when I heard one bulb is overdriven and one isn't.
 
allsps40 said:
It can be bad to run to much GFO to soon or just to much at all. Taking it off line should not hurt just watch your levels, good my to test the theory. As for the Radiums. If I had SE fixtures I would be using Rabiums, great bulbs, the give good color and great growth. If you run them on an electronic ballast you will need to change them at 6 months, they shorten the life of the bulb. I have heard the Ushio 14k looking more 10k, the Ushio 20k I have heard decent things about. Stick with the Radiums IMO.
Click to expand...

I heard both good things about each bulb, but seems like the majority of people prefer Radiums because of great color and growth. One of the more powerful 20k's. A little more, but well worth it.

Gfo can get messy if you don't know what you're doing. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby. I had issues before when I added too much gfo. I think gfo should only be used when needed. It's very true that you can use too much gfo at once and strip your water making it 'TOO' clean. In turn, a ph drop will occur bringing your alk down which needs to be replenished via two part/CaX and nutrients could be sparse as well.
 
I hate it when that happens with test kits. I had the same exact problem last year. My ph was off for some reason and I kept testing normal parameters until I changed to a new set of test kits and found out my calcium was at about the same point as yours. I don't have as much experience as your guys but I run 1/4 of the recommended amount of GFO in a reactor. This seems to work better than running the recommended bulk reef supply amount. Good info on the radium lights, I was thinking to switching to them. I have Ushios and they don't seem to give as much color as my friends Radiums.
 
Yeah I am glad to hear that others also think it may be the GFO. I dont know for sure but I am hoping within a couple weeks I will start to see my SPS turn for the better. Even some of my LPS is not doing well at all, lost a lot of their color. Thats very wierd for me as it was always extremely easy to keep LPS happy. I have a lobo that seems to be bleached but always had it in the same position in the tank for a year where it was happy. Another lobo that was green center with a pink rim, and thats brown/brown. Some nice favias also totally dark purple when they used to be purple with green rim.
 
Redfield Ratio

Redfield Ratio

Now research on the Redfield Ratio mostly pertains to phytoplankton, but it does provide some good insight on the fact that photosynthetic organisms need Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphate. I am going to suggest that with your nitrate levels at near zero and your phosphates at .1ppm, your water is out of balance.

I have been enjoying five months of pale color and STN'ing SPS. I HAD a beautiful SPS tank last year and it slowly faded and then in February, I began losing colonies at a frightful rate. I went through and eliminated ALL other concerns regarding stability and chemistry and still, each week, the creep would start up on another colony.

Well, the other day, it dawned on me that I might be starving the tank. I have always been stingy on feeding and nutrients in the tank and running zeo, I was thinking that maybe I had over stripped the tank.

Well, I headed down to my LFS where the shop owner has a masters in something related to marine biology or icthyology and I began a discussion with him about adding potassium nitrate. He cautioned me about algae blooms if my Redfield Ratio is upset, but said to test for nitrate and let him know.

Well, turns out, zero nitrate and zero phosphate. I have since fed much more heavily to bring phosphate up, and added a teaspoon at a time, potassium nitrate to the tank to bring the nitrates up to 3ppm.

Remember, this is anecdotal, but over the last week of this approach, the necrosis has stopped and I have had an increase in coloration.

Bottom line...maybe your tank water is too clean...
 
Good point. We are so concerned on completely depleting the nitrates and phosphates that we don't look at the big picture. I have noticed a lot of the Tank of the Month guys feed their tanks heavily. Past month I have been feeding my tank twice daily versus once every other day. Most of my inhabitants are doing much better even though nitrates are around 5 ppm and phosphates are 0.02-0.06. My fish are even more colorful than before and less aggressive.
 
cmm1970, I think you are right and thats the feeling that I have about my tank even though almost everyone says the contrary to continue with GFO to clean water. I dont have dirty water I hardly ever clean my glass and cant even grow chaeto.
 
What is your skimmer doing? Are you trying to skim wet or dry? If your not getting anything or very little I would think your tank is too clean. Forgive me but are you running ro/di water or ro? What does your Tds meter say?
 
I agree on the low nutrients. I did the same thing and lost all color and lost some sps and an acan. Letting the no3 come up and cutting way back on carbon and GFO brought back the color after a few weeks. I was also dosing vodka and MB7, I stopped the vodka and dose MB7 when I think of it.
 
My skimmer doesnt pull out too much gunk to be honest. Its set to be dark, not tea like skimmate. Yes I use ro/di with 0 tds
 
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