Seriously considering adding some T5's to my setup. Just want to get my water chemistry settled down first.
SPS not growing/growing s....l....o....w
- Thread starter dubmaneh
- Start date
Seriously considering adding some T5's to my setup. Just want to get my water chemistry settled down first.
NaturalReef
Member
Dub, I am a firm believer that led's will grow any coral. The problem is finding the sweet spot. Start lower intensity and slowly bring it up. I have a 9 hour timer on my 3 ai prime where the intensity peaks at 80% at 2:00 and the average intensity is around 50-60 percent. My UV never goes above 25%. I was constantly told the primes are not powerful enough and i say hogwash. My sps are just as vivid at the bottom as well as the top of a 50 gallon fusion lagoon with just 3 ai prime at half intensity. As others have stated, lights are just one of many factors in making sps thrive. I just recovered from a tank crash after upgrading and stated in another thread that once I fixed the lighting and flow to match the bigger tank, my sps started recovering and coloring up faster than i have previously seen.
.Thanks! For the most part the corals seem happy, they just fail to grow as rapidly as I know they can (mushrooms excluded). Right now the notion of fragging seems like such a foreign concept as it would imply that the corals actually grow at an appreciable rate! :lmao:
To be honest I don't manage magnesium other than weekly 10% water changes. I haven't tested for Mg in a while as every time I did it was fairly constant. I do have a gallon of solution made up though (from the BRS dry mix).
Ill do a test tonight and see what it comes out as. What level do you recommend for Mg?
AZRippster
Diver & Reef Aquarium Nut
He's not far off though, natural sea water is around 1280 ppm.
AZRippster
Diver & Reef Aquarium Nut
I would agree that having Calc at 480 and Alk at 10 should dictate higher Mag to assist with balance, but I didn't notice anything about elements coming out of solution. Regardless, if I were to run C/A that high, I would have the Mag higher. Rather than that though, it may be better overall to slowly adjust things down closer to NSW.
Acronic
The Fifth Master
Fair enough. That is also a worthy approach. My emphasis is more on the imbalance of ions. I used mag to embellish the suspicion since it appeared he was not accounting for it. I believe this is the simplest and cheapest approach to rule out before going out and buying new lights and the latest snake oils haha.
Funny enough, as I brought my S.G down I was expecting to see a drop in my Kh ad Ca. They have stayed constant at Kh = 9.6dkh and Ca = 440ppm.
I am using IO Reef Crystals and when I tested my new batch it came out to
S.G = 1.025 @ 77.5F
Kh = 10.5dKh
Ca = 450ppm
Mg = Didn't test. Doh!
I thought you should match your levels of Kh and Ca to the levels in the salt you use.
Several posts have suggested bringing my Kh down closer to 8-9dkh for the acro's. Do I just let the Kh fall while continuing to dose Ca or let both fall equally? What about water changes if the WC water chemistry is different from the system water chemistry?
I wasn't accounting for it.:facepalm:
I've suspected that the culprit is something with my water chemistry as have seen growth spurts with this system.
Acronic
The Fifth Master
Once I saw the pictures I felt the same. Everything looks great. Calcification is just having a hard time because the big three aren't playing together. Don't worry *too much* about the numbers. Add some mag and wait a week. It seems you have time in your side judging by the health of the tank.
AZRippster
Diver & Reef Aquarium Nut
If you warm up your tank a bit, you'll also get faster growth. Just something else to consider.
Tested Mg and it came in at 1400ppm so Im gonna rule that out. Mind you the test kit expired 03/2016 so Ill have to get a new one to be sure.
What temp would you recommend?
AZRippster
Diver & Reef Aquarium Nut
Consider the bulk of the coral types you want to keep and where they are from. Then investigate the average ocean temperature for that area. I think you'll be surprised.
I'm gonna stop dosing for 24hrs to measure consumption and help lower KH.
Alright, so I stopped dosing both Ca and Alk for just over 24hrs and found the following.
1) Alk dropped by 0.6dKh
2) Ca only appeared to drop by 5ppm (does that seem right?)
Current readings are:
T=77.5F
S.G. = 1.026
Ca = 475ppm
Alk=8.3dKh
My old test kit for Ca ran out so I got this reading is from a new Salifert test kit. Bringing a water sample to my LFS this weekend (and pick up new kits for Mg and Alk) to verify the accuracy.
Going to go back to my old dosing regime and see if what happens in 24hrs. Hopefully all will remain stable.
Once the chemistry is nailed down, I think raising the temp is my next move....
1) Alk dropped by 0.6dKh
2) Ca only appeared to drop by 5ppm (does that seem right?)
Current readings are:
T=77.5F
S.G. = 1.026
Ca = 475ppm
Alk=8.3dKh
My old test kit for Ca ran out so I got this reading is from a new Salifert test kit. Bringing a water sample to my LFS this weekend (and pick up new kits for Mg and Alk) to verify the accuracy.
Going to go back to my old dosing regime and see if what happens in 24hrs. Hopefully all will remain stable.
Once the chemistry is nailed down, I think raising the temp is my next move....
