SPS water quality ?

[Mikenroe]

Hi there, I'm starting to get into some SPS corals. I have had them before, but they either lost there color and most started to have tissue that started turning white from the bottom. I've heard that nutrient rich water is good for them, but I have also heard that you can't have any nitrates or below 5. Whats the difference in nutrient rich water and no nitrates? What water parameters should I be shooting for for these coral, like acro, birds nest, act? My system is included in my signature. Thanks for your help?

 

[undeadmoto]

5 or below on your nitrates and .03-.06 on your phosphates will help keep them healthy

 

[cugly]

Are you dosing and testing and keeping all parameters stable. Tbat is key to keeping sps stability and a mature tank.

 

[Mikenroe]

I'm not dosing, as my thought was that I would do a 20% water change weekly and that should replenish all my levels, that's what I was told at least. Is this true or not. I do test using the red sea pro kits. However, someone told me today that that much of a water change weekly was to much and would deplete my beneficial bacteria. Is that true? whats the best way to start dosing, and what should I be dosing, ca, alk, and mag? and or iodine or strontium. Im looking to get a biopellet reactor to help with phos and no3. Thanks for you advice

 

[undeadmoto]

the bacteria does not reside in the water column it is in your rocks and sand. if your tank stats stay good with what you do right now then go with it. stability is the key like cugly said.be careful with the biopellet reactor if you go to fast with it you will strip your system and kill off your corals and from what i read they only help with N03.

 

[rt67ghy]

Is there any reason why you're doing weekly 20% water change? If you have lots of fish from overstocking and you feed a lot 20% WC each week would help to keep your NO3 and PO4 down; otherwise it's not necessary. Although it's recommended that you test alk, Ca and Mg since you're doing large weekly WC you probably don't need to dose these if you're using a good reef salt. But I would go ahead and start testing these and keep a log book. This will help you in the long run because when your sps corals grow quickly and you add more to your collection these 3, especially alk will be consumed at higher rates and your WC may not be enough to restore these elements in sufficient quantities. You'll most likely have alk swings which will seriously affect your acros.e.g. If your alk falls to 6 dkh and you do a 20 % WC with salt mix having alk of 13 dkh your alk will become 7.4. dkh. A 1.4 dkh alk swing in a few hours could cause your acros to STN/RTN.

 

[Mikenroe]

rt67ghy, so it seems like having alk swings is a major thing. whats the best way to keep these levels stabile? Should I put buffer in my ATO? How do I know how much to put in? the reason i was doing 20% WC is because that's what a LFS recommended. I have about 15 fish and about 15 to 18 coral. I really want to get my levels more stabile Please help!

 

[rt67ghy]

I dose alk manually 3x a week to keep it at 8.0 dkh. I don't use an ATO so I don't know anything about how much buffer you need to add to that. Maybe someone else can chime in on this. But you need to test your alk, record the reading and again check 1 week later. In between it's better not to do WC or add new salt mix since that'll skew the results. The 2nd alk test will show exactly how much alk your system consumed in 1 week and let you know how much to dose per week to keep it at your target level. Dosing more than 1 dkh in one day isn't recommended since it can affect acros. Before you do a 20% WC it'd be useful to know your alk level because the new salt water is going to increase that by 23% (if you use the figures in my example in previous post). So, you have to plan accordingly and do smaller WC if necessary to avoid an alk swing.

On a side note, it'd be very useful to invest in a hanna alkalinity checker if you're not using one already. These are digital and give exact readings if used properly. I have used other test kits for alk before but IMO the readings weren't as reliable. I test alk every week with my hanna and notice alk consumption of up to 1.7dkh in that time although 6 weeks ago alk consumption was only 0.8 dkh in 1 week. The increase shows my corals/coralline algae are taking up more alk with time so I'm dosing accordingly. I expect this to rise substantially when I add more sps/lps corals. Testing alk weekly will help to keep at least this stable. Calcium is consumed at a slower rate of about 20 ppm per 2.8 dkh alk consumption so is less of a concern. Mg is also depleted at a slower rate than alk but it's useful to measure it and know whether you need to dose that. Having low Mg and Ca will affect how effective your alk dosing is going to be. The rule I follow is to first ensure my Mg is at 1350 ppm at least. If so, I check to see if my Ca is at 420-450 ppm and then dose alk. I hope this helps.

 

[Scorpius]

If you want sps then dosing pumps are a must. I found manual dosing insanely difficult as it always raised my parameters too fast. Dosing 1.1ml twice an hour every hour for my tank helps greatly with alk and calcium stability.

 

[Mock]

If you want sps then dosing pumps are a must. I found manual dosing insanely difficult as it always raised my parameters too fast. Dosing 1.1ml twice an hour every hour for my tank helps greatly with alk and calcium stability.

Dosing may not be the right direction on a 160...... Calcium Reactor would stabilize it also.... Just options. Thats all.