Supplements for sps

[Polkman]

Although I agree that t5's are an excellent option to keep corals, I would not go changing multiple things at one time as you may never fix the issue and spend a lot of money in the process and if you do fix the issue you will never know what it was
I think it's better and more economical to resolve your issues by a process of elimination, Personally, I am not a fan of neither T5's or LED alone but it is evident that both are capable of sustaining corals.
Patience and consistency are key in this hobby, I think you are on the right path to success, fix your chemistry first and then assess if the corals are coloring and go from there. This is an older picture of my tank, I had no T5's just MH and LED's, which incidentally is the same thing I am doing on my new build

Amazing tank!!! I'm only worrying about getting to the right parameters for now. Would maybe look into t5/MH leds in the future, as of now I just want to see growth and some good colors first. Once I get those working for me, then I'll worry about being picky with colors from t5/mh
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[rovster]

Nice dialogue with Rogger. Things look pretty good in your tank but they are leaning in the brown direction. I've never seen where adding any kind of supplement would help corals that look like the ones you posted. Yours seems like a more basic issue. I think Roggers advice is good and getting your main parameters in line is first. After than, I'd look into macro nutrients and lighting. Assuming everything else is "fine" those sticks look like they want more light. They are that dull brown color, as opposed to the light tan brown which screams for supplements and nutrients. With the main parameters and good lighting and flow, you have a lot of room to color those corals. "Supplements" in my opinion only come into play when there is a lack of nutrition, OR your corals are already well colored but you want to "tweak" them. But don't be mistaken, dumping a bottle of magic stick powder in your tank will NOT color your corals all by itself.

 

[Polkman]

Nice dialogue with Rogger. Things look pretty good in your tank but they are leaning in the brown direction. I've never seen where adding any kind of supplement would help corals that look like the ones you posted. Yours seems like a more basic issue. I think Roggers advice is good and getting your main parameters in line is first. After than, I'd look into macro nutrients and lighting. Assuming everything else is "fine" those sticks look like they want more light. They are that dull brown color, as opposed to the light tan brown which screams for supplements and nutrients. With the main parameters and good lighting and flow, you have a lot of room to color those corals. "Supplements" in my opinion only come into play when there is a lack of nutrition, OR your corals are already well colored but you want to "tweak" them. But don't be mistaken, dumping a bottle of magic stick powder in your tank will NOT color your corals all by itself.

I ended up changing my lighting settings. I went ahead and changed to a longer photoperiod instead of more intensity just on the caution side. I may ramp up the intensity if things don't change in a few weeks.

Prior light settings.





Most recent light setting



When you say more lighting, are you insisting a longer photoperiod or intensity, or both?

As for flow I have 2 mp10s at 60-70% blowing right onto them from each side.

 

[Rogger Castells]

The 3 S's, Acros like Strong light (but it doesn't have to be all day long, or even have to be continuously) they love Strong Flow (short periods of lower flow are appreciated too) and they need Stability, this one is particularly special as it is the one where most people lose their corals to because they don't pay enough attention to.
Your water chemistry needs to be good and consistent specially Alkalinity, that is your single most important thing to watch, I checked mine 3 times a week and more when I thought that it was necessary, keep a log of this checks and write notes in those logs of any changes that you do so you can understand how your tanks chemistry gets affected by water changes, dozing of what ever etc.


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[Polkman]

The 3 S's, Acros like Strong light (but it doesn't have to be all day long, or even have to be continuously) they love Strong Flow (short periods of lower flow are appreciated too) and they need Stability, this one is particularly special as it is the one where most people lose their corals to because they don't pay enough attention to.
Your water chemistry needs to be good and consistent specially Alkalinity, that is your single most important thing to watch, I checked mine 3 times a week and more when I thought that it was necessary, keep a log of this checks and write notes in those logs of any changes that you do so you can understand how your tanks chemistry gets affected by water changes, dozing of what ever etc.


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Good to know! Yeah I've been checking my dkh almost everyday to make sure my dosing was spot on. Been staying at 8.2-8.3 so far. I left the sliding door open for an hour last night to see if my ph would dip. And it turns out it worked, was stable at 7.85 instead of usually dropping down to 7.77 during the night. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Rogger Castells]

That's awesome, normally if you get into the habit to bring fresh air a couple of times a week into your house it will be beneficial to your tank and you.

 

[Polkman]

That's awesome, normally if you get into the habit to bring fresh air a couple of times a week into your house it will be beneficial to your tank and you.

So I was doing a bit more research on how my lighting would be affecting my colors. I went ahead and called AI and told them about me current situation and how the corals seems to be wanting more light. The ai primes are rated 260 par at 12" deep, and was told to add the 4th one that I had laying around. I also did some searching and found this thread.


http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2565455

That one person was running a single prime for each 12" and was getting readings of around 400par 6" BWL. And 50-150 on the sandbed. I know that every tank is different, but if I added the 4th prime, I would have about 8" per prime which may help me with the extra needed par to get these acros the lighting it needs.

Now I'm not sure that if I were to add the light, would I have to go through a light acclimation? Please share your thoughts.

 

[Polkman]

That's awesome, normally if you get into the habit to bring fresh air a couple of times a week into your house it will be beneficial to your tank and you.

So I've been slowly climbing up my salt to 35. And it seems like I got there but not at the way I wanted. Was using saltwater in my ato and for some reason it spiked up at around 4am today to 35.4 and has now climbed down to 35.1. Not sure what caused it to spike like this. Is this something to be concerned about? I am going to change out the saltwater to ro in the ato when I get home.

 

[Rogger Castells]

That's a big jump, I would confirm that reading with a refractometer, assuming it is correct I would assume that the spike is true and try to find the cause. Did your Ato water had a little salt or was it a strong brine ? It is possible to cause unusual amounts of ato water to enter the tank, I'll give you some scenarios, you do some aquascaping and decides to pull a rock out of the display temporarily or permanent, or clean the skimmer pump or adjust the skimmer and all of the sudden it starts skimming wet and pulling water out quicker than normal, or perhaps a leak somewhere you have not noticed. These are just a few examples that come to mind but each tank set up is different.


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[Polkman]

That's a big jump, I would confirm that reading with a refractometer, assuming it is correct I would assume that the spike is true and try to find the cause. Did your Ato water had a little salt or was it a strong brine ? It is possible to cause unusual amounts of ato water to enter the tank, I'll give you some scenarios, you do some aquascaping and decides to pull a rock out of the display temporarily or permanent, or clean the skimmer pump or adjust the skimmer and all of the sudden it starts skimming wet and pulling water out quicker than normal, or perhaps a leak somewhere you have not noticed. These are just a few examples that come to mind but each tank set up is different.



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Yeah there shouldn't be anything that I know of that would've caused this kind of spike. I am skimming a bit wet but not enough for the salt to jump. The collection cup has yet to get to the halfway point. I doubled checked with a refractometer and it read a smidge under 35, and as I'm checking my apex now, it's slightly coming down to 34.8. Either way that is a pretty big spike, going to monitor everything when I get home. Could this spike affect my sps badly?

I would also like to add that the salt spiked down from 33 to 32.3 before skyrocketeing up to 35.4 all within 15-30 mins. Could this be a probe issue?

 

[Rogger Castells]

Yes and most likely it is, not saying the current reading is wrong but perhaps the probe is, and it has been slowly climbing in the last few days but not been detected until the spike happened


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[Polkman]

Yes and most likely it is, not saying the current reading is wrong but perhaps the probe is, and it has been slowly climbing in the last few days but not been detected until the spike happened


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Is this a common issue with ph probes, or perhaps I got a bad one? I just recently purchased this apex system new about a couple weeks ago.

 

[Rogger Castells]

You mean the conductivity probe? I am not familiar with the apex conductivity probe lifespan or reliability, probably something to ask at the Neptune forum, I have never own an apex computer. I use a different brand


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