Tips of one acro are inflated

[stevedola]

its hard to tell, but flow and calcium levels can do crazy things to SPS. I cant put my finger on it but 1 thing I know is that my alk, calc, mag, + No3, are all consistantly stable and in good ranges. I do have some fluctuations in my ATO...sometimes my topoff is slow to keep my sump return level consistant but I cant imagine that my sg moves any more than .0005.

 

[stevedola]

why type of salt do you use? what type of 2part solution?

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

why type of salt do you use? what type of 2part solution?

I use tropic marin salt and I use Randy Holmes Farley's recipe for alk buffer and then brightwell's calcion for calcium.

 

[stevedola]

i use tm pro...humm

 

[myzislow]

Alk is my most stable parameter. It drops about .7 from the morning to night time and I dose every morning when I wake up and before I go to bed.

There is nothing stable about a .7 swing daily, especially when talking Alk swings. If that is your most stable parameter then I would def look in into some form of automatic dosing. I still think your underlying issue has much more to do with your parameters fluctuating rather than flow.

You even said your Ca an Mg are up and stable now(7/20), and that was like 2 days after your original post(7/18). In the future I would advise to never raise any vital parameter that abruptly. Also, to call your levels stable is a bit premature as you haven't had the levels up long enough to make sure they remain that way and stable over a continuous amount of time.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

There is nothing stable about a .7 swing daily, especially when talking Alk swings. If that is your most stable parameter then I would def look in into some form of automatic dosing. I still think your underlying issue has much more to do with your parameters fluctuating rather than flow.

You even said your Ca an Mg are up and stable now(7/20), and that was like 2 days after your original post(7/18). In the future I would advise to never raise any vital parameter that abruptly. Also, to call your levels stable is a bit premature as you haven't had the levels up long enough to make sure they remain that way and stable over a continuous amount of time.

I get what you are saying and it would make sense if all my other acros were distressed in some way but they are happy and growing. I have raised them way faster before in an emergency.

I'm getting pretty convinced it is not the the swings in alk. It has to be flow because it's only this single acro that is upset. If it were a parameter the others would likely show some form of discomfort.

 

[myzislow]

I get what you are saying and it would make sense if all my other acros were distressed in some way but they are happy and growing. I have raised them way faster before in an emergency.

I'm getting pretty convinced it is not the the swings in alk. It has to be flow because it's only this single acro that is upset. If it were a parameter the others would likely show some form of discomfort.

Just because your other acros aren't showing the same signs of stress doesn't really mean much IMO. When I had the same thing going on, it was only 2 out of ~50+ acropora in my tank that were affected; and my issue def wasn't the flow. Now every tank is different, I'm just sharing my experience with the same exact problems as you are having. Once I got my levels up and stable the bubbling went away and the coral began to grow like normal from the tips that were affected.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

Just because your other acros aren't showing the same signs of stress doesn't really mean much IMO. When I had the same thing going on, it was only 2 out of ~50+ acropora in my tank that were affected; and my issue def wasn't the flow. Now every tank is different, I'm just sharing my experience with the same exact problems as you are having. Once I got my levels up and stable the bubbling went away and the coral began to grow like normal from the tips that were affected.

I'm pricing out dosing pumps. If you are correct (and I'm taking all of it into consideration) there's no way I can manually dose often enough.

I found an off brand one on ebay for $149 unless that's no good. I was hoping to not have to spend $300 on a bubble magus.

 

[stevedola]

You dont need a doser to have a healthy sps tank. Sure it makes it easier but for many years people manually dosed 2 part with great success. Im unsure where the idea that only automated dosing can maintain the alk demand of a successfull SPS 29g biocube but I will contest that is not the case. I personally have maintained a 75g tank's calc/alk requirements with b-ionic for a few years with manually dosing with a syringe.

btw you can get a bubble magnus on Ebay for 250 Free/sh.

 

[myzislow]

You dont need a doser to have a healthy sps tank. Sure it makes it easier but for many years people manually dosed 2 part with great success. Im unsure where the idea that only automated dosing can maintain the alk demand of a successfull SPS 29g biocube but I will contest that is not the case. I personally have maintained a 75g tank's calc/alk requirements with b-ionic for a few years with manually dosing with a syringe.

btw you can get a bubble magnus on Ebay for 250 Free/sh.

It definitely makes it WAY easier, I agree with that. I had a heavily stocked SPS dominated 29 gallon for many years, hand dosed for much of the time. I found that once my colonies grew out and the demand increased there was no way I could keep up dosing manually as my consumption rate would literally drop my levels dramatically in between dosing, and I was dosing diligently morning and night. Plus the amount of two part that I had to dump in at a time to keep my levels up grew far too large for a single dose IMO. I was spiking my levels up every dosing, then they'd come down, then a big spike next dose, fall....etc. My coral hated me during that period. In a small SPS tank with LARGE colonies it is def an advantage to have some sort of automatic dosing as not having a large water volume leaves much less room for error.

old 29:

Bongo- I'd keep your eyes on the classifieds; always good deals to be had from people breaking down their systems.

 

[Grant W]

I would check into BRS dosing pumps for your alk and ca. Getting rid of the sin curve in your critical params will do amazing things for your corals. If you have a controller you can have it dose 4 or more times daily and maintain a much more consistant level on said params. Plus its one less thing you will have to do manually.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

Bongo- I'd keep your eyes on the classifieds; always good deals to be had from people breaking down their systems.

I am keeping a look out. I have two BRS dosers which I use for an automatic feeder and I think a stand alone system will be nice. I found someone nearby with a Profilux doser but it might be too much $$$. Anyways I am experiencing exactly what you said you were with big colonies in a small tank. I can keep them relatively stable but it certainly rises and falls admittedly too much.

 

[fcmatt]

see the marine magic equipment thread for a triple doser or what have you for a great price.