Top down shots

[cpllongjk]

Ed,

The SPS in my system have been looking great and then one day I came home from work and my small to medium colony of Cali Tort has had their polyps retracted and looks to be STN'ing very very slowly. Nothing has changed about water chemistry, flow, or lighting. All the other corals in my tank are doing well, no issues at all. I am just beside myself that the whole colony would do this out of the blue. The thing about it is... its not a part of the colony, its the whole thing.

Again, nothing else in the tank is showing signs of stress, things look great among all other corals, its just this one isolated incident.

Any ideas?

 

[sensei]

Thanks a lot Ed,
I have inserted a couple of more questions to be sure I understand your thoughts

Use a much flow as you can without ripping the skin off the corals.
should we take this statement literally?
Wider flow works best. do you consider the flow from vortex pumps wide? how do we create wide flow? which equipments do you use?

Try to get it throughout the display to avoid dead spots.
do you mean that we should not point acros but mostly aim the bottom of dt and areas were detrietus could accumulate

You also want to try to set up your aquascape as open as possible. Try not to have rock walls. The pedastel rock work some people use looks great after the corals grow in and keeps the area open for flow.not sure what you mean by pedestal rock work

To me the best setups are ones that have 2/3 negative space, but that can be hard to do because we all buy too many corals.do this means only having 1/3 space for rocks? is it possible that you post a compleate picture of you tanks so we could apreciate the whole setup in your different tanks

It's hard to dictate shape but you can do some of that by pruning and direction of flow.can you explain a little more ? what happens if you have direct flow aiming the acro? how will it grow?

What I'm doing with this tort is an example..........I pruned the left side for room for corals and on the right that branch started to extend from the flow & I haven't cut it. I want it to keep extending out.
you mean that the arm is growing away from the flow? I am not sure how are you pointing the flow to this acro to make the arm extend?

Thanks a lot for teaching us professor!!!

 

[Big E]

Reserves the day uc fascination Favia from you on rt any pics on this thread of it ?


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No, no pics of that coral in this thread.

Ed,

The SPS in my system have been looking great and then one day I came home from work and my small to medium colony of Cali Tort has had their polyps retracted and looks to be STN'ing very very slowly. Nothing has changed about water chemistry, flow, or lighting. All the other corals in my tank are doing well, no issues at all. I am just beside myself that the whole colony would do this out of the blue. The thing about it is... its not a part of the colony, its the whole thing.

Again, nothing else in the tank is showing signs of stress, things look great among all other corals, its just this one isolated incident.

Any ideas?

For any issues I look at the most obvious/logical causes---

1.Alk change
2.Pests
3.Changes you made over the last few weeks no matter how minor. It's good to keep a journal to keep track of this.
4.New fish?
5. Do you dose additives? Sometimes they don't show as a cause for months.
6. Check for faulty test equipment.
7. Salinity often gets overlooked

That one coral struggling could be the first to show signs even though everything else looks good.

If your system is complex, finding a possible cause/issue becomes increasingly harder and why I keep my setup simple.

Without more information on your specific system it's hard for me to point out more than what I have mentioned above.

If you want to get deeper into it I can help you per pm.

My initial suggestion is to wait and watch to see if it slowly continues to STN.
If so, you will have to cut out a few good sections. Watch/examine your other corals closely over the next few days/week.

 

[Ohioreefer1000]

No, no pics of that coral in this thread.







For any issues I look at the most obvious/logical causes---



1.Alk change

2.Pests

3.Changes you made over the last few weeks no matter how minor. It's good to keep a journal to keep track of this.

4.New fish?

5. Do you dose additives? Sometimes they don't show as a cause for months.

6. Check for faulty test equipment.

7. Salinity often gets overlooked



That one coral struggling could be the first to show signs even though everything else looks good.



If your system is complex, finding a possible cause/issue becomes increasingly harder and why I keep my setup simple.



Without more information on your specific system it's hard for me to point out more than what I have mentioned above.



If you want to get deeper into it I can help you per pm.



My initial suggestion is to wait and watch to see if it slowly continues to STN.

If so, you will have to cut out a few good sections. Watch/examine your other corals closely over the next few days/week.

It's yellow with the pink centers correct ?


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[Big E]

Ohioreefer------please contact me through RT.

 

[Big E]

Jorge,

You just want a lot of flow from various points for oxygenation, and getting detritus up and into your export system.

It's never good to aim a pump directly too close...........that's what I mean by not wanting to rip skin off.

Most of the poplular pumps with wide flow can get the job done, gyres, Tunzes, Vortechs, ect. all do well.

The corals will wall up on one side and then grow in the direction of the flow on the other side if there is a constant flow in one direction.

Negative space when I use the term, means the area with no rock work. A 2/3 negative space is loosely defined as open rock work type setups You use as little as possible and allow the coral's growth to fill in the space.

No rock walls(fruit stand look) and keep the rock free standing and not leaning against a tank wall.

You're setup as I've seen for the most part, fits most of the comments I mentioned.

 

[rs1831]

Everything looks amazing! Do you use a top down camera box? If so, which one do you use? Thanks!


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[Big E]

Hi Roland,

Thanks, I just use the camera and my hand to block the reflections.


Here's some progression and growth shots of some frags and such----

7-8-16 to 12-3-16

Ultra red shortcakes-

8-22 to 12-3

Today

Ultra Blue Hoeki

Tierra del Fuego really startinng to take off lately

Big E Superman took a dump due to low nutrients in my frag tank. I moved to my display on 7-8-16.

12-12-16

Rasberry Milli grow out

Dendro up to 9 heads!

 

[sensei]

Jorge,

You just want a lot of flow from various points for oxygenation, and getting detritus up and into your export system.

It's never good to aim a pump directly too close...........that's what I mean by not wanting to rip skin off.

Most of the poplular pumps with wide flow can get the job done, gyres, Tunzes, Vortechs, ect. all do well.

The corals will wall up on one side and then grow in the direction of the flow on the other side if there is a constant flow in one direction.

Negative space when I use the term, means the area with no rock work. A 2/3 negative space is loosely defined as open rock work type setups You use as little as possible and allow the coral's growth to fill in the space.

No rock walls(fruit stand look) and keep the rock free standing and not leaning against a tank wall.

You're setup as I've seen for the most part, fits most of the comments I mentioned.

Thanks Ed,

so the point is to have more flow to get the water moving from all angles, not to point the across, correct?

attached I have to acros.




one of them if growing crooked, is it because of flow?

the other one has the tip slanted.

please tell me what you think can be causing that kind of growth.

2.- can I know what are the level of nutrients in your main dt and in your frag tank right now?

Thanks a lot

 

[Big E]

It's hard to tell from those frag pics that flow is making them point a certain way. When they start to look more like mini colonies you can get more of an idea.

Levels are around Po4- .02 and N03-5.0.

 

[sensei]

Thanks Ed

 

[Bratyboy2]

Hey ed i was wondering your thoughts on some of the maricultured acros that were at the swap. I picked 2 up, millis, of what i thought looked to have some great potential. Im running 2 blue + 1 coral + and 1 purple + on my system and have them started at the bottom of my system so far to get them acclimated in.
One appears so far to have a green base and a rose color near tops and polyps are silver maybe a light blue. The other is kinda peach with some green yellow tips polyps unknown as of yet.
How long do you suspect these to take to color up? How different of a color change if in optimal conditions do you think they will go through? Will they maybe get stronger or go completely 180?

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[Big E]

It usually takes 2-3 months for the final color to show up. They almost always change..........hard to tell by your descriptions, but I'd say the peach may turn into a light pink with yellow tips.

The other may end up all green, not sure on that one.

 

[Bratyboy2]

Well i hope they dont change that mucb. They are a week old now and no change in colors or browning out yet so fingers crossed

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[schubertchris29]

What's the difference dosing vinegar vs. vodka?

 

[Kurt03]

What's the difference dosing vinegar vs. vodka?

Would love to hear thoughts on vodka, vinegar, np pro.

 

[schubertchris29]

Same here Kurt. I'm wondering if dosing vinegar vs vodka is more beneficial. As I believe they have the same effect in boosting the beneficial bacteria in consuming phosphates and nitrates. I dose vodka now but if dosing vinegar is more beneficial then it won't hurt giving it a try!

 

[Big E]

Would love to hear thoughts on vodka, vinegar, np pro.

Carbon dosing--

I ran vinegar for two+ years and have used NOPOX short term 2 months to lower high nitrate levels and then weaned the system off of it.

I copied pasted my comments from a post I made earlier when Bulent asked about my thoughts on carbon dosing issues.

"There are a ton of issues..........some are with original system setup, experience level in carbon dosing, not understanding what is actually going on with the bacterial population, chasing numbers, impatience, maintenance practices, inefficient skimmer, unwanted bacterial strains that may wreak havoc, mix/matching of commercial systems.

Some inverts just don't do well with it..........this is my personal experience and I have no exact proof to pin point it other than moving corals to a system not being carbon dosed and seeing recovery.

The most common problem people run into is NO3 goes down to nothing and the PO4 levels being too high or rising.

Many people carbon dose and are fine with it also, so I'm not bashing it, but I think there are certain how to's that should be followed.

One of the basic to me is you have to get rid of the other reduction methods for it to work well...... No refuguims, GFO, ect.

A bare bottom skimmer only system is going to respond much faster than other setups as well a being easier to control."
-----------------------------------------------------

NOPOX worked better/faster in my experience. A homemade vodka/vinegar mix that Tom "tmz" uses seems to perform the same. Vodka alone tends to create more cyano issues and vinegar causes short term ph spikes. Together they are a nice match.

There is still that issue of the NO3 to zero and P04 lingering. Then you have to use GFO and or dose nitrate, ect. It's not like that for everyone but for most people that is what ends up happening.

As far a NP pro goes, I don't see anything special about it, it's just another "me too" product.

The only commercial system that I'm intrigued by is Bacto balance by Tropic Marin as it's much less complicated than AF, Zeo, ect. It seems to handle the skew issue all in one bottle.

 

[Big E]

I mentioned this earlier, that I think carbon dosing would probably work better with dosing of a bacterial product like MB7. It may help to control the nutrient skew and it does work to control the cyano.

I'm not advocating MB7 as "the" product to use as there many bacteria in a bottle type brands out there, but it's the only one I have some experience with.

If you go back to SunnyX tank(MB7 & vinegar) it's all he used and it worked very well. I don't know why people aren't trying that instead of throwing all that $ into some of these commercial systems that continue to add more and more products you "need".

If a commercial system can't keep this balance without nitrate dosing and using GFO, phoshate minus, ect. why bother with it?

 

[biecacka]

Agreed. Too often ppl dose these and get N03 to zero but fail to realize that to reduce P04, there must be N03 for it to consume. So they see N03 dropping but not P04 so they continually up the dose and get no real results until they up the dose so high the results become negative.

Corey