ULNS, SPS, & Color Confusion

[Outdrsyguy1]

hmmm... this sounds very similar to my problems. I've been struggling for 6+months chasing ghosts trying to figure out why all my corals pale and fade to almost a bleached state. At first I was convinced it was lighting since my used MH lights were only putting out like 250 par at the top of the tank. I switched to DIY LED's and then accidentally fried a bunch of stuff. Even though I kept the par levels the same I think the harsh spectrum shift did it.
Still, color is terrible but I have zero HA. I have chaeto in the sump and remove one baseball sized handful every 3 months or so.

I hate testing for phosphate as my red sea kit always tests at .06 whether it's fresh mixed SW or tank water. Also .06 right out of the DI/RO which tests at 0 TDS.

I feed about 1/2 to 2/3 of one mysis cube about every other day. Run ROX carbon and GFO and skimmer of course. I was changing filter socks every 3 days but now do it about once a week. They never really get that dirty unless I leave them in for 2 weeks.

I have 3 OC clowns, 1 melanarus wrasse, 1 purple firefish, 1 yasha goby, and 2 bartlets anthias. In the last few months i added a pistol shrimp and a Harlequin shrimp which I got to kill asterina's. They keep demolishing all my purple coraline algae!

I've been trying a lot more water changes lately but haven't noticed a much if any difference.

Maybe I'll try feeding the crap out of my fish for a few weeks and see what happens.

I also vaccuum out the sand every month or so and blow off the rocks every few weeks. Maybe i'm super mega ULNS or something. this is really killing me watching corals fade away.

I also have problems with zooanthids! It's like the just shrink up and dissapear. I did have zoapox for a while but got rid of it with an anti-fungal dip. I thought I just got some sort of disease in my tank that kills zoa's but now i'm wondering if it's just a ULNS situation.

 

[Big E]

It's not about the numbers as much as the through put of food.

Best example I can give--

100g tank with 3 fish, PO4-0--- Coral look starved and washed out

100g tank with 10 fish, PO4-0--- Corals are vibrant and colorful

The read outs you get on test kits is what's left over after the corals, bacteria, algae, ect. get their share.

Every tank is going to have a different balance point.........that's why it's more important to test when everything looks great.

 

[trueblackpercula]

It's not about the numbers as much as the through put of food.

Best example I can give--

100g tank with 3 fish, PO4-0--- Coral look starved and washed out

100g tank with 10 fish, PO4-0--- Corals are vibrant and colorful

The read outs you get on test kits is what's left over after the corals, bacteria, algae, ect. get their share.

Every tank is going to have a different balance point.........that's why it's more important to test when everything looks great.

Very well explained +1 on what he says :dance:

 

[RFLKPTR]

Actually, it was spot on. I added about 8 fish and fed 3x daily and in no time at all color came back to my corals. They look as good as when I bought them.
I needed more fish to increase bioload and fish poop in the tank. After a few carpet surfing and aggression issues with some of the fish I currently have 8 fish in my 125 and 1 in QT right now. I am trying to get to 12 fish. I do not feed the corals as that was causing algae blooms. I just feed my fish and I still feed them 2x daily. But a little bit less than before.

PO4 0.1-.03
NO3 .00-.02

I could not even keep zoos alive before. Now, they are doing well. SPS has decent color, not perfect but def better than before. I might have really harmed some of them. But some like my Montiporas have all gained exceptional color back.

Most excellent, man. Thanks for your quick response! Glad everything panned out for you.

I've been used to super small water volumes in the past, so when I jumped up almost 120 gallons in size, I didn't adjust the fishload accordingly.

+1000 Big E, that's an excellent and simple way to put it.

 

[brad65ford]

Any updates, this seems to be a common issues. I myself went through this same thing.

 

[krzyphsygy]

The update was on post #20. Currently corals look great, colored up, fast growth and all. The only caution I would say is to ensure you don't overdue it with the feeding of the fish. I feed about 3x a day heavy and added several fish to the bioload to get my corals to color up. The small mistake I felt I made was I continued the heavy feeding alittle too long. I should have gone down to 2x a day and then 1x after my colors started back.
My NO3 in 2.5ppm which is a little high IMO and PO4 is .04. Thinking of starting a GFO regimen to help with a bloom im having.

 

[PeTe PoLyP]

I had a similar situation. I never intended on ulns, but I had 0 nitrate for the first year. I fed about 12 times a week with rods reef and rods coral only. I moved right around the 1 year mark and nitrate showed up. Only 0.5 but that's still some.... Here's the proof
0 nitrate, 5/19/13 taken with dslr

13 days after the move 11/19/13

Lots more color
24 days after the move 11/30/13

The second and third pictures were taken with cell phone. The first was taken with canon t3


this picture (unknown date) was taken with cell phone. This was as much color as it ever had before the move

 

[KritikaL]

Wow Pete polyp that's incredible,

My tri cor looks similar to yours In the first picture looks a bit washed out and has quite a brown base :/

But I had highish phos and 20 nitrate this was due to
My bio pearls constantly clogging and lack of consistancy. I think the tri color is a good indication of what nutrient levels are meant to be In the tank though because they are very brown corals anyways, so when you get the levels right and thy start growing they go from a brown to a nice purple and I've seen this happen in the space of 2-3 days which I love!

I'll try and get a photo of it and now I've got pearls up and running again ill post as the nitrates come down to about 1-2 and the phos
Comes down to 0.03 u can see the difference it makes

 

[PeTe PoLyP]

What reactor are you using? I will be using Dr. Tims. I want to use in moderation and keep NO³ 2-5

 

[KritikaL]

i use tmc bio pellet reactor, needs atleast 2000 lph pump and ive got around 200-250 ml atm... my tank is 700 litres, so ive gotta fill it up, but i'm gonna do it slowly as i dont want to rip phos out, with the pearls as well.

 

[PeTe PoLyP]

Ok. which pearls are you using?