Ultra Bushy Acro Placement

Jeremy, yes that is one like it. Here is the exact one I bought. As far as my sump, it is rated for up to 175 gallon tank, skimmer, bio balls that put out no nitrate, 20 pounds ov live rock, 10 pounds of live sand, packets of biomax ceramic media and a 750gph return pump. I have a power head in the sump and a titanium rod for stray electricity.

I change 25% of the water weekly, replace all filter media, carbon, etc with new. With the exception of the bioceramic pellets. I scrape algae on every side except the back so lawn mower Blenny can eat.

I have extremely bright LED lights on the chaeto box that I turn on at night.

I have the full apex aqua controller with all the bells and whistles.

I have probably 80-100 pounds of live rock in the display with a 4 inch

Numerous other additions.

Ammonia 0
Nitrite. 0
Nitrate. 0
1.025 sg
Phosphorous. <1
PH : 8.1-8.3
RO/DI 4 stage filtration
Calcium: 480-500
DKH : 14-15

69dcc542.jpg
 
Hey Jeremy,

Thanks for the post and sorry for the late reply, lots of things going on at work :fun5:

Honestly my bio balls have never produced nitrate, I know that sounds strange, but I have never had a nitrate problem. I keep up with maintenance and water changes though.

The coral still looks like it is bleaching, but I see growth coming out of it too, so I am very confused. I don't claim to have any knowledge on acro's though like yourself, so thanks for the help.

My fish load, not terribly heavy for a 55. Couple of sand sifting gobies (do a wonderful job), pair of mated clowns, couple of dwarf angels, lawnmower blenny, and about 3 others.

Any ideas? Water params are perfect really.

Oh yea, as stated before, 2 Kessil a150w LED's on gooseneck mounts. Some say it isn't enough lighting for SPS, but I don't think that is the issue. Those LED's put out some LIGHT!! I have a video of the tank here as well.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cu56ANbvg-A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
An updated pic will help. If it is bleaching, I would not think you would see new growth.

Seeing new growth in a couple days is unlikely for most newly imported corals.

I would suspect the lights, but I do not know enough about them. They do not look bright imo. A par or at the least a lux meter would be useful.


I would like to see some water tests results, specifically, Calcium, Alk, and Mag.

I would also suspect your angels to be nipping at the coral, this is very common, and would stress the coral.

I am not a fan of the 'sand sifting ' gobies either, but thats for a nother thread, though I have commented so many times about them already.
 
how do you keep your dkh so high ? I see the dkh level that coral was high at Dr.Fosters? maybe its to high for that coral i see you have softies and they look well I keep my dkh level around 9 and I could never keep my softies happy ..so curious as to how yours is so high are you dosing alc. what salt do you use every week for the water changes ?
 
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I think your coral is bleaching because of too high alk... It should be 8-9...lower your alk slowly and keep your calcium around 450 and mag at 1300-1400... Also keep the coral low under light until it begins to grow then raise it slowly for better colour.
 
I don't dose for alk, maybe once in the last 3 months. I use Reef Crystals salt. I was using Red Sea Coral Pro. The Reef Crystals salt is working great.

As far as the bio balls, I have been running them for almost 2 years with 0 issues. My nitrates are always 0.

I don't think the DKH has anything to do with the bleaching, I have researched that a ton.

I will post some new pictures tonight. I saw a 120W LED (55 leds, 3 Watts a piece) at my LFS yesterday. It is the Taotronics fixture (Chinese) that is supposed to be as powerful as a 400W MH. I took that home and removed the Kessil from that side, installed this light late, around 5:00 p.m. yesterday. My lights turn off at 9:30 at night and come back on at 8:15 in the morning.

The Acro went from being almost totally bleached and looking bad, to gaining A LOT of color back that quickly. Holy cow, that made a TON of difference. The new fixture has white and blue light in it like my old T5 fixture. I am going to post before and after pics, quickly that my wife just sent on her cell phone. You can see the difference, and no bs, it was that quick. I know the blue lights make it look a bit deeper, but not that much.

Yesterday:

f861e394.jpg


Today:

47d6f22e.jpg
 
TO be honest it is hard to tell from the picture. If anything I would say it is the light spectrum playing trick on you. Keep in mind light can make certain color flurescent/glow so this might be the effect you are seeing. In my experience SPS doesn't react over night, only when they RTN lol.
 
rehab said:
TO be honest it is hard to tell from the picture. If anything I would say it is the light spectrum playing trick on you. Keep in mind light can make certain color flurescent/glow so this might be the effect you are seeing. In my experience SPS doesn't react over night, only when they RTN lol.
Click to expand...

lol amen to that, on top of all the tricks that leds play, this acro does not show any PE.
 
Reef crystals mixes lower then that .....look at container. I use it too and I have a packed 230g w sps. You need to watch alk and should keep it 8-9 which is closer to nsw. Research it you can get what's called alk burn.
 
I will research that. Do you know a good way to lower alk?

My calcium is around 450-480. I have heard as long as calcium is good, high all isn't really a problem?

So this is it today with no actinic lights on, doesn't look good.....

270a7cdf.jpg
 
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From what I see it doesn't look terrible, but the tips of the coral and the base would tell a more complete story-- if it's receding or burning. Maybe try to get a picture of that, maybe use a flash, it will wash out the coral but it will tell a better story about the tissue.

Your flow is definitely not enough for SPS, I see a Hydor deflector on the left attached to a penguin (?) powerhead and another on the right. These powerheads aren't really fantastic for salt water and their metal components will corrode and rust, I know from experience on that. It might work for LPS but if you are serious about going more SPS you'll need more flow. The penguin HOB doesn't count for flow, no offense. I'd suggest getting a koralia 750 and a 400 at the very least--I have a MP10 at 90% and a 750 which work well but consider that's about 1,850 GPH on a 30G. The more water turnover you have the more the nutrients are suspended and can be skimmed out.

BTW what's your skimmer?? Maybe I missed that. That's probably the most vital piece of equipment for a SPS reef.

Obviously there's not a lot of polyp extension but that might be related to the coral type itself, not all are super fuzzy. But one would expect to see some extension, as there was in the picture. This could be related to flow, I don't know too much about that species of acro but it looks like it would enjoy some heavy flow especially if it's wild.

And yes with the other posters, the spectrum and wavelength of the LEDs will affect the way the coral looks, IMO pieces usually look a lot better under LEDs. The road to getting the piece back to the way it looked on the website is going to be a long one I would say, if it ever gets there, wild pieces are notoriously difficult to keep color in. (Not that I know from firsthand experience as I only get frags from others.)

Clam looks happy. And nice!

Good luck and keep us posted.
 
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Thanks Chicago,

I moved the coral up a bit higher last night under the new lighting, LED, I just put on that side. It looks a little better just from doing that. I know it won't change that quick, but.....I can hope.

I had a Koralia in the tank and threw it away as it was all coralined up from 2 years. I bought the MaxiJets to time and create a wave maker type scenario, but they didn't work out that great. I will take them out most likely and put Koralia's back in. The MJ's suction system is horrible. I have to push the suction cups in at least once a day or I will come in from work and they will be hanging off sometimes. :headwallblue:

I have an in sump protein skimmer that actually works really well. It produces enough skimmate that I have to empty at least once a week. Dark, nasty, smelling green too, not clear.

Thanks again for all of your input, it really helps. I don't plan on going SPS heavy. Honestly, I know quite a bit about all other areas of reefing except for SPS and in that area, I am clueless.:rolleyes:

I will get a flash pic and post it up in just a bit. I would love to hear your take on that one.

Update, I have the MJ900's and I forgot you can turn those into circulation pumps like the Koralia. I just turned one (opposite the acro side) into one and it increased the flow quite a bit. In power head mode they flow like 250ish, in circulation mode they flow 1000 gph. I could turn the other one into a circulation pump as well, but from the looks of it, it would blow my corals away.
 
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Ok here is a pic with flash. Let me know if that doesn't tell you what you need and I will take a better one. This one is with my iphone 4s, but I have a pretty high end digital that I can take as well.

65b98074.jpg
 
Others can chime in here but I don't see anything that's too dire looking, to me that tissue looks healthy not receding or anything.

A important thing with SPS is to let them sit and encrust the more you mess with them and move them around the longer it takes them to color and encrust. I'd say let it be.

Make sure your clam is getting really high light.
 
Just Ditch the bio balls that is very out dated technology. People have issue with bio balls over time not in te first 2 months. Apperently you haven't been doing the research you say you have since your trying to run an sps tank off bio balls.
 
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