Wild and Maricultured SPS Reefers Thread

[trueblackpercula]

My reef brother, you just added a large amount of colonies to your tank. Please monitor your Alk as it will get consumed by quickly and you may need to adjust your dosing. Also how long has the tank been set up as I see cyno. Growing on some of the colonies and that's a bad sign.

Also that first one is deffenatly my favorite and good luck with them..

 

[Psionicdragon]

My reef brother, you just added a large amount of colonies to your tank. Please monitor your Alk as it will get consumed by quickly and you may need to adjust your dosing. Also how long has the tank been set up as I see cyno. Growing on some of the colonies and that's a bad sign.

Also that first one is deffenatly my favorite and good luck with them..

Honestly, I don't remember lol. There aren't any cyano for sure. Probably saw one of the wrasse around the sps.

The second pic was actually 8 x 4 iirc, but it came in shattered.

Alk has been stable. Been testing daily to make sure everything is dialed in correctly.

I am just concern about the lack of PE even when lights are off. Based on experience, I believe the corals are stressed.

The other corals including the mariculture/wild frags are growing well and keeping their color.

I agree! The spatula! (i know it has a longer spelling name) is actually a multicolor one.

I am running carbon now just incase something could be in the water, but not sure if I should run carbon or Purigen. I believe Purigen has to tumble like GFO while carbon gets forced through?

 

[trueblackpercula]

Ok keep us posted.

 

[biggles]

yup yup. Ph has always been there

I use a milwaukee phosphate tester (the big unit).

I left it around 10-11 because iirc back in the day, salifert has a +/- 2 Alk.

I'll go out on a limb here mate as i have a pretty good idea what might be up possibly. If your alk is at 11 and those new pieces came from the ocean which is closer to 7.5 or so they have zero PE because they've been through a massive alk spike. At least a couple of the colonies should have had PE the first night within hours of hitting the water from my experience.
No PE is a water problem, nothing to do with your lights or you'd be seeing at least some PE at night. I really think if you follow Matt's advice and stop dosing alk until you see 7.5 - 8.5, somewhere in that range that those new pieces will improve rapidly. It makes no difference dripping your water for 2-3 hours when you get them in an effort to 'acclimate' them as corals do not suddenly adapt to drastic alk changes over a matter of a few hours otherwise none of us would be troubled when we spike out alk or drop it over 24 hours.
If i don't dose for 1 day my alk will go from 7.8 to less than 6 and the 2nd 24 hours will see all hell break loose as the corals start crapping out big time. That's a drop of only about 2 points spread out over 24 hours but i know there will be definite consequences if it's not corrected. I have never dripped an SPS coral as trust me when i say that 1. a few hours will not acclimate a wild or mari to life in your artificial reef water and 2. if your water is spot on for SPS the best thing the coral can get is out of the filthy shipping water and into clean salt water that's what it's used to. Float the bag in the sump for 15 mins to get it closer to temp and then remove it, dip it and get it into your tank asap.
I've never dripped a piece out of around 180 or so wild acros and not one has ever reacted badly - i've never kept alk above 9.0 ever in any of my tanks but i'm sure i would have seen some negative things if i raised it to 10 or 11 and threw a few new wild pieces in the reef.
Anyway that's just my take on what might be up with your tank but it would seem to fit with what's happening especially with the new pieces. Let us know what you do and how it works regardless of what you do as it's all good info for others to use :thumbsup:

 

[Psionicdragon]

I'll go out on a limb here mate as i have a pretty good idea what might be up possibly. If your alk is at 11 and those new pieces came from the ocean which is closer to 7.5 or so they have zero PE because they've been through a massive alk spike. At least a couple of the colonies should have had PE the first night within hours of hitting the water from my experience.
No PE is a water problem, nothing to do with your lights or you'd be seeing at least some PE at night. I really think if you follow Matt's advice and stop dosing alk until you see 7.5 - 8.5, somewhere in that range that those new pieces will improve rapidly. It makes no difference dripping your water for 2-3 hours when you get them in an effort to 'acclimate' them as corals do not suddenly adapt to drastic alk changes over a matter of a few hours otherwise none of us would be troubled when we spike out alk or drop it over 24 hours.
If i don't dose for 1 day my alk will go from 7.8 to less than 6 and the 2nd 24 hours will see all hell break loose as the corals start crapping out big time. That's a drop of only about 2 points spread out over 24 hours but i know there will be definite consequences if it's not corrected. I have never dripped an SPS coral as trust me when i say that 1. a few hours will not acclimate a wild or mari to life in your artificial reef water and 2. if your water is spot on for SPS the best thing the coral can get is out of the filthy shipping water and into clean salt water that's what it's used to. Float the bag in the sump for 15 mins to get it closer to temp and then remove it, dip it and get it into your tank asap.
I've never dripped a piece out of around 180 or so wild acros and not one has ever reacted badly - i've never kept alk above 9.0 ever in any of my tanks but i'm sure i would have seen some negative things if i raised it to 10 or 11 and threw a few new wild pieces in the reef.
Anyway that's just my take on what might be up with your tank but it would seem to fit with what's happening especially with the new pieces. Let us know what you do and how it works regardless of what you do as it's all good info for others to use :thumbsup:

3 things:

Thanks for the input these acros are from your neck of the woods. They did have a lot of PE the first week it was in my tank. The Spatulata isn't really browned out (bad camera).

2) how fast or slow should I take my alk down? I noticed that when I do water changes with Instant Ocean, my alk seems to jump even though its matching parameter wise.

3) I think I found an issue. Nitrate is at 20ppm....which is really rare as it usually stays around 0-5ppm..I think that maybe one reason for the cause of browning. Not sure if it is bad RODI or something is decaying. The sump is syphon on a weekly basis as filter socks have become an annoyance.

 

[biggles]

Letting your alk drop naturally by withdrawing the dosing until you have it close to where you want it should be fine mate. If your salt mix is really high in alk splitting the changes into smaller amounts will lessen the swings from water changes.
Nitrates at 20 isn't the end of the world but wild acros won't react positively to it, especially if your alk is not solid in a good spot. Best to resolve the high nitrates and get that alk sorted as i can't stress enough how important it is. Keep us updated with what you do and how things react mate.

 

[Psionicdragon]

hey biggles, are you dosing anything besides the three primaries?

 

[Psionicdragon]

I found revive to work really well with the aefw adults. For eggs, I would use a magnifiant glass and just pop them.

You could use iodine, but I don't remember how strong of a dosage.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to pick up some Bayer and Melafix and ditch the CoralRX that I've been using.

I personally haven't had any browning out issues with them in my system. I plumbed in 2x 30g tanks as refugiums, run Pappone (contains sugar) through a d.i.y. continuous feeder for NPS/SPS, run skimmer, gfo and gac. My phosphates hover around .03 right before scheduled w/c's, so I'm able to feed heavy/continuously without issue.

I don't like chemical treatments and prefer a natural approach when possible, so while I attempt to starve out the aefw until Jan., I was debating/want to start collecting/QT'ing some mari pieces.

All of your input is helpful...hopefully other's will chime in as well as I look forward to seeing where this topic goes.

Reefmutt, I think I've gotten my light project adjusted to my liking, but I'll monitor. Thanks. I always light acclimate new pieces as well.

 

[biggles]

hey biggles, are you dosing anything besides the three primaries?

No mate, just alk, cal & Mg. Here's my needle valve and on off tap that i use to drip the alk. I discovered it's leaking from where i tapped the thin plastic container but i solved this problem by hanging it over the edge of the shelf so the drippy leak drops into the tank - problem solved

 

[Psionicdragon]

lol.

Any new stuff you added?

 

[biggles]

Haven't bought any corals for a while but the urge is getting stronger for a LFS visit......

Thought this was a nice shot of two encrusting acros that met weeks back and decided not to sting each other lol. Now it's a battle to see who can grow higher the quickest to 'breach' the rising wall and over run the other. Btw the blue one is a GBR acro and the fluoro lime aculeus came from a West Aus reef on the opposite side of the country.

That shot was taken with an iphone btw with no added lenses.

 

[Psionicdragon]

Haven't bought any corals for a while but the urge is getting stronger for a LFS visit......

Thought this was a nice shot of two encrusting acros that met weeks back and decided not to sting each other lol. Now it's a battle to see who can grow higher the quickest to 'breach' the rising wall and over run the other. Btw the blue one is a GBR acro and the fluoro lime aculeus came from a West Aus reef on the opposite side of the country.

That shot was taken with an iphone btw with no added lenses.

lol thats so cool

 

[biggles]

For all of you who want to see what wild SPS looks like that are sold in Aus LFS's here's one of the stores FB pages displaying what comes in regularly. Unfortunately they include a lot of flubber so you'll have to wade through all that stuff to find the real corals...........

https://www.facebook.com/reeflectionsaquarium/photos_stream

 

[reefmutt]

Hey! What about us poor schmucks who aren't on Facebook??
Oh well... I'll live. I've lived this long..

Ok here are a few iPhone 4 shots of two wild frags from a lfs that often gets wild corals direct and wild from Reef Raft..
Here's a RR ice fire echinata:

And here's a wild tabling deep water (not sure what it is)

It's more yellow and a little less green in person..
I'll post a couple of Maris soon..

 

[biggles]

Lol Matt you don't need to log in to see the pics - i didn't Those two deep water acros are nice mate, i still haven't seen a single echi for sale in 8 months here so it looks like i'm going to have to go back to dealing with the collectors direct again to get a fair go at the acros that are being held for the LFS's 'pet customers' lol. Worked in a few stores and i know all the good stuff is offered to a chosen few - i used to be one years ago lol.....

 

[reefmutt]

Then I must be a REAL schmuck because when I click on the link, I get directed to the Facebook sign in page asking me to log in or create an account..
I used to work in a pet store as well.. I used to do the unpacking, so I made sure the best pieces were properly dealt with!!

They came home with me

 

[biggles]

Well i'm stuffed if i know what's up Matt, i just clicked on the FB link from their web page and the pics showed with no login. Here's the link to the store maybe if you do what i do it might work for you.

http://reeflectionsaquarium.com.au/

Lol - i never unpacked some i just took 'em straight home......... the good old days hey

 

[reefmutt]

Holy camoli, there is some super nice stock there!!
And that red carpet anemone... I'd sell a daughter... Actually, wife for one of those!!
Very nice!!!
Ok here's a mail order A. Desalwi that comes from Darryl's tank..

Now, if you know Darryl's ridiculously nice coral collection, you'll know that mine has faded out..
I'm playing with light intensity and feeding more to see about bringing back the colour.

 

[reefmutt]

Here's a couple of Maris:

This was an amazing blue purple when it came in.. Pretty pale now..

This one has a nice blue but it's washed out.
Another Mari:

I'm hoping they wil all colour up.. But I wouldn't say they have browned out, really.

Here's a couple more from Darryl's tank:

That's a crappy shot.. ugh. Gotta get the real camera out..

 

[reefmutt]

I gotta post a couple of shots from my old tank..
What a real
Camera can do..

I will get back to there...