Acros fine, monti cap bleached.

[Philly.b]

2 months is a little soon for sps,your tank is still settling. Try lowering the intensity and try 6-7 inches. Going by the fts your intensity is too high.

 

[TUSI]

Po4 at 0 and nitrate at 12 is probably your cause. its way out of balance. try bringing your p04 up a little and the nitrates down. the best ratio I found for my colors is around p04 at 0.05 and nitrates at around 5

 

[SashimiTurtle]

2 months is a little soon for sps,your tank is still settling. Try lowering the intensity and try 6-7 inches. Going by the fts your intensity is too high.

Please explain too early with quantifiable evidence. I just don't understand it. I have three acros that have gained color and growth in the same time my monti has lost color and no growth.

I just ordered the Kessil controller, so I'll have more control over the intensity and spectrum. I think I'm only around 30% right now. I'll get more pictures in the morning at different intensities.

In BRS' latest video their A360 put out 300 PAR at 100% 6" below the water dirrectly under the light and 150 PAR at 50% at the same depth. I'm running half the wattage with the A160, so I'd guess roughly half the PAR. No way to quantify that as I don't have a PAR meter.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Po4 at 0 and nitrate at 12 is probably your cause. its way out of balance. try bringing your p04 up a little and the nitrates down. the best ratio I found for my colors is around p04 at 0.05 and nitrates at around 5

Yea, I agree. I was aiming for 2-5 NO3. Got it up to 2ppm and it sat there a few days, then shot to 12 for no reason. I did a water change, so I'll check again tomorrow when everything is settled. I've been fighting 0 nutrients, any advice on how to safely raise PO4 would be greatly appreaciated.

 

[TUSI]

Dont mix growth with color. Birdsnest will grow almost in any condition. Monties dont like to much light. I recomend move them from direct light or cut the intensity a little. If you are using any media to remove p04, stop it. I think the tank is very young but normally feeding fish is enough to bring the p04 up. There is a big disconnect between the two.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Dont mix growth with color. Birdsnest will grow almost in any condition. Monties dont like to much light. I recomend move them from direct light or cut the intensity a little. If you are using any media to remove p04, stop it. I think the tank is very young but normally feeding fish is enough to bring the p04 up. There is a big disconnect between the two.

I've removed all filter media except this stuff... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B50UPE0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_eQuAzb2KG1RWN

I know birds nest grows like a weed. My green acro has also grown and gained a bright green color. The other two are newer to the tank but they look fine and no bleaching.

The tank is inhabited only by three 1" turbo snails. I had a bout with velvet and the fish I had in this tank didn't make it. The rest of my fish that were in my 75 are fine, now, and being treated. I've been adding 2ml per day Red Sea reef energy A and B and also target feeding the duncan a few times a week.

The monti is about as far from center of the tank as possible. Being a 12"x20" footprint, I can't get it that far away, but I can shade it with my rock work. I think it'll be too little too late tho, it's pretty much a gonner as of when I left for work.

I think the problem is high and low light corals in such a confined space and my lack of nutrients. I'll just stick with the acropora to keep the same light demand with my corals. I've been wanting a mille for a while.

 

[TUSI]

I've removed all filter media except this stuff... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B50UPE0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_eQuAzb2KG1RWN

I know birds nest grows like a weed. My green acro has also grown and gained a bright green color. The other two are newer to the tank but they look fine and no bleaching.

The tank is inhabited only by three 1" turbo snails. I had a bout with velvet and the fish I had in this tank didn't make it. The rest of my fish that were in my 75 are fine, now, and being treated. I've been adding 2ml per day Red Sea reef energy A and B and also target feeding the duncan a few times a week.

The monti is about as far from center of the tank as possible. Being a 12"x20" footprint, I can't get it that far away, but I can shade it with my rock work. I think it'll be too little too late tho, it's pretty much a gonner as of when I left for work.

I think the problem is high and low light corals in such a confined space and my lack of nutrients. I'll just stick with the acropora to keep the same light demand with my corals. I've been wanting a mille for a while.

I would wait until your po4 crips up u can try a pro strata which can handle light and it's as nice if not nicer than a milli.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Oh yea I'm not adding any more coral for a while. Not until I get these nutrients under control. It might take waiting out the fallow period and getting fish back in the tank. I do have a squat lobster and a pom pom crab coming from divers den. Should help with nutrients having something to feed other than corals. I've been real hesitant to just start dumping food in the tank without anything to eat it and have it basically rot. I like the fuzziness of the Millepora, is the Prostrata similar?

 

[jsh mee]

I find it helpful to keep at least two separate colonies of each monti I own. On one occasion I had a digi colony almost instantly die, with the exact same digi growing within inches of it be totally unaffected.

 

[Raznyc79]

I've been wondering the same thing... I'd love an answer to this statement that acros will not trive in young systems...

 

[TUSI]

Oh yea I'm not adding any more coral for a while. Not until I get these nutrients under control. It might take waiting out the fallow period and getting fish back in the tank. I do have a squat lobster and a pom pom crab coming from divers den. Should help with nutrients having something to feed other than corals. I've been real hesitant to just start dumping food in the tank without anything to eat it and have it basically rot. I like the fuzziness of the Millepora, is the Prostrata similar?

Prostrata is very similar and much more colorful

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Here is a few FTS of different intensities. The light is 4" over the water(and you can see I'm getting spillover), the top of the rock is 5.5" under the water.

Low as it'll go ~10%

Where I keep it set ~30%

50%

~75%

100%

Thing is with a cell phone camera it has this thing called exposure, and it'll adjust the aperture to make the picture look better. All of those pictures except maybe the first one look the same to me, but I can tell a difference looking at the tank.

Edit; now that I see them all together, 10% looks brighter than all the rest... There's no way to judge PAR from a cell phone picture. Anyone who says they can is delusional.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Here's a picture with the light 10" over the water. I think this is completely stupid looking. Why mount a light that high and have 90% of the spread outside the tank? It's lighting up the other side of my fireplace 7' away.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Nitrates back down to 2ppm, phosphates still 0ppm.

 

[CodyRVA]

Just my two cents, but as it's been mentioned... not all SPS are the same in regards to their tolerance for unstable parameters. I've had PO4 spikes and while some acros flourished, others simply did not. I've seen one stylo RTN and one right next to it, of a different type, was seemingly unaffected. There may be other variables at play such as PAR, flow, etc, but just because you have a few acros doing well, this doesn't guarantee or even suggest automatic success with all SPS. Good luck!

 

[dankreef]

You can add acros day 1 after cycle if you know what your doing . Most people say wait because imo they mean "maturity" of the tank to me means your levels are rock solid . Sps thrives in stable condition. If your adding fish doing crazy water changes letting levels bounce all over they will have problems. Id say 0 p04 is culprit

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I haven't had any swings, not that I've detected and I test very often. I've gone thru almost two bottles of Hanna alk reagent in two months and I also have red sea pro tests. The only spike I've had is the nitrate, and that was after the monti lost color. Nitrates are back in line and I've removed the monti. I pit if down low in my 75, which is LPS mushroom and polyps. It had no green color anymore but it's still putting out blue polyps so I'm marginally hopeful.

I've been ghost feeding a few mysis pellets every day trying to get phosphates to register. Nothing as of yesterday, I'll test again tomorrow.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I knew this was going to be a tough tank, given the small size, shallow depth and the limited water volume to absorb swings... but I learn best when I have to stay on top of things.

I've compromised with the light and moved up to 6". It's lighting up a 5' area on the sides of the tank but I'll deal with it. Not much on the front and back. Starting to regret such a narrow tank. I think a cube would have been much easier. Maybe an IM 50 lagoon next year... one can dream.