Battlecorals Vivid's Rainbow Acropora - Contest Discussion Thread

[Tphill]

@Tphill , did you not have issues with high Barium? Same salt maybe?

Yes, high Ba of 120 µg/l. Triton suggested sources:
1. Phosphate iron-based (except ROWAphos or PhosBan)
2. Contaminated salts
3. Contaminated trace elements, in particular strontium
4. Dried fish food

I don't use any kind of GFO, only feed frozen (Larrys Reef Frenzy). I did use the Zeovit method up till about a year ago. That leaves salt.

Their suggested remedy was 4 15% water changes.

I'm now using Red Sea Salt in the blue bucket for a complete bucket (175 gallons). Was using IO Reef Crystals before switching to Triton method.

 

[Caravanshaka]

If my quick math is correct, then every 10G Fritz on 100G tank water will give you about 10-12Ba!

LOL, that's one way to get Barium up...I'm surprised my tank is low on Barium when I've been using this salt since the tank started. To me that suggests the consistency in the salt is lacking....an original batch was likely low on Barium and now this one is elevated. To answer the next question, I do mix 1 sealed 50g bag of salt at a time, so should be no issue of "well Barium settled to the bottom and you got it all in that mix".

 

[MTBake]

Results looked great, perfect for enhancement !!!
No key issues, except Barium was a bit high. Need more growth, lol.

Here my 2 cents:
Alk with 9 is ok, since Nitrates are a bit higher hence no risk of ULNS tissue burn!
Try to get lower very slowly into the 8 range if you can.

Bromine with 67 is a good foundation. Increase it now into the range of 85 to get some more metallic shimmer on your SPS skin ;-)

Boron with 3,9 is solid as well, for enhancement I would lift it up to 7-8 for better reds and more depth in color on red and blues. I'm at 10, and for my taste it's too much red now, lol. Will go back to 7-8 as well.

Fluorid solid as well. Get that up to 1.7-1.8 and experience a significant change in shimmer and depth of color. NEVER go over 2.0 hence I carefully recommend to get to 1.7-1.8. It also seems to enhance growth and make SPS looking more bold, especially Tenuis type of Acros and Deepwater show much better fluorescence.

Iodine, well well well, careful here. I would do a very careful trending type of daily drops! I overdosed always if I did single doses. Hence I recommend Seachem Potassium Iodide and I do in my 300G around 12 drops daily with a dropper bottle from Amazon. Iodide oxidizes into Iodine depending on the tank over a few days. Simply do drops daily and watch Iodine in another month. Around 60-70 is ideal, going borderline into the 80-90's is tricky only with follow up ICP's and strict drops per day routine.

Barium, keep an eye on, careful with Supplements you may do that contain Barium. Not sure yet where the upper limit is, but 40 is the end of the green range according to Triton lab.

Manganese I would start dosing daily, even if you wont get any readings in the next test, you know it's been consumed.

Zinc and Vanadium is apparently good, no action here.

Nickel, Cobalt, Silver and Copper especially, I guess you won't touch for now anyways since this would become another level of testing and experimenting ;-)
That basically requires monthly testing to see what the tank consumes with a weekly test period in the very beginning of dosing these traces.

Po4 is great.


-Andre

I can't seem to find a fluoride supplement other than Triton's fluorine. Will that work to increase fluoride? Is there another option out there?

 

[ksfulk]

I suppose just for the sake of sharing the information, here's my ATI test from a week or so ago, in case people are interested.

 

[Caravanshaka]

I can't seem to find a fluoride supplement other than Triton's fluorine. Will that work to increase fluoride? Is there another option out there?

Aquaforest has a Flourine supplement as well. But you are correct, Triton is the only one I found easily.

I'm disappointed that ATI doesn't import all of their elements to the states....it was easy to dose the Bromine supplement I got from them, and they are much more reasonably priced.

 

[MTBake]

Aquaforest has a Flourine supplement as well. But you are correct, Triton is the only one I found easily.

I'm disappointed that ATI doesn't import all of their elements to the states....it was easy to dose the Bromine supplement I got from them, and they are much more reasonably priced.

Didn't think to check Aquaforest. Thanks for that.

 

[PSXerholic]

Just make sure guys, you find a Fluoride supplement that clearly states dosing instructions to determine how much need to be dosed to achieve a certain level!
Don't use wild guesses and trials with Fluoride which irreversibly can kill coral tissue if you exceed 2ppm.

So careful.

 

[PSXerholic]

I suppose just for the sake of sharing the information, here's my ATI test from a week or so ago, in case people are interested.

THX for sharing!

Well you probably saw my comments on the previous lab reports.
In your case I would do add Fluoride, Stop Ca and Bromine supplementation for now, lift Boron to 6-7, Barium really high wow, reduce the Iodide dosing or better do daily drops etc., Mo back to 12-13, wondering what brings your copper so high - maybe a supplement you do that contains multiple metals since Va and Zinc is there as well, Manganese I recommend to everyone who has non detectable Mn, and No3 would be nice to have below 10 but that is everyones personal preference anyways.

 

[aarbutina]

Sorry............
What happened? Do you know the issue?

What didn't happen.... ha. Where to start. Well I initially had my frag in my frag tank. When I first got it it was showing signs of growth but at some point my entire tank started to nose dive (at the time I was thinking it was related to a RODI water quality issue since I didn't notice that my DI resin had expired). I lost a number of other frags during this time. When it looked like things weren't going to get better in my frag tank, I moved most of my SPS to my display tank. The frag in question was pretty beaten up at this point but it appears to stabilize after the move. With out going into to many details, I did what all reefers do and tried to tinker with a "good thing" and jumped on the nitrate dosing (Spectracide) band wagon. Needless to say I didn't not see the positive effects that a number of reefer have observed. I in fact saw the exact opposite, frag after frag withering in dying with in a couple of days (i wrote about it a bit here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...due-to-dosing-spectracide-for-nitrats.386025/ ). The tanks seems to have stabilized now that I have stopped the nitrates and done several good sized water changes. But it was too late for this and other frags.

 

[PSXerholic]

What didn't happen.... ha. Where to start. Well I initially had my frag in my frag tank. When I first got it it was showing signs of growth but at some point my entire tank started to nose dive (at the time I was thinking it was related to a RODI water quality issue since I didn't notice that my DI resin had expired). I lost a number of other frags during this time. When it looked like things weren't going to get better in my frag tank, I moved most of my SPS to my display tank. The frag in question was pretty beaten up at this point but it appears to stabilize after the move. With out going into to many details, I did what all reefers do and tried to tinker with a "good thing" and jumped on the nitrate dosing (Spectracide) band wagon. Needless to say I didn't not see the positive effects that a number of reefer have observed. I in fact saw the exact opposite, frag after frag withering in dying with in a couple of days (i wrote about it a bit here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...due-to-dosing-spectracide-for-nitrats.386025/ ). The tanks seems to have stabilized now that I have stopped the nitrates and done several good sized water changes. But it was too late for this and other frags.

Read and screened through your thread. Scary stuff to imagine impurities in the Stomp remover could lead to this, but in theory a possibility. However, there is also the fact of dosing nitrates, that pathogenic bacteria could have taken advantage of the new fuel to thrive!? Just an idea. Also you may still be able to get an ATI test done for better clarity if not too late already to see if something fundamental is/was missing.

Anyways, sorry to hear that and I hope you get back on track soon !!!

 

[MTBake]

I'm going to send a sample of my fresh mixed seawater to ATI to see where levels are. I haven't dosed anything into this system at all for 2 maybe 3 weeks now and corals are looking real good. Ones that I haven't lost that is. Really think my main issue was/is an immature system.

I also spent some time last weekend upgrading my ro/di system. In addition to replacing existing pre filters, I added a second carbon block and switched to BRS single bed di resin system. Not sure if I'll keep it set up with the single bed system but was curious to see if there was a difference in resin life. I also added an inline tds meter (should of ordered one of these babies years ago, lol). My incoming tds is 530ppm but varies slightly depending on the day. After ro is 9 and after di is 0(and has been for years as I replace resin frequently). Edit: I've always used a hand held meter and probably still will at times.

Thinking about a lighting switch next. Still on the fence with this one though.

 

[Caravanshaka]

Your RO system is key in making sure what goes into your tank is controlled. When I moved into my current house, I added a water softener loop mainly for my filtration needs. I now have a whole house sediment filter, followed by a water softener. Only after that does my 7 stage RODI setup come into play.

sediment
Carbon
Carbon
RO (has a T for a 10g drinking water container)
Cation DI
Anion DI
Mixed bed DI

Since I have installed this setup, I have made at least 500g of water and am still getting ~250 tds in, 1-2 tds after RO, and 0 tds after DI all with the same filters. My Anion DI looks about half exhausted at this point, while Cation and Mixed Bed don’t look depleted at all.

 

[MTBake]

Your RO system is key in making sure what goes into your tank is controlled. When I moved into my current house, I added a water softener loop mainly for my filtration needs. I now have a whole house sediment filter, followed by a water softener. Only after that does my 7 stage RODI setup come into play.

sediment
Carbon
Carbon
RO (has a T for a 10g drinking water container)
Cation DI
Anion DI
Mixed bed DI

Since I have installed this setup, I have made at least 500g of water and am still getting ~250 tds in, 1-2 tds after RO, and 0 tds after DI all with the same filters. My Anion DI looks about half exhausted at this point, while Cation and Mixed Bed don’t look depleted at all.

Nice setup! Where did you get the water storage containers?

 

[PSXerholic]

Off topic,but.......
Here is my WCS from my previous tank. Gave up on water changes and did after that a salinity monitoring where I just placed a mason jar of salt into the sump and the waste pump/ATO/APEX did the dilution to maintain salinity hence I did sort of a water change without mixing water.........but that is history but worked great.

 

[PSXerholic]

The RODI is extremely important. When my Resin runs bad, I supplement tons of Silicates and Zinc into the tank according to my ATI test recently........
missed to change the cartridge.
I measured only 1 TDS in the water at that point, however, bad stuff came in.

 

[MTBake]

Silicates were high in my ro/di sample as well. The resin had changed color to about 2 inches up from bottom. I try to change it once I notice any color change at all even though my tds meter reads 0. It's not very expensive or difficult to change out compared to the live stock in the tank. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Caravanshaka]

Nice setup! Where did you get the water storage containers?

Thanks, the Tanks were purchased from www.ruralking.com

They take a while to come in when you order, but are very reasonably priced.

 

[Tphill]

Got my next ICP test back. Ba is down to 80, Li is down to 280. It says PO4 is now 2.237! And after putting an entire 1000ml carton of Triton's Mg in the tank over a 7 day period, my Mg is down, from 1243 to 1234!

 

[Crimsonvice]

Triton tests results. Next time I will do ATI. I had a Triton kit laying around.

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/35817/

 

[bubbaque]

When taking the final pic should we be taking the pic from the same angel and the same ruler placement as the first pic?
I see a couple pics where the ruler placement is changing wildly. Sometimes it's on the plug with the coral, next pic it's on the eggcrate. It just makes it look like sometimes it's growing 1/4", lol.