Can keep acro don't know what I'm doing wrong

[BoomCorals]

Here’s a question. Is your tank growing coralline? In my experience until a tank is growing coralline all over the walls, it will be significantly more difficult to keep sps.

 

[Eric23]

Here’s a question. Is your tank growing coralline? In my experience until a tank is growing coralline all over the walls, it will be significantly more difficult to keep sps.

I'm definitely getting good Coraline growth

 

[Eric23]

Look at your numbers from 11 days ago until today. Most everything is different. Even if your water is "perfect" on what is thought to be perfect, if you're constantly changing things you will get bad results. This is even more the case if your tank is immature or an adolescent.

I agree 100% .... I'm not really looking for sps success at the moment. I know that things aren't going to go well until the tank stabilizes and there haven't been any changes for a while. What I'm trying to do now is find the sweet spot with lighting, nutrients, flow, maintenance, etc and then wait and see what happens after 6 months or so. I did however have the same exact problem with acros dying the same exact way with all the same equipment on my last tank which was set up for a long time with no changes and almost exactly the same parameters.... The way I figure it is I recently upgraded tanks, I upgraded the lighting by adding the T5's, Now's the Time to make all the changes, get it where I want it according to the numbers and let it settle in..... I don't see the point in leaving things out of whack and making more changes later on down the road...

 

[Scott.h]

I agree 100% .... I'm not really looking for sps success at the moment. I know that things aren't going to go well until the tank stabilizes and there haven't been any changes for a while. What I'm trying to do now is find the sweet spot with lighting, nutrients, flow, maintenance, etc and then wait and see what happens after 6 months or so. I did however have the same exact problem with acros dying the same exact way with all the same equipment on my last tank which was set up for a long time with no changes and almost exactly the same parameters.... The way I figure it is I recently upgraded tanks, I upgraded the lighting by adding the T5's, Now's the Time to make all the changes, get it where I want it according to the numbers and let it settle in..... I don't see the point in leaving things out of whack and making more changes later on down the road...

I understand. I think you'll find the sweet spot to be whatever the corals are acclimated to. My sps are getting around 150 par, while my fixture is capable of producing over 500. Some claim corals doing well with nitrates over 60, while some are almost undetectable. It's all about stability. And I agree about the coralline comment. I've always noticed right before there was a coral problem coralline started to disappear first.

 

[Eric23]

Lowering the intensity of my LEDs had an overnight affect... Frags I added weeks ago that had no polyp extension are now showing polyps... I had a guy from my local shop who has an amazing sps display look over my system and tell me my lights were just way to intense even tho the par numbers didn't seem to be that high. I doubt of the sticks which already have algae will come back but who knows. Important thing is that now that I have lighting good (I think) whatever didn't get burned will thrive

 

[XNavyDiver]

Lowering the intensity of my LEDs had an overnight affect... Frags I added weeks ago that had no polyp extension are now showing polyps... I had a guy from my local shop who has an amazing sps display look over my system and tell me my lights were just way to intense even tho the par numbers didn't seem to be that high. I doubt of the sticks which already have algae will come back but who knows. Important thing is that now that I have lighting good (I think) whatever didn't get burned will thrive

What kind of LED's do you have? Are you able to say by how much or by percent that you lowered them? I'm very interested and am following!

 

[Eric23]

I have been using kessil A360's for years and always had a problem keeping sps.. my old schedule would max out around 75% 8 inches above the water line of my 60 cube, my 57, and now my reefer 350... For some reason this worked great in my 60 cube with one light fixture but when I went to the 57 and now the reefer 350 and had to add a second light to cover the longer tank it just burned everything. I decided to try an add T5's so I got the Aquatic life fixture and burned stuff even more because I added more light but was only getting 250 par at the top of my rock work so I didn't understand. My friend who's an so genius told me forget the par numbers and follow this schedule..

Kessils

9 am 0% color 5% intensity
12 pm 25% color 30% intensity
1:30 pm 50% color 30% intensity
2:30 pm 50% color 30% intensity
4 pm 25% color 30% intensity
9 pm 0% color 0% Intensity

4 T5'S

On at 11
Off at 5

Using this schedule with the T5's off I'm getting about 60 par from my LED's at the top of my rock and 120 par from the T5s at the top my rock directly under where the LEDs are.. he told me not to worry about the par numbers... He said that 500 par from a T5 will grow sps like crazy but 250 par from a kessil will burn the crap out of it... I didn't understand this concept at first but I can tell you that my corals look way happier

 

[XNavyDiver]

I have been using kessil A360's for years and always had a problem keeping sps.. my old schedule would max out around 75% 8 inches above the water line of my 60 cube, my 57, and now my reefer 350... For some reason this worked great in my 60 cube with one light fixture but when I went to the 57 and now the reefer 350 and had to add a second light to cover the longer tank it just burned everything. I decided to try an add T5's so I got the Aquatic life fixture and burned stuff even more because I added more light but was only getting 250 par at the top of my rock work so I didn't understand. My friend who's an so genius told me forget the par numbers and follow this schedule..

Kessils

9 am 0% color 5% intensity
12 pm 25% color 30% intensity
1:30 pm 50% color 30% intensity
2:30 pm 50% color 30% intensity
4 pm 25% color 30% intensity
9 pm 0% color 0% Intensity

4 T5'S

On at 11
Off at 5

Using this schedule with the T5's off I'm getting about 60 par from my LED's at the top of my rock and 120 par from the T5s at the top my rock directly under where the LEDs are.. he told me not to worry about the par numbers... He said that 500 par from a T5 will grow sps like crazy but 250 par from a kessil will burn the crap out of it... I didn't understand this concept at first but I can tell you that my corals look way happier

I too recently installed the AquaticLife hybrid fixture with my Radion Gen 4's. My tank is basically a 100 cube. Here is my current settings with my two Radions:

The t5's come one at 10:00A and turn off at 4:00P. My current PAR about 5 inches under the waterline (top of the rock work):

 

[madweazl]

Glad you found something the corals responded positively toward. All too often, we get caught up in this PAR range of 250-350 being necessary for SPS.

Edit: will also note that I don't believe 250 PAR from a Kessil is any different than 250 PAR from T5s though. If both units are measured with a sensor capable of interpreting the range being presented, they should spit out similar results.

 

[Eric23]

Glad you found something the corals responded positively toward. All too often, we get caught up in this PAR range of 250-350 being necessary for SPS.

Edit: will also note that I don't believe 250 PAR from a Kessil is any different than 250 PAR from T5s though. If both units are measured with a sensor capable of interpreting the range being presented, they should spit out similar results.

I started another thread asking about the difference between par from a T5 and Par from an LED... What I'm starting to wonder about after reading is spectral differences... T5's are a much wider Spectrum and not all of that spectrum is usable by the corals. The kessil LED on the other hand is tuned to a Spectrum specifically for Coral growth. So by that rationale I was wondering if lower par from an LED is relatively equal to higher par from a T5...

 

[madweazl]

I started another thread asking about the difference between par from a T5 and Par from an LED... What I'm starting to wonder about after reading is spectral differences... T5's are a much wider Spectrum and not all of that spectrum is usable by the corals. The kessil LED on the other hand is tuned to a Spectrum specifically for Coral growth. So by that rationale I was wondering if lower par from an LED is relatively equal to higher par from a T5...

I think it just comes down to the device being used to capture the data.

 

[Scott.h]

Lowering the intensity of my LEDs had an overnight affect... Frags I added weeks ago that had no polyp extension are now showing polyps... I had a guy from my local shop who has an amazing sps display look over my system and tell me my lights were just way to intense even tho the par numbers didn't seem to be that high. I doubt of the sticks which already have algae will come back but who knows. Important thing is that now that I have lighting good (I think) whatever didn't get burned will thrive

Part of the reason why I keep my lights lower then the typical person. Just because some claims sps need 300 par doesn't make it the case. Maybe you'll lose some elevated growth, but when you are having issues keeping things alive that's another thing.

There is a lot of advice on this forum, but many people commenting are people that are fairly new to the hobby and are excited to have just learned something that worked for them in their specific situation without understanding other factors.

One day I took my par meter down to a well known large on line distributor we all know here. After measuring the light in most of their tanks (btw they didn't know their numbers either) we were suprised to find out how low some of their numbers really were. Some of their acan tanks and Zoe tanks ran as little as 5-10 par. Of course doing well. So it really depends on the tank and many other factors.

The best thing do is find someone that really knows their stuff and pick their brain. People that grow corals for a living are a good example of this.

 

[Zacco]

I don't run my Kessil A360w's anymore than 50%. I've burnt Acro tips going over the 50% mark.

 

[Charterreefer]

I thought of that also... I picked up a triton test kit and I'm mailing it out today. The only thing I can think of is that I was going through DI resin like crazy I was having to change it out way too frequently I think because my RO membrane was really old. I changed the membrane and I'm no longer having to change DI resin anywhere near as frequently. Maybe something was getting through the rodi unit ? I check TDS every time I do a water change and it always read 0 so I thought I was fine but I guess I'll find out.... I was thinking about buying a poly filter and seeing what colors come up but I've never used them and I've heard they can mess with your water chemistry so if there's no need for it I don't want to do it

Do you have well water? If it's well water you need to aerate it to remove CO2 before going into the DI resin. CO2 kills DI resin. Get a inline dual TDS meter. They're very cheap and give you the ability to monitor what's coming out of your RO and DI. Ro output should be 6-14 ppm (IMO), mine is usually 8- 10ppm. DI of course should be 0, any higher and you're adding things to your system that shouldn't be going in.

 

[Eric23]

No well water.. I think I was just burning the crap out of them with the kessils. Things are much better and lower settings and a little higher nitrate.