How to feed acros?

[Madonia]

I’m new to saltwater. Probably dove into SPS too early.

ANYWAY...my sps don’t look great. My parameters are looking pretty dang good though.

I think I can boil my problem down to: A. Lighting or B. Feeding.

tonight (after having installed a protein skimmer yesterday and increasing my lighting) my acros showed what appears to be a feeding response!!! (Got all gooey after I broadcasted reef roids)...AND had decent PE

but HOW do you feed your acros? Can you provide specific, step by step instruction, on how you go about doing this? Any ‘priming’ amino acids (I’ve been using polyp labs ‘acids’)? Types of food (I’ve been using reef roids) Spot feed? Broadcast? Shut filter off? Protein skimmer off? I need DETAILS!!

 

[Madonia]

Also I’ve been adding phytoplankton too the fish mysis ‘stew’ (selcon, mysis, phyto)

I also dumped about 4 bottles of ‘tigger pods’ and have some chaeto growing. I’ve seen pods recently hanging out so I think they have somewhat established a little colony.

 

[motortrendz]

Let's start with how old is tour system and your pretty dang good parameters. Lol. I thought that was pretty funny. Do you dose 2 part yet? Or maintain by water changes? A skimmer is definitly a good idea, bc when you start filling the tank with foods like reef roids, your number can get funky quick.

As for feeding my acros, I usually just feed my fish and whatever gets in the water column the corals can uptake. I like using LRS reef frenzy. Just recently I had my nutrients bottom out and started starving my corals out and had an stn event, I was able to stop it and get most of my corals to regain their color(but not after loosing a solid dozzen) by dosing nitrates and phosphates to get them back registering on my test kits. And I was using the reef roids to try to get them back, I dont know how well it worked honestly. But my skimmer was having a blast removing all that extra food.. Then what really made the difference for me was I started using red sea's reef nutrition. And have seen a noticable increase in color and polyp extension. Hope this helps

 

[RCS82]

Lighting is their food. Acros or sps in general do not need much for food and can be kept and grown with just quality lighting and fish poop. Water chemistry/stability, tank age/maturation, flow, live rock will all play a part in sps success. If you're just adding a skimmer to your tank then you probably dove into sps a little early. Take it slow and easy.

 

[Madonia]

Let's start with how old is tour system and your pretty dang good parameters. Lol. I thought that was pretty funny. Do you dose 2 part yet? Or maintain by water changes? A skimmer is definitly a good idea, bc when you start filling the tank with foods like reef roids, your number can get funky quick.

As for feeding my acros, I usually just feed my fish and whatever gets in the water column the corals can uptake. I like using LRS reef frenzy. Just recently I had my nutrients bottom out and started starving my corals out and had an stn event, I was able to stop it and get most of my corals to regain their color(but not after loosing a solid dozzen) by dosing nitrates and phosphates to get them back registering on my test kits. And I was using the reef roids to try to get them back, I dont know how well it worked honestly. But my skimmer was having a blast removing all that extra food.. Then what really made the difference for me was I started using red sea's reef nutrition. And have seen a noticable increase in color and polyp extension. Hope this helps

system: 2.5 mos old (too new for SPE I am aware!!! But I can’t stay away from coral)

Na: 1.25
Alk: 8.0 (consistent)
Phos: close to 0, but not exactly...I’m getting the Hanna checker tomorrow. Best guess is 0.10
Nitrate: ~3ppm

last checked calcium 2 days ago:430
Mg 2 days ago: 1350

Overall they aren’t bad. I am concerned that this protein skimmer will pull out too many phos/nitrate so I’ll likely have to dose vs. turn off? Vs. feed more.

 

[Madonia]

Lighting is their food. Acros or sps in general do not need much for food and can be kept and grown with just quality lighting and fish poop. Water chemistry/stability, tank age/maturation, flow, live rock will all play a part in sps success. If you're just adding a skimmer to your tank then you probably dove into sps a little early. Take it slow and easy.

Good advice.

ive Had a major issue with taking it slow. I’m learning. Should have taken the advice.

trying my best to keep these SPS going but I’ve had 1 rainbow millie die, another showing signs of stress, and 1 Hawkins Echinata acro die so far. This is our of the ~ 10 acro frags I bought. The rest are LPS and I will stick with LPS for a while until I improve my game

 

[motortrendz]

The skimmer wont actually remove nitrates or phosphates. What it does is remove organics in the water column before they have a chance to break down into amonia, which the breaks down into the nitrogen cycle. So it kinda cuts the amount of material down that can become nitrates. If that makes sense. Your Numbers look good, keep them stable, and watch your nitrates and phosphates. Feed accordingly but not to the point of fouling the water and you should be ok as long as your systems bacterial population is ready for sps.

 

[Madonia]

The skimmer wont actually remove nitrates or phosphates. What it does is remove organics in the water column before they have a chance to break down into amonia, which the breaks down into the nitrogen cycle. So it kinda cuts the amount of material down that can become nitrates. If that makes sense. Your Numbers look good, keep them stable, and watch your nitrates and phosphates. Feed accordingly but not to the point of fouling the water and you should be ok as long as your systems bacterial population is ready for sps.

I did dose (likely overdose) nitrifying bacteria early in and barely experienced an ammonia spike earlier on.

I am starting to see coralline algae.

i DID add live rock from a very well established tank (about15lbs to my 32 gallon tank)

hope I’m headed in the right direction!

 

[motortrendz]

I would just let it ride. Feed your fish, the fish will feed your corals. As long as your lighting is good, hopefully you'll be alright. The first year is always hit or miss with acros, unless you have alot of prior experience.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

couple things with acros. They typically loose color when added to a system and can take weeks to months, sometimes a year or more to color up and start to grow. They are very finicky and don’t like to be moved around too much or fiddled with. They also need acclimated to their lighting if it’s more than the tank they came from.

They actually eat a lot of much out of the water, contrary to popular thought, so fish poop isgood and non-zero no3 and po4. As for feeding, there are some studies that show reef roids or reed chili have positive effect on growth, but I always had algae and pest issues when using them. Fish poop alone was good.

also, it’s not recommended to add acros to a tank younger than 8mo to a year for newer reefers and at least 4 mo or more for sps experienced reefers.

My advice is read up on sps care, either acclimate the sps to your light, or if you’ve already done that, glue them down and forget about them for a while. Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing you can do.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I feed my corals with Fish poop and acro power to help keep my nitrates up. How many fish do you have?

 

[Madonia]

I would just let it ride. Feed your fish, the fish will feed your corals. As long as your lighting is good, hopefully you'll be alright. The first year is always hit or miss with acros, unless you have alot of prior experience.

I put in a retrofit Steve’s LED kit into my biocube 32 tank. Apparently these lights are super strong.

I just don’t know if I should set them at a higher percentage or a lower percentage?? Right now they are mid range (65% blue, 20% white)...should I increase?!!

 

[Madonia]

I feed my corals with Fish poop and acro power to help keep my nitrates up. How many fish do you have?

I have 7 fish
Approx 8-9 snails

 

[Madonia]

I have 7 fish
Approx 8-9 snails

32 gallon biocube

 

[Madonia]

I put in a retrofit Steve’s LED kit into my biocube 32 tank. Apparently these lights are super strong.

I just don’t know if I should set them at a higher percentage or a lower percentage?? Right now they are mid range (65% blue, 20% white)...should I increase?!!

The lights came with an acclimation guide suggesting starting tjrm
Off at 30%. I don’t know if my SPS are doing poorly due to too much light or too little?!?!?!

 

[DivingTheWorld]

The lights came with an acclimation guide suggesting starting tjrm
Off at 30%. I don’t know if my SPS are doing poorly due to too much light or too little?!?!?!

The only way to know for sure is with a PAR Meter. BRS rents them.

As for why your acros aren't doing well, you just have a new tank. Once your tank is seasoned (1-1.5 years old), all you need is proper lighting and fish poop. Until then you'll be killing a lot of acros. We all did. I ignored the many warnings as well. A few bulletproof ones survived. Once I crossed the 1-1.5 year threshold my acros did MUCH better. Try not to burn too much of your money killing acros and be patient. It will get better!

 

[Madonia]

The only way to know for sure is with a PAR Meter. BRS rents them.

As for why your acros aren't doing well, you just have a new tank. Once your tank is seasoned (1-1.5 years old), all you need is proper lighting and fish poop. Until then you'll be killing a lot of acros. We all did. I ignored the many warnings as well. A few bulletproof ones survived. Once I crossed the 1-1.5 year threshold my acros did MUCH better. Try not to burn too much of your money killing acros and be patient. It will get better!

solid advice lol

 

[ScottR]

Lighting is their food. Acros or sps in general do not need much for food and can be kept and grown with just quality lighting and fish poop. Water chemistry/stability, tank age/maturation, flow, live rock will all play a part in sps success. If you're just adding a skimmer to your tank then you probably dove into sps a little early. Take it slow and easy.

I’m glad to see more and more people talk about the importance of live rock in keeping SPS. The thinking used to be only use dry rock to avoid hitchhikers. @motortrendz ~ great advice as well brother. LRS reef frenzy has been my go to food for a long time.

 

[motortrendz]

I’m glad to see more and more people talk about the importance of live rock in keeping SPS. The thinking used to be only use dry rock to avoid hitchhikers. @motortrendz ~ great advice as well brother. LRS reef frenzy has been my go to food for a long time.

All my older systems all ran real reef rock, Fuji, Tonga whatever I could get and looked full of stuff... this current system I used most of that rock, but it was dry for a few years and filled in with dry florida rock.. my first year with this tank was the worst ever, fought coral deaths, crazy algaes and cyano, a bacterial bloom. My fish got bacterial infections. It was crazy. I honestly attribute almost all of it to the fact that I used all dried clean rock.. not that I'm over 3 years in it's pretty much good, and I'm glad I was able to manage to keep alot of pests out. But I dont know if I'd do it this way again. Theres alot we dont know and understand about the micro biologicals and their specific impact on corals and fish in a closed system. But I believe, like everything else we've learned in the last 20 years (we've truely have come light years from where we were in the 90s) that the next 20 years will really be some true scientific backing to our anecdotal knowledge. Bc we may be corals last chance on this planet.

 

[motortrendz]

I put in a retrofit Steve’s LED kit into my biocube 32 tank. Apparently these lights are super strong.

I just don’t know if I should set them at a higher percentage or a lower percentage?? Right now they are mid range (65% blue, 20% white)...should I increase?!!

I wouldn't. That seems pretty high for them. Expecially starting out. If you can find someone with a par meter thatll help you get close. But I'd think 45-50 blues and maybe 5-10 on whites to start.