Lighting Questions for the SPS Pros

[SteezySPS]

It's only been a couple of weeks since I increased feedings, so it's difficult to tell yet if there are any changes. I did take the GFO reactor off line in an event to see if the PO4 rises. I'll keep this thread updated.

my phosphates hover around .07 with no issues. w

 

[creefer]

I agree with some other posts that you may be stripping the tank clean .
What happened after the water change ? How often are you changing the water and how much ? I would think this would help since it should replace some elements that the skimmer and bio pellets are removing .IME with carbon dosing, I had to either step up the water changes or add lugol's to bring blues and purples back that paled.
Feeding the tank more helps but are there enough fish to make poop for the corals to see any benefit ? In my case feeding did not help as I have only 2 fish in my tank .
I have seen awesome zeovit tanks but one product that sticks out and does what it says with or without a full zeovit system is the Pohl's Extra . It does what it says it does .

Glad to hear you scored a great fixture but I feel the lights you had were doing just fine .

Thanks. I always wanted an ATI. The wife will appreciate the look too because the tank sits in our living room.

I do 10% weekly water changes. Typically, after water changes, what little cyano that develops goes away and shows back up about 5 days later. I don't really see much of a difference in the corals after a WC. As far as fish population, I have a total of 6 fish in this tank. The fish population is going to soon change as there are 2 currently in my tank that do not do well with the others. I do use Phol's Extra and Coral snow. Each of them twice weekly yet not dosed on the same day. I have considered lugol's but have not done so because I don't want to make to many changes at the same time. I'll never figure out what change made the difference.

I appreciate your feedback as well as that of all who have contributed to this thread.

 

[creefer]

my phosphates hover around .07 with no issues. w

.02-.07 is my goal, honestly. Just not there yet.

 

[SteezySPS]

did you pull the gfo off line?

 

[SteezySPS]

nvm. just read that you did. i would pull everything off line. get some nitrates in there to be coverted

 

[schminksbro]

Because the corals are starving..........there isn't enough nutrients running through your system. Nutrients being defined as food particles & also phosphate & nitrate.

People seem to miss the idea the readings you get are what's left over. If you don't put enough in the tank to begin with the corals never have a chance to feed. That's why some are recommending feeding more or adding aminos. You need to get more nutrients into your system.

My suggestion would be to add a coral food of known contents or add another fish or just feed more often. Don't chase the numbers let the corals get their zoo back & color up. When things start to look good than take some readings so you can find the sweet spot for your tank.

The other option is to reduce the amount you export & keep your feeding regime the same..........like use less pellets or reduce vinegar/vodka dosing,less GFO ect.

The main thing is you have to find a balance for your tank that the acros like. Mimicking some other tank doesn't work.........no two tanks are the same. Use the numbers as guidelines not something written in stone. Go slow & do one change at a time.........give it a good 4-6 weeks to show results. Being patient will reward you with a big payoff in the end.

Your T5 lighting is perfectly fine.

I very much agree with this. Pale corals and especially a pale cap are very good indicators of a stripped tank. I would also add that it is my understanding (admittedly limited) that Pohls Extra strips layers of zooxanthellae which leads to pale coloration. Rather than decrease export I would increase the fish load and their food. Fish poo is good food especially when it started as good quality food. That Reef Paradise food has 4 sizes of golden pearls and oyster eggs along with tons of other stuff in it.

 

[creefer]

I very much agree with this. Pale corals and especially a pale cap are very good indicators of a stripped tank. I would also add that it is my understanding (admittedly limited) that Pohls Extra strips layers of zooxanthellae which leads to pale coloration. Rather than decrease export I would increase the fish load and their food. Fish poo is good food especially when it started as good quality food. That Reef Paradise food has 4 sizes of golden pearls and oyster eggs along with tons of other stuff in it.

Thanks. The cap is starting to color up much more than ever before. It has been the first to really start to color up. It's also growing like crazy, which I see as a good sign. The same is true for the acro I recently acquired from RP when I got my radiant wrasse is colored up well and is really starting to base down now.

My tank goes nuts over the RP food. That stuff is the bomb.

I had no clue about your statements regarding Phols Extra. I'll have to do some research on that.

 

[creefer]

nvm. just read that you did. i would pull everything off line. get some nitrates in there to be coverted

I did think about pulling everything off line. Rather than pull the pellets off line, I have reduced the output from the reactor and reduced the tumble as well in hopes of slowing the process a little. We'll see where that gets me. If I see no results in a couple of weeks, I'll pull it off line too. I'll check nitrates again this evening.

 

[LILBUDDHA]

I just read an article on all the Zeovit products and what they do . It was a observations and experience article . I was surprised to find that Pohl's xtra can lighten corals ,

Thanks @schminksbro .

 

[Giancarlo]

For what it's worth, I'm going to start dosing a small amount of iodine. My tests currently read 0. So I will try and bring it to around 0.06 (natural levels)

 

[creefer]

I just read an article on all the Zeovit products and what they do . It was a observations and experience article . I was surprised to find that Pohl's xtra can lighten corals ,

Thanks @schminksbro .

Do you have a link to the article? I would like to read it, for sure.

For what it's worth, I'm going to start dosing a small amount of iodine. My tests currently read 0. So I will try and bring it to around 0.06 (natural levels)

I'll be ordering up some iodine test kits soon. I'm interested to hear how things work out for you.

 

[Reef Pets]

How about flow? Of course you dont want to blast your SPS but for me the better the flow the better the color. I personally do not use any additives or feed them. Good flow, good lighting and stable conditions work wonders for me. I use 400W Radium but I have seen beautiful SPS tanks using T5 lighting. Water chemistry is by far the single most important factor and with that comes stability.

 

[Dowtish]

This is an awesome thread. Although it's title is a little misleading. haha

I have an aquaticlife 6 bulb fixture and have been running Ecobak since the tank started. I have a 100 gal. system with 11 fish, and feed 4 times a day. My phosphates were very low for the first 16 months, but now my bio load is decent, and my tank is packed with too many corals. So, now my phos sits around 0.06-0.10 depending on the frequency of my water changes. I have great growth and great color. Zero algae issues and no cyano. The cyano only came when my bio load decreased. I had an ich outbreak and lost a few fish. That being said, i was surprised that it showed up with less bio load. But Jon Warner of Warner Marine explained to me very well. Cyano being a bacteria, usually shows up when there is a bacterial imbalance in the system. whether you add more or remove the bio load to quickly. So dosing some nitrifying bacteria will help balance things out again. I'm not sure if you have switched to Ecobak yet, but I would venture to say that your existing pellets can and might be an issue with the presence of the cyano.

As far as color. I do dose iodine weekly, and I dose potassium as well. Potassium will bring the purple and blues out, but be careful with it, you can overdose it. I just started trying aminos as well. But on a very minimal level. I am only dosing those once a week as opposed to the suggested daily dosing per the Red Sea product.

 

[Ike]

Guys, don't chase numbers with iodine, those test kits aren't very reliable. You have iodine in your tanks, trust me... If you feed a fair amount, especially certain flake and pellet foods, or shellfish you're adding plenty of iodine every day. That's more than sufficient as we're still not really sure what iodine does. We do know it's not needed as a supplement as many many aquariums are successful without.

Do you have a link to the article? I would like to read it, for sure.



I'll be ordering up some iodine test kits soon. I'm interested to hear how things work out for you.

 

[Giancarlo]

Guys, don't chase numbers with iodine, those test kits aren't very reliable. You have iodine in your tanks, trust me... If you feed a fair amount, especially certain flake and pellet foods, or shellfish you're adding plenty of iodine every day. That's more than sufficient as we're still not really sure what iodine does. We do know it's not needed as a supplement as many many aquariums are successful without.

Yeah I think you might be right, after doing a bit more reading on iodine, I think I will focus on phosphates before I get into any more dosing. 0.00 on the Hanna checker but I'm a little skeptical on how accurate they really are... Anyone else use any other tests for phosphates that they would consider reliable?

 

[Giancarlo]

This is an awesome thread. Although it's title is a little misleading. haha

I have an aquaticlife 6 bulb fixture and have been running Ecobak since the tank started. I have a 100 gal. system with 11 fish, and feed 4 times a day. My phosphates were very low for the first 16 months, but now my bio load is decent, and my tank is packed with too many corals. So, now my phos sits around 0.06-0.10 depending on the frequency of my water changes. I have great growth and great color. Zero algae issues and no cyano. The cyano only came when my bio load decreased. I had an ich outbreak and lost a few fish. That being said, i was surprised that it showed up with less bio load. But Jon Warner of Warner Marine explained to me very well. Cyano being a bacteria, usually shows up when there is a bacterial imbalance in the system. whether you add more or remove the bio load to quickly. So dosing some nitrifying bacteria will help balance things out again. I'm not sure if you have switched to Ecobak yet, but I would venture to say that your existing pellets can and might be an issue with the presence of the cyano.

As far as color. I do dose iodine weekly, and I dose potassium as well. Potassium will bring the purple and blues out, but be careful with it, you can overdose it. I just started trying aminos as well. But on a very minimal level. I am only dosing those once a week as opposed to the suggested daily dosing per the Red Sea product.

Hey dowtish, did you mean iodine will bring out purple and blues? That's what I have read from a few articles on wetwebmedia. I have never considered adding potassium as a supplement. I will start doing more reading on that and see where I get. As for the bio pellets, what would be the difference between ecobak and other products? There was another thread where someone asked him but it went flat before he had a chance to respond. Hopefully
Mr. Warner sees this thread and chimes in.

 

[creefer]

How about flow? Of course you dont want to blast your SPS but for me the better the flow the better the color. I personally do not use any additives or feed them. Good flow, good lighting and stable conditions work wonders for me. I use 400W Radium but I have seen beautiful SPS tanks using T5 lighting. Water chemistry is by far the single most important factor and with that comes stability.

Flow is not an issue in the tank currently. It's a small tank and I'm running an MP10 on reefcrest mode at 80% on one end and a tunze on the other end. Flow is good, strong, and random and ultimately, the tunze is getting replaced by another MP10. Flow is not directed at any corals so they're not really getting blasted by it.

This is an awesome thread. Although it's title is a little misleading. haha

I have an aquaticlife 6 bulb fixture and have been running Ecobak since the tank started. I have a 100 gal. system with 11 fish, and feed 4 times a day. My phosphates were very low for the first 16 months, but now my bio load is decent, and my tank is packed with too many corals. So, now my phos sits around 0.06-0.10 depending on the frequency of my water changes. I have great growth and great color. Zero algae issues and no cyano. The cyano only came when my bio load decreased. I had an ich outbreak and lost a few fish. That being said, i was surprised that it showed up with less bio load. But Jon Warner of Warner Marine explained to me very well. Cyano being a bacteria, usually shows up when there is a bacterial imbalance in the system. whether you add more or remove the bio load to quickly. So dosing some nitrifying bacteria will help balance things out again. I'm not sure if you have switched to Ecobak yet, but I would venture to say that your existing pellets can and might be an issue with the presence of the cyano.

As far as color. I do dose iodine weekly, and I dose potassium as well. Potassium will bring the purple and blues out, but be careful with it, you can overdose it. I just started trying aminos as well. But on a very minimal level. I am only dosing those once a week as opposed to the suggested daily dosing per the Red Sea product.

Yeah.....the title is misleading but the thread has produced some really good points, good conversation, and good ideas. I've really enjoyed it. To directly address some of your statements, for which I'm thankful, I have slowly started to replace the pellets with Ecobak. I didn't want to take established pellets off line completely and replace with new ones, so I removed 50% of the NPX pellets and replaced that volume with Ecobak. My plan was to wait a few weeks for the new pellets to "colonize" and replace the balance of the NPX pellets with Ecobak to maintain some level of effectiveness. Not sure if this is right or wrong, but logically seemed to make sense to me. Maybe I'll jump right in and replace them all when I do my WC this weekend.

Regarding bioload, I only have 6 small fish in this tank, 2 of which will soon be replaced. I have 2 true percula clowns, a radiant wrasse (awesome fish btw), a blue/green chromis (on the list to be replaced), a Hawaiian Spotted Hawk (cool fish but on the list to be replaced - he's a bit aggressive for the tank), and a red scooter blenny. My intent is to get another wrasse of some sort once the hawk and chromis are gone. Just not sure yet. The one thing I am sure of is that the hawk is simply too aggressive for the radiant wrasse and I prefer that fish over the hawk. I feed the fish twice daily.

I have also followed the Jon Warner threads and comments here and R2R and have learned a lot. His knowledge is very helpful and I enjoy reading his posts.

I have never really considered dosing potassium. I do dose aminos weekly and am using the brightwells product. Daily dosing seemed excessive to me however I may increase the dose to twice weekly. I also dose bacteria.

Guys, don't chase numbers with iodine, those test kits aren't very reliable. You have iodine in your tanks, trust me... If you feed a fair amount, especially certain flake and pellet foods, or shellfish you're adding plenty of iodine every day. That's more than sufficient as we're still not really sure what iodine does. We do know it's not needed as a supplement as many many aquariums are successful without.

The only number I want to chase at this time is PO4. I too question the accuracy of the Hanna Checker, but it's the best that I've been able to get my hands on.

 

[Giancarlo]

The title may be misleading, but i think this thread took the appropriate turn. I would assume that much of the time people believe lighting is the factor in why the corals are not doing so well when really, as this thread has already shown, there are much more variables to consider before lights need to be changed. Not to say lights are not a big factor, but more like the easy fix won't do it.

 

[creefer]

Good point, Giancarlo. That said though, I am excited to get my ATI fixture. Not that what I have is bad, but the ATI is a superior product I believe. I agree with you that the thread took the appropriate turn and hope that it continues to evolve. Hopefully in the coming weeks, my tank will bear the fruits of this thread.