Nano SPS Issues

[dwilliams87]

Good afternoon to the world of reefers. I have been searching for some info on nano SPS tanks, however have not really found exactly what I'm looking for. I decided to bring my questions to the wonderful experts here. I have wonderful success with my LPS's and Zoas, but my SPS corals are a different story. The issue I am having is a lack of color and polyp extension from my SPS corals, particularly acros. I have several in my tanks, and they lack that beautiful "pop" that I see so many of your tanks displaying. I will give you all the information I can about my 2 systems along with my routine husbantry. The issue is the same in both tanks

Tank 1
18 gallon mixed reef tank, 5 gallon HOB Refugium w/ built in skimmer - rated for 75 gallons, Mp10 set between half way and 3/4, 4 bulb T5 with geissman bulbs 2 white, 1 blue, 1 fiji purple total 96 watts, 12 Blue LED's for supplementation - 2 fish

Tank 2
20 gallon mixed reef tank, same refugium/skimmer, same mp10, 36 DIY Led Lights - 18 white 18 Blue - hung 1 foot above water, set at about 75% by dimmer - 2 fish

I use aquavitros salinity salt mixed with water from my 5 stage RO. Do a 15% waterchange once a week. Dose vitamins and amino acids once a week. Feed fish daily and coral every other day except weekends. I manually top off with RO water daily.

Parameters - Same for both tanks
Salinity - 1.026
Ph - 8.2
Alk - 9
Ca - 460
Mg - 1350
Phosphates - 0 to .03
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 0 to 5

All of these parameters stay very consistent. Alk has a variance of about .5. Calcium never changes, nor does Mg.

Please give me any advice to help with my slice of the ocean. Thank You, and have a wonderful day!

 

[ritter6788]

What is the age of the tanks?

 

[dwilliams87]

Yes, Meant to put that in the original post. The 18 gallon is about 8 month old. The 20 gallon is about a year old.

 

[Frick]

For the 18 gallon i would swap one of those White Geisemann for an Actinic Blue + if you want better colors. As for the 20, i haven't seen too many LED SPS tanks that look good. It's just not a ideal spectrum for corals that grow so close to the surface of the ocean. IMO. Deepwater SPS is a different story.

I also have struggles with SPS in two slightly larger nanos, and i have pined it down to the unstable Alk. The alk in those tanks swing quiet a bit even with Ca reactors on them.

What are the SPS coral that are not doing well? Got any pics?

 

[dwilliams87]

I do not have any pics. I will attempt to take some tonight.

 

[dwilliams87]

Should I be running a 2 part dosing or something I'm not doing correctly. One example is a red planet, that has just turned a light brown color. Another is a pearlberry that looks healthy, just no color?

 

[ritter6788]

I'd start by having someone else double check your tests just to make sure. I would also stop dosing the vitamins and amino acids. Simplify things for now until you figure out for sure what the problem is. Neither of those are needed for sps health.

 

[dwilliams87]

Ok, double check all parameters. Still the same. That is a difference in 4 days, nothing has changed. I took my sample to the LFS, same results. They suggested along with another reefer, that I possibly do not have enough white light for SPS growth. He explained it as I have a 20 gallon tank with only 48w white light on it and the blue and purple really do nothing more than add color. He suggested putting 4 whites in and use my led as supplementation. As for the tank with the 36 LED's, he suggested adding more whites in because once again, I have as much blue as I do white. Anyone here agree with that, not saying it's correct but possibly an issue?

 

[Chameleon]

I dont know about the not enough white light. What kind of white light to you have in your DIY build? I have heard of differences between the cool white and warm white and their effects on coral color. I run an almost equal ratio of white to blue with slightly more blue and have good coloration on lots of my acropora. I have noticed many of the long time favorite acros such as red planet and pearlberry which have been grown under mh and t5 for years in captivity can take a long time to adjust to leds in which period they look rather blah. Some of them come around eventually but other never seemed to get there full potential in my tank. The best way to get a sps that will look really nice in a led tank is to find one that looks nice in an led tank where it was grown. In this case it will be adjusted to leds and have good color. You can also get lucky with mariculture pieces that you frag up. The 18 gallon tank could be a low nutrient issue, but I'm not really sure what going on there. Oh I forgot to mention you may want to replace one or 2 of them white leds with UV leds. I run this in my own setup and can't guarantee it works but some of the corals that are closer to the uv seem to have some nice colors.

 

[dwilliams87]

Well i've checked my parameters again now a week later everything is still the same. Still blah colors. I really dont know what else to do. I'm using 2 diferent kits to test everything and using hanna checkers for alk, calcium, and phos. I just dont think acros like me.

 

[gar732]

I don't agree with those lighting recommendations. On my tank I have 2 blue+, 1 aquablue special, and 1 purple+ and I had great color and growth. All white light is going to wash out your colors not bring them out. Same goes with your LED setup, I have a DIY setup over my frag tank and while some corals didn't respond to the lighting most did and the LEDs brought out colors that T5s never did. Also I have more blue LEDs than you do. I personally think the best lighting solution is an LED/T5 combo but I don't think that lighting is your issue. Do you have a nuisance algae growing in your tanks? When I had problems with color in my sps it was due to PO4 problems but my salifert test kit always read 0.

 

[dwilliams87]

I don't have any nuisance algaes. My hanna phospahte meter reads .03. Thank you, though.

 

[Starblenny]

How long did you have the sps pieces? Some take longer than others for it to get settled in into your tank. I have a strawberry shortcake I had since April and it took ~3 months + 1 week for it to finally color up.

How fast do you hand top-off? I noticed my corals react negatively when I poured in the RO water too fast (I guess a fast salinity swing?). Now, I settle with a gravity drip top-off.

 

[dwilliams87]

I'm sorry, I have made a mistake. My phosphate reading is actualy .2 not .03. So thats probably my problem correct? What can i do in a nano set up to lower my phosphates correctly?

 

[dwilliams87]

Also, I have a RO unit, with DI so i would have thought that was taking care of phosphates.

 

[dwilliams87]

Also I'm already running a bag of phosguard in each tank and obviously its not working worth a crap.

 

[dwilliams87]

I've looked at my options, and i need a little help. I think I want to go in the way of a reactor. Either phosban or biopellots. I dont have a way to make my output of a reactor go into the input of my protein skimmer though because of my configuration where my ps pump also brings my water into the refugium. I have the CPR Aquafuge 2. Also, if i did go that route what would you recommend for a nano?

 

[dwilliams87]

Ok, I purchased a Two Little Fishies 150 Reactor and will be running GFO in them. I'm just hoping I can get some color and polyp extension back. I have some montiporas that are starting to not extend so well. I will go extremely slow with the GFO. Hopefully they will be in this week and I get my parameters in check in the next few weeks.

 

[Big E]

For tank One...............buy 4 new ATI bulbs--- 2 Blue + & 2 coral +

Keep your Led strip off for now. Run those lights for a month & see where you're at. You'll probably see changes for the better a little over 2 weeks

as long as your other parameters are in check.

 

[dwilliams87]

I added my new gfo reactors. Before adding reactors 1 tank had .08 po4 and the other had .26. I have lost several montis and across over the last several weeks. I just hope the others recover. How long until I should see some improvement with both po4 and the corals themselves?