Need help with Birdsnests

[ksc]

Those BN's look like they were freshly glued in place. How long have they been in the system? There's also no mention of dosing equipment. How many dkh's are being used per day? Once your tank starts using >.5 dkh a day you need multiple doses a day to keep everything happy. It really doesn't matter much what today's parameters are if they are in the zone, but what were they yesterday, last Tuesday, or 3 weeks ago? Also I think there are way too many bottles of "oil" being used. See what the tank does on it's own, let the corals grow a bit, and maybe tweek something in a few months or 6.....

I don't think there is too much light as it looks like there is an acan right in the "zone" the BN's are in. What mh fixture are you using? I'd keep the mh's on for 5-6 hours and run the leds an hour before and an hour after the mh's. Turn them off while the mh's are running, they are going to get too hot in that canopy while the mh's are running anyway.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Do you have a link to it? Please. I tried to search for it but it came up with way too many threads.

sorry thought I linked it
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...d-i-dont-know-what-to-do.210035/#post-2401666

 

[Nicolas Sabrun]

sorry thought I linked it
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...d-i-dont-know-what-to-do.210035/#post-2401666

Thank you. Really good information there.

 

[Nicolas Sabrun]

Those BN's look like they were freshly glued in place. How long have they been in the system?

They have been in for about 4 months. The one in the center on the pic used to be one big frag but I had to frag it due to bleaching at the base. I was not able to pinpoint the cause though. I only found two small look like serpent starfish greyish with black stripes. I got them after dipping the frag.

There's also no mention of dosing equipment. How many dkh's are being used per day? Once your tank starts using >.5 dkh a day you need multiple doses a day to keep everything happy. It really doesn't matter much what today's parameters are if they are in the zone, but what were they yesterday, last Tuesday, or 3 weeks ago? Also I think there are way too many bottles of "oil" being used. See what the tank does on it's own, let the corals grow a bit, and maybe tweek something in a few months or 6.....

I don't have any dosing equipment. It is a small tank. I am using ESV 2 part to keep up between water change. I am losing about 0.2 dKh per day. I tried my best to keep alk between 8 and 9 and calcium around 450 ppm

I don't think there is too much light as it looks like there is an acan right in the "zone" the BN's are in. What mh fixture are you using? I'd keep the mh's on for 5-6 hours and run the leds an hour before and an hour after the mh's. Turn them off while the mh's are running, they are going to get too hot in that canopy while the mh's are running anyway.

the leds are always off when MH is on. The leds are a little useless and more for viewing but I don t want to burn them either. I will keep my MH on for 5 hours and see how it goes. For what I learned from this tread is that having P04 near zero and NO3 between 2 and 5 should help. I guess I am keeping my nano too clean. I just hate these algae bloom.

 

[Nicolas Sabrun]

I missed that on the type of leds, those are like basically nothing for the coral just for your eyes. They actually run about .25w per led and will not sustain your coral by itself.

As for the mh, I'm unfamiliar with mh at all, never used them. I would think it might be a little much for a 20g tank though even though it's only a 175w but again, no mh experience.

I like a fair amount of nutrients in my tanks, but i run fuges for the algae to grow which keeps it out of my displays. What works in ones tank doesn't necessarily work somewhere else.

I'd like to ask if there have been any alk or ca drops, regardless of time frame or speed?

And if the sg had dropped perhaps for a while without you knowing?

And lastly how long have you been using these particular lights? Changed that bulb recently?

And while I'm thinking about it, when your po4 was "out of control" what did it get up too, and how long ago did you bring it down?

I don t recall any alk or ca drops. I am usually losing 0.2 dKh and by calcium usage is minimum ( around 5) per day.

My MH bulb is 2 months old and all lights have been on the tank since the beginning.

My P04 got up to 0.25 because of overfeeding with reef roids about a week ago. It is now back to 0 ppm

 

[Neil Fox]

I don't think the light itself is the problem; that being said, I have a 250 Phoenix about 7" off the water and 2 ATI Blue Plus + 2 Actinics over a 12" deep frag tank. I only run the MH about 4 hours a day though and the others 8. I have several types of Birdsnest and they all colored up nicely after fragging a couple colonies a few weeks ago that were shading out where the light couldn't reach them. I know that Randy says that you can bring your Alk all the way up to 12 but that is really high for a low nutrient SPS system and you will almost certainly get burnt tips. If you shoot for Natural Seawater levels you can't go wrong. I try to keep my Alk between 7 and 8, ideally 7.5. I dose 2 pt and in a 40 gal system I use about 30 ml each a day plus Mg as needed. The corals will eventually start using up nutrients, I have Matrix in a basket in the sump and run some carbon but that's about it, I have never used GFO or anything like that. On that particular 40g I started with natural seawater and just kept it there. This has been working for me for awhile for SPS. The downside is that eventually the SPS will consume nutrients fast as they grow and it's hard to get most LPS to thrive unless you feed them.

Here is a pic of my display at 6 months using black box LED's and a couple of my Frag tank with the Phoenix for reference:

There are of course other ways to do it, but I use this as a baseline. The display tank mostly started with frags aside from a few Digi's. I'm not 100% happy with some of the color but I can tweak that a little, can't complain about the growth though. I hope I'm not hijacking the thread, just trying to be helpful.

Sorry about the bad pics.

 

[Nicolas Sabrun]

I don't think the light itself is the problem; that being said, I have a 250 Phoenix about 7" off the water and 2 ATI Blue Plus + 2 Actinics over a 12" deep frag tank. I only run the MH about 4 hours a day though and the others 8. I have several types of Birdsnest and they all colored up nicely after fragging a couple colonies a few weeks ago that were shading out where the light couldn't reach them. I know that Randy says that you can bring your Alk all the way up to 12 but that is really high for a low nutrient SPS system and you will almost certainly get burnt tips. If you shoot for Natural Seawater levels you can't go wrong. I try to keep my Alk between 7 and 8, ideally 7.5. I dose 2 pt and in a 40 gal system I use about 30 ml each a day plus Mg as needed. The corals will eventually start using up nutrients, I have Matrix in a basket in the sump and run some carbon but that's about it, I have never used GFO or anything like that. On that particular 40g I started with natural seawater and just kept it there. This has been working for me for awhile for SPS. The downside is that eventually the SPS will consume nutrients fast as they grow and it's hard to get most LPS to thrive unless you feed them.

Here is a pic of my display at 6 months using black box LED's and a couple of my Frag tank with the Phoenix for reference:

There are of course other ways to do it, but I use this as a baseline. The display tank mostly started with frags aside from a few Digi's. I'm not 100% happy with some of the color but I can tweak that a little, can't complain about the growth though. I hope I'm not hijacking the thread, just trying to be helpful.

Sorry about the bad pics.

Wow. That s definitely rules my MH out of the issue. Your frag tank is really bright. I only have a 175 with spider reflector and that s not anywhere as bright as your tank. The more I read, learn and think about it, I believe my issue is coming from not enough nutrient/food for the corals. I am planning on letting the NO raise a bit keeping PO at 0 and feed a little more. And see how it goes.

Regarding, the Alk, I thought anything below 8 dKh was a big no for sps but you seem to have very good growth and nice color. What are your other parameters?

I also have a 55g mixed reef using MH but I would be interested in trying something else. How do you like these black box leds? How high above water are they? How deep is your 40g?

Sorry for all the questions and great looking tank.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Wow. That s definitely rules my MH out of the issue. Your frag tank is really bright. I only have a 175 with spider reflector and that s not anywhere as bright as your tank. The more I read, learn and think about it, I believe my issue is coming from not enough nutrient/food for the corals. I am planning on letting the NO raise a bit keeping PO at 0 and feed a little more. And see how it goes.

Regarding, the Alk, I thought anything below 8 dKh was a big no for sps but you seem to have very good growth and nice color. What are your other parameters?

I also have a 55g mixed reef using MH but I would be interested in trying something else. How do you like these black box leds? How high above water are they? How deep is your 40g?

Sorry for all the questions and great looking tank.

you have to balance the no Po and amount of light. regardless of the source of the light. The black boxes are fine, but you have to match the Par Intensity and that can be a bit tricky.
Im not one to recommend zero for Po. that IMO means nood food. No and Po are needed. ULNS are a different story. and I honestly dont really understand how thats done. seems tricky.

 

[Neil Fox]

Hi, sorry for the late reply. The Black Box is about 12" above the water 100% Blue and 50% white at a peak for about 4 hours with about 10 hours total time on. The rest of the time it is aprox. 80% blues and 20% whites. When I first got them I underestimated how strong they could be so I reset and started with around 60/30. The tank is 24" deep. The Halides are a lot more forgiving and I like the colors better. With the MH I find that starting with a shorter duration and ramping up to about 5 hours a day is good. Any longer than that and it is counterproductive, you will start to see less PE in my experience. With regards to parameters what I tested yesterday was KH 7ish, CA 390, MG 1340, N3 ?, PO4 ?. I don't have very good test kits for the last two and they usually show pretty close to undetectable. Problem with that is, often times, nitrate and phosphate can be present but are getting used up so fast you can't get an accurate test. In my humble opinion, biological indicators are going to be a better indicator. If you get a film of algae on the glass about every three days you are in good shape, a test kit won't be able to gauge that. If your corals start getting pale or the glass never gets dirty feed the fish more. I have 4 fish in the tank and I feed 1/2 cube of mysis and some flake, plus a sheet of nori pretty much every day. If I need to clean the glass more frequently I will cut back a little, maybe half until I see the results I want. There is about 2 liters of Matrix in the sump that goes a good job of keeping the N3 down, just the Matrix is enough to starve the corals if you aren't careful. I change water once a week (Regular Instant Ocean) maybe 5% and make up what gets skimmed off. I don't like big water changes as these can swing the Alk and upset other parameters. If I want to change more I just up the frequency and sometimes just use a large fast food drink cup and change out a couple liters. I dose and top off manually. I keep the SG at around 1.026 to 1.027. You can reduce salinity pretty fast without worry but never try to bring it up quickly. I have a friend that runs his Alk between 8 and 9 and his corals also look great but I think the colors are a bit more saturated, most important is stability like everyone says. I just like the results I see when I keep things at Natural SW levels. I was doing Iodide and Aminos for awhile but just quit doing it and haven't noticed any real difference. Originally I was dosing the AA to get polyp extension right before feedings in the evenings but the corals have good PE at the moment so I don't know whether they just settled in to their routine or the AA was actually helping? One other thing, I have an army of Astrea snails that have been reproducing so perhaps 100 or more in there now. I harvest some and put them in other tanks from time to time.

 

[Nicolas Sabrun]

you have to balance the no Po and amount of light. regardless of the source of the light. The black boxes are fine, but you have to match the Par Intensity and that can be a bit tricky.
Im not one to recommend zero for Po. that IMO means nood food. No and Po are needed. ULNS are a different story. and I honestly dont really understand how thats done. seems tricky.

I think I am getting a better understanding of it now but it looks like I got a lot more to learn.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I think I am getting a better understanding of it now but it looks like I got a lot more to learn.

I learn stuff everyday.