Pale coral but everything is right?

[Zbutcher]

Hey everyone,



I posted a previous thread but didn't have my test kits form my friend



For context, I have green tip austera and it's been getting paler.

All my levels are in check but we thought it was nutrients in the previous thread but I got my test kits back and measured 15 nitrates and .05 phosphates so it's right in the money...

Does anyone have any idea what would be causing this. Tank is only 5 months old, could this be that it's just an age thing?

Should I dose aminos maybe?

 

[PBar]

Dear colleague,
I did a quick look into your previous topic… and my first reaction would be linked to the light.
-Sky at 70%, correct? By any change do you know what is par level?
I have a feeling that the light is too strong…

Just as reference, I have a shallow tank and I use XR30 at 30%.
Cheers!

 

[Zbutcher]

Dear colleague,
I did a quick look into your previous topic… and my first reaction would be linked to the light.
-Sky at 70%, correct? By any change do you know what is par level?
I have a feeling that the light is too strong…

Just as reference, I have a shallow tank and I use XR30 at 30%.
Cheers!

Oh wow really! That makes a lot of sense my man!

Okay I'll change it to about 30% and see how it fairs. Thanks a ton my man!

 

[PBar]

Ok, good lucky and keep monitoring your corals for the next weeks.

 

[Zbutcher]

Ok, good lucky and keep monitoring your corals for the next weeks.

I should try and grab a par meter. Do you have any recommendations?

Out of curiosity, is there anything else you think could be causing this problem?

 

[PBar]

Hello,
if you arrange to borrow any PAR meter should be enough just to give you an idea.

Besides that, hard to say… since the tank is rather new, I would test the Alkalinity multiple times during one day just to see if there is any extreme fluctuations.

For the rest, I would keep regular small water changes until the tank is fully mature.

Good luck and let us know!

 

[Zbutcher]

Hello,
if you arrange to borrow any PAR meter should be enough just to give you an idea.

Besides that, hard to say… since the tank is rather new, I would test the Alkalinity multiple times during one day just to see if there is any extreme fluctuations.

For the rest, I would keep regular small water changes until the tank is fully mature.

Good luck and let us know!

Well I run an apex and trident and the alk will usually stay 9-10. Its set up with trident controlled dosing. I try to keep it at 9.3 mag at 1350 calc at 440. I know when the reagents get low on the trident, calc and mag can fluctuate and its not that they are unstable its just something with the trident, from what ive read online.

I would say alk is fairly stable.

Yeah every week im doing 25-35 gallons, the tank itself is about 180 gallons.

Ive been using some brightwell coral-amino, koralcolor and restor just in case. I started the last couple days doing that.

What I have done is moved my neptune sky on the coral growth setting which has the UV, Blue, whites and greens all at 100% but i have the overall intensity set to 40% now and it was at 70% so maybe it was a lighting thing. The tank itself is only 12" tall and 72" long and 36" wide. the SKY sits about 8 inches above the waters surface due to the RMS.

do you think I should add live rock to my sump? It may sound weird but idk if that would help for reason? Reason I say that is just because the people I know with successful SPS systems have liverock in the system. right now all I have is marine pure blocks and stuff like that as I was trying to avoid any potential parasites.

Thoughts? Thanks for any and all advice.

Regards,

 

[PBar]

Hello,
I also have a very shallow tank, bare bottom with dry rock.
Currently, it is heavily stocked with SPS… but I have to admit that it took a long time to mature.

Seems that you are in the right direction. Still, a sps tank takes time and patience.
You will see that only after 12 to 18 months the tank will really start to “take off”.

Live rock in the sump or display: up to you! Many benefits with some risks (as you pointed).
You need to check what you aim for. The final result will be the same.

Aminos… depends a lot on the current stock.
Maybe just pay attention with the dosage: young tank + supplements tends to result in cyano.
If you have nitrate above 5 and phosphate detectable… I wouldn’t worry about it for now.

Regarding the light: better to make the mistake linked to low light rather than high intensity.
I don’t have experience with the Sky, yet even 40% intensity in a 12 inch height tank should be pretty strong right below in the middle.

Cheers!

 

[Zbutcher]

Hello,
I also have a very shallow tank, bare bottom with dry rock.
Currently, it is heavily stocked with SPS… but I have to admit that it took a long time to mature.

Seems that you are in the right direction. Still, a sps tank takes time and patience.
You will see that only after 12 to 18 months the tank will really start to “take off”.

Live rock in the sump or display: up to you! Many benefits with some risks (as you pointed).
You need to check what you aim for. The final result will be the same.

Aminos… depends a lot on the current stock.
Maybe just pay attention with the dosage: young tank + supplements tends to result in cyano.
If you have nitrate above 5 and phosphate detectable… I wouldn’t worry about it for now.

Regarding the light: better to make the mistake linked to low light rather than high intensity.
I don’t have experience with the Sky, yet even 40% intensity in a 12 inch height tank should be pretty strong right below in the middle.

Cheers!

My phosphate a couple days ago is .05 and nitrate was 16.

I should probably feed more as well anyways, mainly because I only feed every second day. and usually I only do one cube of mysis and a pinch of pellets and flakes every second day. whats your thoughts?

Hmmm fair enough, they have a lot of presets, and I am wondering if I should honestly just the preset and leave it as is.

 

[ScottB]

Well I run an apex and trident and the alk will usually stay 9-10. Its set up with trident controlled dosing. I try to keep it at 9.3 mag at 1350 calc at 440. I know when the reagents get low on the trident, calc and mag can fluctuate and its not that they are unstable its just something with the trident, from what ive read online.

I would say alk is fairly stable.

Yeah every week im doing 25-35 gallons, the tank itself is about 180 gallons.

Ive been using some brightwell coral-amino, koralcolor and restor just in case. I started the last couple days doing that.

What I have done is moved my neptune sky on the coral growth setting which has the UV, Blue, whites and greens all at 100% but i have the overall intensity set to 40% now and it was at 70% so maybe it was a lighting thing. The tank itself is only 12" tall and 72" long and 36" wide. the SKY sits about 8 inches above the waters surface due to the RMS.

do you think I should add live rock to my sump? It may sound weird but idk if that would help for reason? Reason I say that is just because the people I know with successful SPS systems have liverock in the system. right now all I have is marine pure blocks and stuff like that as I was trying to avoid any potential parasites.

Thoughts? Thanks for any and all advice.

Regards,

That is a cool footprint. It can be tricky in terms of aquascape, flow and lighting but very cool. I would describe it as kind of an advanced layout.

In answer to your question about live rock I give an unequivocal "yessir". Sure, in the end you will get to the same place either way: a diversified microbiome with some variety of pest(s).

Without a nice diverse biome, acropora tend to struggle for a long time.

 

[Zbutcher]

That is a cool footprint. It can be tricky in terms of aquascape, flow and lighting but very cool. I would describe it as kind of an advanced layout.

In answer to your question about live rock I give an unequivocal "yessir". Sure, in the end you will get to the same place either way: a diversified microbiome with some variety of pest(s).

Without a nice diverse biome, acropora tend to struggle for a long time.

That's fair. Do you recommend putting the life rock in the display or in the sump or does it matter? I don't really want it in the display as I'll be filling that with racks

 

[ScottB]

That's fair. Do you recommend putting the life rock in the display or in the sump or does it matter? I don't really want it in the display as I'll be filling that with racks

Ahh. Now the shallow makes more sense. Should be fun. Without rock, you shouldn't have too much flow trouble.

My frag system (300G) has about 100lbs of (now) live rock in the sumps exclusively. There is also 3 very well aged, large Marine Pure blocks from my display system. At the start it was 50/50 live/dead plus the live blocks.

Had some trouble keeping PO4 available for a while and had to dose a couple liters of PO4 in. The dead rock was Marco and it had no PO4 so it was binding up ALL the PO4 from the water column. Since then it has been smooth sailing.

Since retiring several years ago, I've helped my LFS set up a couple dozen tanks (mostly larger ones) and the more live rock, the smoother things go in the short and intermediate term for sure. After a couple years or so it could be a wash, but many customers don't have that kind of patience.

My current build thread timelines acropora in a tank within a month of getting wet. Yeah, slimer originally but now it has several classic acro pieces and small colonies going along just fine. PC Rainbow, Cali Tort, Tricolor valida, etc.

 

[Zbutcher]

Ahh. Now the shallow makes more sense. Should be fun. Without rock, you shouldn't have too much flow trouble.

My frag system (300G) has about 100lbs of (now) live rock in the sumps exclusively. There is also 3 very well aged, large Marine Pure blocks from my display system. At the start it was 50/50 live/dead plus the live blocks.

Had some trouble keeping PO4 available for a while and had to dose a couple liters of PO4 in. The dead rock was Marco and it had no PO4 so it was binding up ALL the PO4 from the water column. Since then it has been smooth sailing.

Since retiring several years ago, I've helped my LFS set up a couple dozen tanks (mostly larger ones) and the more live rock, the smoother things go in the short and intermediate term for sure. After a couple years or so it could be a wash, but many customers don't have that kind of patience.

My current build thread timelines acropora in a tank within a month of getting wet. Yeah, slimer originally but now it has several classic acro pieces and small colonies going along just fine. PC Rainbow, Cali Tort, Tricolor valida, etc.

That's awesome man, mind if I pick your brain a bit?

So yeah currently all I have for rock media I guess would just be the bioblocks/marine pure blocks. It's a shallow rockless sandless system. A couple days ago my nitrate was 16 and phosphate was .05

My readings according to apex are
Alk: 9.81 (I have it set to be 9.3)
Cal: 414 (I have it set for 440)
Mag: 1264 (I have it set for 1350)

My corals I feel like I said are more pale then what they should be. This is particularly visible with my green tip austera. Slimer could definitely be greener imo as well.

I recently found out my my tanks salinity dropped from 1.026 to 1.023 due to a bit of a plug and the ATK adding fresh RO. the overflow is a hob so I've taken the sponges out and its free flowing now. Possibly this could have caused it? I don't think it would be as pale as it is however.

DO you have any recommendations? I know above it was recommended to add liverock and I've been thinking about but I'm also.reluctant due to potential pests. But do you really think liverock can make THAT big of a.difference?

 

[ScottB]

That's awesome man, mind if I pick your brain a bit?

So yeah currently all I have for rock media I guess would just be the bioblocks/marine pure blocks. It's a shallow rockless sandless system. A couple days ago my nitrate was 16 and phosphate was .05

My readings according to apex are
Alk: 9.81 (I have it set to be 9.3)
Cal: 414 (I have it set for 440)
Mag: 1264 (I have it set for 1350)

My corals I feel like I said are more pale then what they should be. This is particularly visible with my green tip austera. Slimer could definitely be greener imo as well.

I recently found out my my tanks salinity dropped from 1.026 to 1.023 due to a bit of a plug and the ATK adding fresh RO. the overflow is a hob so I've taken the sponges out and its free flowing now. Possibly this could have caused it? I don't think it would be as pale as it is however.

DO you have any recommendations? I know above it was recommended to add liverock and I've been thinking about but I'm also.reluctant due to potential pests. But do you really think liverock can make THAT big of a.difference?

Your numbers are fine. A little salinity dip didn't help but shouldn't be much of a problem. Heavy rain at low tide could produce that kind of swing.

Pale or "dry" looking sticks are likely suffering from malnutrition. Acros are just not very efficient with nutrient uptake. They can grab some nitrate out of the water but it is work to process it. They do better ingesting ammonia, the precursor nutrient that comes from fish respiration, pee and poo. They are better at ingesting bacteria from the water --particularly bacteria that eat phosphate -- versus the phosphate itself.

Eventually, if you keep adding livestock (fish/coral) your system will build a diverse colony of bacteria and microfauna (and inevitably pest(s)) to mimic a more natural environment where acropora can do well. Supplementing that diversity early on gets you there far sooner with far less mortality.

How are you set for fish?