Pale SPS with higher nutrients - at a loss

[Sebae]

Hello all.

I had chronically low phosphate for some time resulting in RTN but since dosing phosphate I've had little to no issues with RTN. I've been dosing phosphate every few days and nitrate less often but still doing it to keep the levels up. I cannot seem to figure out why I still have very slow growth and some paling of SPS. I use aquaforest balling components in a dosing pump and have not issue keeping alk, Ca, and Mg stable.

Currently my levels are:
Ca 440
Mg 1350
Alk 11
NO3 ~25
Phosphate 0.07

I've thought about overlighting, perhaps bleaching the corals, as this is my first time using LEDs (SB reef light) However, the SPS are generally in 200-250 PAR with the highest PAR coral (red planet; also the most pale currently) in about 350 PAR. This certainly doesn't seem that high to me.

Coralline algae growth is next to non-existent. I have very little algae growth in general. A light green fuzz on some rocks and some brown dusting on the glass every day.

I am not running much filtration equipment. Just a sump and skimmer.

I've sent of an ATI ICP-OES water test and am waiting to hear back.

I'd really appreciate any ideas. Its starting to drive me crazy. In the past SPS was plug and play. I just can't figure things out this time.

 

[rtparty]

Hello all.

I had chronically low phosphate for some time resulting in RTN but since dosing phosphate I've had little to no issues with RTN. I've been dosing phosphate every few days and nitrate less often but still doing it to keep the levels up. I cannot seem to figure out why I still have very slow growth and some paling of SPS. I use aquaforest balling components in a dosing pump and have not issue keeping alk, Ca, and Mg stable.

Currently my levels are:
Ca 440
Mg 1350
Alk 11
NO3 ~25
Phosphate 0.07

I've thought about overlighting, perhaps bleaching the corals, as this is my first time using LEDs (SB reef light) However, the SPS are generally in 200-250 PAR with the highest PAR coral (red planet; also the most pale currently) in about 350 PAR. This certainly doesn't seem that high to me.

Coralline algae growth is next to non-existent. I have very little algae growth in general. A light green fuzz on some rocks and some brown dusting on the glass every day.

I am not running much filtration equipment. Just a sump and skimmer.

I've sent of an ATI ICP-OES water test and am waiting to hear back.

I'd really appreciate any ideas. Its starting to drive me crazy. In the past SPS was plug and play. I just can't figure things out this time.

Get your phosphates up a little more even. Don't be afraid of a little "dirty" water.

How long have you been dosing N and P? It can take months, if not a year plus, to get color back in some SPS.

You can quote easily turn your lights down some and see if that helps as well.

 

[Sebae]

Thanks for the response. I've only been dosing for a couple of months but I did add a small frag to test if the now dirtier water was more suitable and it has started to pale a bit on me. I would expect a long recovery on the already pale corals but I wouldn't expect a new frag to pale if the water was fine in its nutrient levels.

 

[adritank]

That is not very high nutrient. My po4 is over .2

 

[Robthorn]

I personally run very low po4. .03 max but normally .015ish. I have no issue with color. I have run this way for a lot of years.
It seems there is something else other than nutrients.
I am not a fan of sb lights even though I know they work. I am also not a fan of alk over 8.5 even though I know it works much higher. I just know what works best in my tank.
I have seen magnesium pretty much bleach my tank because a new owner took over Brightwell and is super cheap and cut quality. Most things recovered and colored back up. So many variables.

 

[nova65ss]

How old is your tank? I am dealing with the same problem 8 month old tank. I removed two bulbs in my 8 bulb ATI. A few have turned around. I also use AF 123 I recently started dosing the abev at about quarter the dose a month ago.

I attribute it to too much light and a clean new tank.

Good luck!

 

[Sebae]

The tank is pretty young 5-6 months but I don't think age should necessarily be the issue if the water quality is where it should be. Maybe I need to up the phos : /

 

[jda]

No GFO or Organic Carbon?

That is not too much light quantity... quality could be bad, but if you are running a common program, then the coral should look like they do in other tanks with the same light.

I would not want N nor P that high. You can stop dosing phosphates. Anything over .01 is fine.

When you were plug-and-play, what did you do? Did you use the AF stuff? Did you have the SBs? Did you have the same type or sand and rock? What was your system like when it was humming? ...not all of this new stuff is better than the old.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

The tank is pretty young 5-6 months but I don't think age should necessarily be the issue if the water quality is where it should be. Maybe I need to up the phos : /

Reef tanks go through a maturation process and no, water quality is not a key indicator that the tank is ready for SPS. From what you posted in your OP, it looks like that is the issue here. There are plenty of amazingly colored SPS tanks out there that test undetectable for nitrate and phosphate, yet are fed heavily. Nutrients are not the issue.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/old-school-knowledge-on-reef-tank-maturation.330908/

 

[markalot]

Measurable nutrients are not the issue, how many nutrients move though the system are. Make sure to feed the acros on a regular basis, a small sized food like reef chili or reef roids IMO. My 150 measures .03 or less PO4 and nearly undetectable nitrates but the glass is dirty in a little over a day and I have issues with red acros, a sure sign of elevated nutrients. Mine just get used up in a hurry so they measure near 0, but they are there. In newer tanks 0 actually means 0. The water is very clean and if not fed regularly acros tend to fade fast.

I would also suggest, for acros alone, it's a lighting issue. Some acros won't color up well under LED unless you get the spectrum near perfect. What is perfect? No idea but I tried in a smaller tank under all LED and to get any color I was running mostly blue and to me the tank looked dark and, well, blue. A single T5 bulb, a coral+, worked for me, adding to the visible brightness and SPS coloration. Results vary, LED"s can grow acros, and with newer tanks T5's can present as much of an issue as LED of too bright. Target < 200 PAR for LED while a tank is new and you might find coral health improves.

 

[Sebae]

Reef tanks go through a maturation process and no, water quality is not a key indicator that the tank is ready for SPS. From what you posted in your OP, it looks like that is the issue here. There are plenty of amazingly colored SPS tanks out there that test undetectable for nitrate and phosphate, yet are fed heavily. Nutrients are not the issue.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/old-school-knowledge-on-reef-tank-maturation.330908/

This got me thinking. In the past I have added SPS relatively quickly but back then I was using real live rock as opposed to dry. I mean the rock covered in sponges, coralline, macroalgae, and a myriad of other inverts. Maybe this was more important than I was giving it credit. I’ll add some and see if it has any noticeable impact.

 

[Scorpius]

Big time red flag is not having coraline algae. I didn't have success with sps until I had coraline algae everywhere and sponges growing like crazy all over my rocks.

I bet your system is around a year old or younger.

 

[Rakie]

I put in SPS with dry rock less than two weeks after cycle -- zero issues. And I know many people with the same experience.

I would say it could be lacking po4, some of my corals particularly enjoy higher po4 than others. My paletta pink tip always seems to be teetering on the edge of bleaching, unless I dose a little po4.

People say corals brown from high nutrients -- Not exactly true, but partially correct. People say corals bleach from high light -- Not exactly true, but also partially correct.

The two above go hand in hand. The same tank, with the same corals, and the same lighting will be affected by the light and nutrient values. Light and Nutrients are a bit of a yin-yang thing. If they aren't in a good balance, you'll have brown corals, or bleached corals.

 

[andrew james]

have you checked trace elements like potassium, iodide, iron and halogens? They have as much to do with color as nutrients.

 

[Sebae]

Measurable nutrients are not the issue, how many nutrients move though the system are. Make sure to feed the acros on a regular basis, a small sized food like reef chili or reef roids IMO. My 150 measures .03 or less PO4 and nearly undetectable nitrates but the glass is dirty in a little over a day and I have issues with red acros, a sure sign of elevated nutrients. Mine just get used up in a hurry so they measure near 0, but they are there. In newer tanks 0 actually means 0. The water is very clean and if not fed regularly acros tend to fade fast.

I would also suggest, for acros alone, it's a lighting issue. Some acros won't color up well under LED unless you get the spectrum near perfect. What is perfect? No idea but I tried in a smaller tank under all LED and to get any color I was running mostly blue and to me the tank looked dark and, well, blue. A single T5 bulb, a coral+, worked for me, adding to the visible brightness and SPS coloration. Results vary, LED"s can grow acros, and with newer tanks T5's can present as much of an issue as LED of too bright. Target < 200 PAR for LED while a tank is new and you might find coral health improves.

I am a big fan of T5s but given this system is right next to me in my office space at home, where I currently work from, I'm trying to keep the radiant heat down. It could be the lights but having seen other people use the same light with a similar system and have astounding success it makes me doubt this. The LEDs do leave the tank looking dark even at the correct PAR and do have other disadvantages (spread) so I may add supplemental T5 if I can find the right design.

put in SPS with dry rock less than two weeks after cycle -- zero issues. And I know many people with the same experience.

This has been my experience in the past as well. I'm just trying to pry any sort of option from my brain at this point as to why things are not working out.

have you checked trace elements like potassium, iodide, iron and halogens? They have as much to do with color as nutrients.

I've checked potassium and it is around 440-450. A bit elevated from all the potassium nitrate dosing but I don't think that's the problem. I've thought about other elements but am essentially waiting on the ICP test to see if that is the issue. I've seen post where people get theirs back within a week so... hopefully...

 

[XNavyDiver]

This got me thinking. In the past I have added SPS relatively quickly but back then I was using real live rock as opposed to dry. I mean the rock covered in sponges, coralline, macroalgae, and a myriad of other inverts. Maybe this was more important than I was giving it credit. I’ll add some and see if it has any noticeable impact.

I started exactly like you did, and everything you describe is very familiar. My coralline is now really taken off, but acros still don't do well in my tank. I agree with those above that say its a maturity issue, not a nutrient issue. For this reason, I have stopped adding any acro frags at all. Everything else seems to do fine. Im gonna wait until around April of next year to do some acro tester frags (the one year mark).
Just a possible suggestion: Think about adding some micro fauna bio diversity to the tank... I added a load of GARF Grunge to the sump/refugium in my tank about a month ago. It's just now that Im seeing all those tiny creepy crawly things all over the live rock. This seems to help tanks started with dry rock.
Monti's do well so far, and this one trouper of a stick has not complained one bit...i know these are training wheels corals, but I'm getting closer. I just think your and my tank just need more time just stewing.

 

[markalot]

I've seen numerous people have success with SPS early in a tanks history but they feed like crazy at least once a week. Feed heavy enough that you can;t see inside the tank heavy. Their export routines are kept in sync with the feeding and the age of the tank. I was never able to do this successfully over a long period of time, probably because I failed to adapt as the tank aged.

What I have observed is:

- New Tank, heavy feeding, keep parameters rock solid, regular weekly water changes.

- 3 to 6 months, nutrient issues start to show up so methods have to change. Feed a little less, export a little more, possibly start PO4 reduction but BE CAREFUL. This is where I nuked my tank. The rocks and sandbed (if you have one) will have absorbed a significant amount of PO4 and when they hit a limit the PO4 starts to show up in the water. There's no easy fix here. When the rocks hit a limit hair algae starts to show up. In a large tank my solution was tangs and a Foxface who eats every kind of algae like a champ.

- 6 months to a year, sometime in there, things start to settle down so you can get into a fixed routine and stay there without worrying about constantly changing conditions.

My tank took 4 or 5 months to recover from my mistakes so I don't know exactly when it settled down. I could not handle GFO so I switched to PhosphateRx (Lanthanum) and did 1 drop a day and tested weekly for PO4, adjusting accordingly. Drops worked so well for me I went to all droplet dosing (except for two part). I'm still shocked how 1 daily drop of something can make a big difference in a week in 150 gallons. Teaches you just how slow changes need to be to stay stable.

Ever since moving to drops I have failed to fail. So far anyway. I have had to adjust the PhosphateRx dosing from time to time, probably as PO4 leaches out of the rocks and then hits some kind of equilibrium. I can pretend to know why, but I have no clue.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Pale colors may be caused by nitrogen deficiency (usually not by phosphate deficiency) and the dosage of nitrate seems not to help very much, at least not in montipora plates. That is an experience I made too. I think the cause is that not nitrate but ammonium and organic nitrogen are the preferred forms of nitrogen for zooxanthellae and most corals. Instead of dosing nitrate just dose a normal amino acid product or, even easier, just feed the fish more.
This has the disadvantage that you can´t control your N-dosage with a nitrate test kit but I think you are not dosing for the test kit but for the corals. You will see the success looking at your corals. The poor effect of nitrate in some corals and the problem of dosage of ammonium is one of the causes why I usually recommend to feed more instead of dosing inorganic solutions. The other cause is that with feeding you kill two (or even three) birds with one stone instead of probably creating nutrient inbalances with inorganic solutions.

 

[Peng]

How new is this tank?

 

[BluewaterLa]

Slowly lower your DKH over a few weeks or quit dosing it and allow it to fall back to more natural levels.
Keeping it up elevated that high above natural seawater 7DKH changes a ton of factors with the critters and environment.
Having Lower/ normal alkalinity levels will allow the SPS to settle in and recover better as they are not in water with parameters inviting them to grow really fast. I they are pale in ''normal'' light levels of 200 to 350 par, using good lighting then you must look at the nutrients and chemistry of the water. All this must balance out and having such high DKH with low nutrients in the water is not good for the stoney corals.
Feed a bit more, maybe try a little amino acids and lower that DKH. After doing this allow at least two months or longer to see some good results.
Keep everything stable and all should be fine.

If the corals have not been in the system for but a short period of time then loosing some color, paling or browning out could just be ''shock '' from being fragged / placed into a new system with different parameters.
I have had much trouble with frags coming from high DKH systems into normal levels and vice versa.
Good luck and happy reefing.
BluewaterLa/ Mike