Received my Beginner SPS 4 pack from Live Aquaria

[pdiehm]

Here's what they sent me:

1 - Canary Porites - mid to high
1 Orange Guttatus Birdsnest - High placement
1 Butternut Stylophora - mid to high
1 Sunburst Pavona - Bottom to middle

Plan is to dip them with Revive for 15 minutes, and put on the sandbed of my display.

I listed where Live Aquaria says to place them, but they are using the metal halide lighting...

For my tank, I have a Photon 48 (Channel 1 40%, Channel 2 25%) sitting about 12" over the surface of the water. To the top of the sand bed is about 34-36". Logan at ReefBreeders says to increase the lighting 5-10% each week and stop at approx 60-70% max intensity.

So for a week, all 4 will be on the sandbed. Next friday, I'll move them up about 6". The Sunburst will stay in this position. The other 3 will get moved to their final spot a week later.

Good plan? Bad plan? Ideas? Advice?

 

[sticky polyps]

Should definitely be fine

 

[pdiehm]

Last be aquaria recommended place in desired spot. Reduce lighting by 50% and increase 10% weekly.

 

[nervousmonkey]

Last be aquaria recommended place in desired spot. Reduce lighting by 50% and increase 10% weekly.

Good advice, gives your SPS a chance to ensure they are producing protective enzymes...

Another important question: what is your flow like in the tank? Along with light intensity and placement of the corals comes the respiratory processes of corals, and SPS in particular, where exchange of CO2 and O2, along with metabolites of the photosynthetic processes of the zooxanthellae important to carbon cycling, take place through the thin tissue of SPS corals. In short, the reason why everyone says that SPS need high flow is to literally help them breathe. You can have the perfect lighting conditions but the corals can essentially asphyxiate, and conversely, you can have moderately good to barely life sustaining levels of light where water flow alone keeps the corals alive during periods of decreased enzymatic activity from poor lighting (turbid water in the wild, corals at 60 feet or greater depth).
Thanks for reading this if you already knew this, but lighting and flow rates for corals, SPS in particular, are inseparable, as light intensity dictates the need for greater flow to help the coral exchange the bad for the good and vice versa.
Great idea to start low, as long as there is good flow for the new additions to your family. Also good idea to dial up the intensity slowly, so your new pack of coral have a chance to ramp up their internal enzymatic activity, or another way to put it, to keep from shocking the corals from the zoox's going into high octane mode from high intensity lighting, without the corals natural protective strategy of increasing enzyme production to match the zooxanthellae' increased rates of photosynthesis. What kills new corals is that production of protective enzymes takes a lot longer than what the zoox's can produce; they basically just need time to be able to get their RNA cranking out new proteins to match the output of the zooxanthellae.

Wow, didn't mean to turn the post into a dissertation @pdiehm ... Could have made it easy and just said, "Make sure they have a lot of water flow and they'll be fine..."

 

[pdiehm]

Currently a Gyre on 40% quick pulses. All corals have polyps out and appear to be happy. But only been 7 hours

 

[nervousmonkey]

Currently a Gyre on 40% quick pulses. All corals have polyps out and appear to be happy. But only been 7 hours

Oh, awesome then man! They'll be fine. Polyps out is always a good sign!

 

[aaron23]

sounds like a good plan to me

 

[pdiehm]

Butternut Stylophora

Orange Digitata was dying but we have growth and color!

Sunburst Pavona

Canary Porites

Guttatus Birdsnest

And the creme de la creme...

Got a BTA for $30. Turns out this guy is splitting 3 ways. Came with a rock that I coaxed him off of with an ice cube. Wanted no part of that rock in my tank.

 

[pdiehm]

So the birdsnest, and digitata are dead.

The butternut Stylophora has a white blotch on it.

Very close to saying screw corals and stay fish only or making it a zoanthid tank since it appears to be the only coral that looks like it's doing well.

 

[Duke4Life]

That's what drives me crazy, some things do well and others either never take off or die. I've only been able to do well with mushrooms and gsp so far.

 

[httorihanzo]

Looking at your live rock it appears as if you have a very young tank. For a tank to support SPS it needs to be well established. With SPS you have to make sure your parameters are close to perfect also. Too much too soon in this hobby almost always causes "throw in the towel' reaction. Dont be discouraged, you tested with beginner SPS frags and your tank basically told you its not ready which is good information.

 

[pdiehm]

That rock isn't in the tank the SPS will be in. The tank they were in got some hair algae, and now Dino's shortly after adding them. I removed them to a tank a little older but more stable parameters. The tank in the picture is growing coralline (slowly on the rocks), low nitrates, no phosphate.

I am not discouraged, I tested and tested, got 0 No3 and PO4, for like - month straight. Got the pack and added them and shortly after adding saw the signs that it's got some issues. That tank, as I said went up in July, cycled by August, and pair of clowns in October.

Maybe coincidentally I also started prodibio program to get the nutrients ultra low.

Just a growing process. Frustrating to lose money.

 

[aaron23]

thats what this hobby is all about - losing money into the black abyss

 

[horseplay]

Low nutrients might be the issue. Do you feed the tank?

 

[Sabellafella]

That rock isn't in the tank the SPS will be in. The tank they were in got some hair algae, and now Dino's shortly after adding them. I removed them to a tank a little older but more stable parameters. The tank in the picture is growing coralline (slowly on the rocks), low nitrates, no phosphate.

I am not discouraged, I tested and tested, got 0 No3 and PO4, for like - month straight. Got the pack and added them and shortly after adding saw the signs that it's got some issues. That tank, as I said went up in July, cycled by August, and pair of clowns in October.

Maybe coincidentally I also started prodibio program to get the nutrients ultra low.

Just a growing process. Frustrating to lose money.

Dont go crazy over it man and it is frustating 99.9 percent at the time but give it a while. Also i would worry about the low nutrients thing as its far more worse then having 30ppm n03. As for the reason they died, it could of ben a jump or dip in alk that you didnt realize considering the corals that suffered are the first to tell of alk swing. Do you do water changes often? And sorry if i missed but whats your alk calc and mag at?

 

[pdiehm]

Dont go crazy over it man and it is frustating 99.9 percent at the time but give it a while. Also i would worry about the low nutrients thing as its far more worse then having 30ppm n03. As for the reason they died, it could of ben a jump or dip in alk that you didnt realize considering the corals that suffered are the first to tell of alk swing. Do you do water changes often? And sorry if i missed but whats your alk calc and mag at?

I started dosing prodibio a few days after I got them, so I hadn't done a water change since 2/20 or 2/21.

My Alk has been steady between 8.4-9.1. I attribute that small of swing to testing error.

The CA, Mg were 500+/1600+ because nothing was using it.

It's a very immature system. No coralline yet, but don't think I have had anything to introduce it.

People keep saying it's not mature enough, but no one can answer how you know it's mature enough. The common response is, coralline growth but when I ask, how you get coralline without introducing...

It is frustrating. I am not about to give up but I think in the mean time, will focus on getting the parameters actually right, because I was getting a lot of false readings due to the algae sucking up the no3.

Will work on stocking the tank with fish, letting it mature. Let the prodibio process taking control, and in a few months find an SPS frag, and put it in after a week of testing the Alk to see if it is stable over a 7 day period.

 

[Sabellafella]

I started dosing prodibio a few days after I got them, so I hadn't done a water change since 2/20 or 2/21.

My Alk has been steady between 8.4-9.1. I attribute that small of swing to testing error.

The CA, Mg were 500+/1600+ because nothing was using it.

It's a very immature system. No coralline yet, but don't think I have had anything to introduce it.

People keep saying it's not mature enough, but no one can answer how you know it's mature enough. The common response is, coralline growth but when I ask, how you get coralline without introducing...

It is frustrating. I am not about to give up but I think in the mean time, will focus on getting the parameters actually right, because I was getting a lot of false readings due to the algae sucking up the no3.

Will work on stocking the tank with fish, letting it mature. Let the prodibio process taking control, and in a few months find an SPS frag, and put it in after a week of testing the Alk to see if it is stable over a 7 day period.

Its funny because i always seen over the years people saying dont add sps untill your system is more mature and i couldnt answer your question myself. I consider a few things for when my tank reaches maturity, when my ph swings are the same day by day with dosing, my routine on maintnence and parameters are completely stable. As much as i hate coralline algae-it is a sign of calcification is present. And most of all the stability of the system as in bacteria,no random spikes in n03 or p04, jumps and dips in alk, and to top it all off reliable test kits and saltmix. Also depends on what kind of rock you used, pukani tanks forever to mature a tank, Dry rock also, live rock will be mature relatively quickly, caribsea liferock or real reef like i used takes forever to get bacteria in check because its not porous at all. It could take a while before your system reaches its medium and im not a patient kid, but the one piece of advice i took from fellow reefers about patients is to take making changes slowly and waiting it out till things got better

 

[pdiehm]

Its funny because i always seen over the years people saying dont add sps untill your system is more mature and i couldnt answer your question myself. I consider a few things for when my tank reaches maturity, when my ph swings are the same day by day with dosing, my routine on maintnence and parameters are completely stable. As much as i hate coralline algae-it is a sign of calcification is present. And most of all the stability of the system as in bacteria,no random spikes in n03 or p04, jumps and dips in alk, and to top it all off reliable test kits and saltmix

My pH doesn't really swing much. It's 8.2-8.3. I know I have a PO4/NO3 problem, and am working on that. My alkalinity over a 7 day period was pretty stable. But now I have dino's...and my tank just is immature, and unstable at the moment. some folks have stable mature tanks in 6 months. Mine will probably be over a year before it's stable.

 

[happyhourhero]

For me, the quickest and easiest path to success has always been avoiding all supplemental additives other than kalk until wayyy down the line. I feel like all the potions stores have people using do more harm than good early on. It's also important to consider that a big part of stability is how stable YOUR interaction with the tank is. When the tank is new and you tinker and keep tinkering, it causes changes and your livestock have to adjust to that. Once you have had the tank going a while and you develop a solid routine, thats when things will really start to click.

 

[Scottsquatch]

It's sounds like your on your game and know what you need to do. Just hang in there. I had a nano the last 2 years and the first time I got it well established with corals that were doing well, my 4 year old son decided to share lunch with the tank and obviously it crashed. I Started it over and then when it was once again stable and doing well, I had a 6 week hospital stay and it crashed again. So I know your pain. Good luck!