Sps colouration magic

[ylreefer]

So let me start off by saying, this is not a magical solution to bringing back thoes faded corals. Neither is this a promotion for any product.

But I thought I'd sare with you guys and girls my experience.

Without going into massive details about my system, which is a redsea 650 standard set up, UV, carbon and skimmer. Really nothing special. Lighting was 2x china black Box 300w LED units. (Bozly) Putting out no more than 290 PAR at the surface. Paramiters are pretty stable at
KH 8
Ca 500
PH 8.1
SG 35PPT
PO4 0.05 (was above 0.1 a times and also zero at other times)
No3 5ppm
Dose redsea A/B twice Week,
Reef roids about once in 2 weeks

10 to 20% water changes about once every 2 months with IO reef crystals

So. To get into it I was seeing my sps colours fading away. Reds, greens, blues, you name it. From a water chemistry point of view all seemed not unreasonable. So I gathered something was missing. What that was I had no idea.

I dose MG/CA/ALK daily with auto doser and have an ATO. I went to a studio of a friend of mine who had 4ft cube reef set up that he uses to supply his clients. The corals although not many had amazing colouration. I took a look at his dosing and saw he was dosing the entire redsea programme of coral colours A/B/C/D. didn't ask much but thought I'd give it a try.

Now i did intend not to ake any other changes to the system while this was a sort of experiment, and that went well for about 1 month. During which time I can definitely say I saw a bit of improvement in some of the sps. Especially the green and red.

1 month in and I had a problem with my lights, a good deal came up for a giesman stellar T5 and I couldn't pass it up. So I added that to the tank and got the led repaired after 2 days, which I then added back to the tank.

The T5 has been on for about 2 months now and the change is amazing. As before the greens and reds are even more vibrant. And the blues are starting to show depth.

Now, can I put this down to a single thing. Ie redsea coral colours. Of course not. As the tank matured there were no don't changes tanking place in the water chemistry to. But I do belive without a doubt that the coral colours programme has helped revive the old faded to the new vibrant I have today based on the changes I saw before adding the t5's I'll leave you with a few pics of how things look now, unfortunately I didn't catalogue this from the start. Apart from one of the worst corals that I'll share with you today and you can clearly sees difference.

So the moral of the story is, if in doubt give them a go. The bottles are going to lay me 6 months plus according to my ca dosing so cost is very minimal.

Hopefully this can be of some use although it's always impossible to determine one single thing responsible for any change in this hobby.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

T5 can help a lot for tanks that just can’t find the right balance with led. Considering how many people I have seen switch to t5 or t5/led hoping for better results, I would certainly believe the light switch helped a lot. Ime bottled suppliment programs are really only going to work well on healthy acropora, not so much on coral that are stressed or not colored up well (same thing in many cases). Most are going to work best when corals are growing and healthy and then it’s able to use the elements provided or react with the elements provided. Just my experience though.
Either way it’s good that things are progressing. I would bet you could stop the Red Sea suppliments and get great results with the t5 and led and good husbandry as well. How high have you hung the fixture and what percent are you running the channels on the led? That fixture looks nice I am curious of the led layout.

 

[ylreefer]

Hi. Yep I agree. The light did help I feel. Although I started to see colour improvements after 4 weeks of dosing without the t5 unit which led me to believe something was making a difference. But yes its almost impossible to attribute change to a single thing as waterr chemistry is constantly changing ever so slightly.

In my early days I only ever used T5 and the growth was better than ever. But things change and we try to adapt .

I currently have the t5 unit about 10 to12" above the water line. As well as the LED's that sits inside of the stellar. The LED % I haven't actually calculated as the output is not measured in % rather numbers from 0 to 255. very odd I know. I just programmed them to be eye pleasing and did a PAR reading on 24 different points in the tank. As an average at the highest part of the day is say blue ch is 100% and white about 60%.

The lights are off at the moment so apologies for that but this is the current set up.

Ill be swapping them out for radions in a week or so, so that'll be another experiment

 

[melanotaenia]

I would lean more heavily on success from the T5 supplementation rather than the RedSea program, but either way the corals look good and glad you found a solution that works for your tank

 

[Ike]

Sorry, but I feel you're drawing a false conclusion to lend the changes in color to some bottles that have been proven to be inconsequential in coloring up corals. It's likely your nutrients were off and/or other factors were contributing to your lack of color, perhaps not, but what I can assure you is that there's nothing magical in those bottles that color up corals in a way that can't be achieved without them. There's also very little science to support that the elements in those bottles color up corals how they claim in their marketing.

All that said, happy to hear the tank is heading in the right direction and hope it continues to do well. If you believe the bottles truly help then there's no harm in keeping it up as long as it's not things like NOPOX or a carbon and bacterial source you're dosing.

 

[Tired]

Phosphate being at 0 is bad for the health and color of your corals. If you're keeping it above 0 now, that would explain an improvement.

 

[Ike]

Phosphate being at 0 is bad for the health and color of your corals. If you're keeping it above 0 now, that would explain an improvement.

To further expand, it's bad for the existence of life. If it's driven too low, even for short lengths of time, corals can and will struggle, especially Acropora and select SPS.

 

[Arricefe]

So let me start off by saying, this is not a magical solution to bringing back thoes faded corals. Neither is this a promotion for any product.

But I thought I'd sare with you guys and girls my experience.

Without going into massive details about my system, which is a redsea 650 standard set up, UV, carbon and skimmer. Really nothing special. Lighting was 2x china black Box 300w LED units. (Bozly) Putting out no more than 290 PAR at the surface. Paramiters are pretty stable at
KH 8
Ca 500
PH 8.1
SG 35PPT
PO4 0.05 (was above 0.1 a times and also zero at other times)
No3 5ppm
Dose redsea A/B twice Week,
Reef roids about once in 2 weeks

10 to 20% water changes about once every 2 months with IO reef crystals

So. To get into it I was seeing my sps colours fading away. Reds, greens, blues, you name it. From a water chemistry point of view all seemed not unreasonable. So I gathered something was missing. What that was I had no idea.

I dose MG/CA/ALK daily with auto doser and have an ATO. I went to a studio of a friend of mine who had 4ft cube reef set up that he uses to supply his clients. The corals although not many had amazing colouration. I took a look at his dosing and saw he was dosing the entire redsea programme of coral colours A/B/C/D. didn't ask much but thought I'd give it a try.

Now i did intend not to ake any other changes to the system while this was a sort of experiment, and that went well for about 1 month. During which time I can definitely say I saw a bit of improvement in some of the sps. Especially the green and red.

1 month in and I had a problem with my lights, a good deal came up for a giesman stellar T5 and I couldn't pass it up. So I added that to the tank and got the led repaired after 2 days, which I then added back to the tank.

The T5 has been on for about 2 months now and the change is amazing. As before the greens and reds are even more vibrant. And the blues are starting to show depth.

Now, can I put this down to a single thing. Ie redsea coral colours. Of course not. As the tank matured there were no don't changes tanking place in the water chemistry to. But I do belive without a doubt that the coral colours programme has helped revive the old faded to the new vibrant I have today based on the changes I saw before adding the t5's I'll leave you with a few pics of how things look now, unfortunately I didn't catalogue this from the start. Apart from one of the worst corals that I'll share with you today and you can clearly sees difference.

So the moral of the story is, if in doubt give them a go. The bottles are going to lay me 6 months plus according to my ca dosing so cost is very minimal.

Hopefully this can be of some use although it's always impossible to determine one single thing responsible for any change in this hobby.

I'm actually going to start the "my recipe" system tomorrow, 1 Sep 2020, and see how it goes. I have a few SPS coral that I feel could be a little more colorful, I run a Kessil/T5 hybrid lighting system. This is the only change I'm going to make so if there are changes I can reasonably attribute them to the system.

 

[ylreefer]

Sorry, but I feel you're drawing a false conclusion to lend the changes in color to some bottles that have been proven to be inconsequential in coloring up corals. It's likely your nutrients were off and/or other factors were contributing to your lack of color, perhaps not, but what I can assure you is that there's nothing magical in those bottles that color up corals in a way that can't be achieved without them. There's also very little science to support that the elements in those bottles color up corals how they claim in their marketing.

All that said, happy to hear the tank is heading in the right direction and hope it continues to do well. If you believe the bottles truly help then there's no harm in keeping it up as long as it's not things like NOPOX or a carbon and bacterial source you're dosing.

All valid points I agree. Just to reiterate I did state from the very beginning that's by no means are these bottles of magic potion, I'm generally very against adding anything to the tank, especially bottle that make bold claims. I was just sharing my experience with using them.

That said, yes you make a good point about po4 being zero and being detrimental to the overall health of corals. This is very true, and how exactly the redsea program is supposed to assist in the colouration of corals isn't clear. its entirely possible that the suppliments increased the po4 which in turn helped bring back the colours as po4 levels increased. Thereby indirectly supplying the corals with what they require.

You say that the redsea program has been proven to be inconsequential with regards to coral coloration. I'd be very interested to read that article if you happen to have it to hand, if that's the case then I may well consider stopping the dosing of these products.

All said and done yes I'm very pleased the way things look at the moment. And maybe it's all simply down to maturity of the tank. Anyhow I hope it continues down this road and if I do decide to stop the program I'll be sure to update here.

 

[csb123]

I definitely found improvement of colors when I started aminos. Don’t let the doubters bother you. Additionally, all tanks are a bit or lot different. You found your elixir of beauty! I’m jealous.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I have a love/hate with my T5 lights. Running a hybrid with 6 ATI blue + bulbs and 2 Giesemann super actinic to suppliment my Orphek and Radion LED. When the T5 are on the tank looks washed out, too white and loses all "pop" but the growth has been fantastic ever since I got them. They are hot, ugly and expensive to replace every 6 months but they make a huge difference in the health of my corals. I make sure they are on a light schedule during the day when I am away from my tank the most. I just hate the dull look of them...

I am a believer in the Red Sea color program, I had a similar experience doing nothing but dosing these colors and saw a drastic improvement.

 

[ylreefer]

I have a love/hate with my T5 lights. Running a hybrid with 6 ATI blue + bulbs and 2 Giesemann super actinic to suppliment my Orphek and Radion LED. When the T5 are on the tank looks washed out, too white and loses all "pop" but the growth has been fantastic ever since I got them. They are hot, ugly and expensive to replace every 6 months but they make a huge difference in the health of my corals. I make sure they are on a light schedule during the day when I am away from my tank the most. I just hate the dull look of them...

I am a believer in the Red Sea color program, I had a similar experience doing nothing but dosing these colors and saw a drastic improvement.

That's good to hear others having positive experiences with the RS colours.

I agree with the not optimal viewing experience with the t5's. And like you I have them on when I'm mostly away from the house. About 12 noon till 9pm. Then it's back to LED for the evening viewing. I only have 4 T5 bulbs so not as make as yourself. I'm using 2x actinic and 2x blue +. Funny thing is their not all that blue to look at. It gives the tank a slight greeny appearance for some reason. I put that down to the mix of my LED's. But it's not unbearable. And will have to do till the radions arrive. Lol.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Danjoethepirate]

Hey, I'm new here and this is an interesting discussion. I don't know if this is bad form or something, but if you don't mind me asking, where did you get those sode light shields on your geisseman?