Hey guys recently I’ve struggled to get good growth on my sps. My alk has been sitting at 8.6 for the past 3 weeks. Fairly stable no changes to many of my parameters. Nitrates 5-15 phosphates 0.02-0.03. I run a refugium with cheato lit 24/7 to offset a lot of the build up co2 from my calcium reactor. I run aquatic t5 with 3 blue plus and a coral plus bulb supplemented with 2 hydra 52 HD running all 100%. The par above my corals range from 280-500 above my acropora. I usually try to feed my fish more than one time daily but recently Haven’t. I have experimented with supplementing phosphates into my system 0.2 daily to have testable phosphates at 0.05. I’ve noticed my sps looked more lively after dosing. What do you guys recommend? Thank you in advance!
SPS Growth
- Thread starter dave57
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LAReefer4Life
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Slowly raise ALK to 10dkh and target feed with reefroids. I have add tremendous success with my SPS growth over the last 3 months. Are you currently dosing? What are your calcium and magnesium parameters? water flow, powerhead placement?
LAReefer4Life
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How long how your tank been setup for? Are you having any issues currently?
LAReefer4Life
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So what are you trying to accomplish? Which SPS are you not seeing growth on? Sounds like you were getting significant growth with having higher Alk levels?!
Normally my alk was between 8-8.5 about 3 months ago it jumped up to 9.5 and things got burnt. I’m wondering if I should continue to dose the 0.2 ppm phosphates?? Or just allow me phosphates to be 0.02
LAReefer4Life
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If you target feed with reef-roids + aminos this will help increase P04 more natural and accomplish target feeding corals too, this will significant impact on coral health and growth. Kill two birds with one stone.
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LAReefer4Life
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Are you currently dosing anything?
LAReefer4Life
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hmmm... and your alk levels remain at 8.5? SPS consume Alk to maintain a healthy skeletal structure which typically requires daily or weekly dosing even with weekly water changes. What are you using to test and how frequently?
LAReefer4Life
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I just dosed 0.3 ppm phosphates now look at the polyp extension
Thats great. Target feeding has proven very beneficial for SPS and as mentioned will increase P04 level sometimes significantly so don't dose phosphates and raise levels too quickly.
