I have always had trouble growing sps corals. I have a mixed reef with a lot of softies, deep sand bed and numerous fish and inverts. Phosphates seem to be a constant issue even with water changes, sand detritus removal, phosphate removers (Rowa, Nox). Thinking about removing the sand bed then replacing with new. Should this help with sps growth? I can’t even keep Montipora. My lighting system is AI with graduated lighting trying to mimic daylight from dawn to night. Any suggestions?
Sps growth
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cmaxwell39
Valuable Member
A few more details about the tank would help people help you.
size of tank
Age of tank
Filtration
Number of lights/par #'s if you know them
Fish, inverts, other inhabitants
Maintenance routine
NO3, PO4, Alk, Cal, salinity #'s
I know this seems like a lot of information to give, but all these things are relaxant.
size of tank
Age of tank
Filtration
Number of lights/par #'s if you know them
Fish, inverts, other inhabitants
Maintenance routine
NO3, PO4, Alk, Cal, salinity #'s
I know this seems like a lot of information to give, but all these things are relaxant.
MichaelReefer
2500 Club Member
Do you have any export methods besides Rowa and Nox?? Refugium, Algae Scrubber? If you're still having phosphate problems you ma want to consider adding on.
If you can diy a waterfall algae turf scrubber with red leds, i can gaurantee youll be adding phosphates in 6 months.
Imo sps growth comes down mostly to keeping ph elevated. Try to maintain 8.1 to 8.5 daily.
Imo sps growth comes down mostly to keeping ph elevated. Try to maintain 8.1 to 8.5 daily.
Thanks for the reply. Tank appx 30 yrs old and is 210 gal with a 65 gal refugium sump as filter. Currently aLo is a bit low at 7, calc is 450, Mag is 1320, phosphate is at 3. Down from 7., salinity is 1.025.as for lighting I have 2 old
dk2nt9
Active Member
You should have no problems even with average light and flow, judging from water parameters. There have to be some nitrates, and phosphates could be lower, but still detectable. This is enough for montiporas, birdsnest, basic acroporas, porites.
Maybe run some carbon for metabolic waste and bacterial sludge remover to restore bacterial balance.
Maybe run some carbon for metabolic waste and bacterial sludge remover to restore bacterial balance.
IKD
2500 Club Member
Phosphate is at 3? Or .03? Phosphate range from what I recall is ideally closer to .03-.07
cmaxwell39
Valuable Member
Parameters look pretty good except phosphate. I question whether the phosphate is really 3 or is it .3? How are you testing phosphate?
If the tank is 30 yrs old, is the sand bed 30 yrs old as well? If so, it might be a good idea to change it out. But you will want to do it slowly, a small section every week/month.
Lighting might be a little underpowered as well. If you want to grow SPS, you are probably going to need more than 2 AI lights over a 210 which I am assuming is a 6' tank.
Don't get discouraged. It may take some time, but you can get it figured out.
Saltyanimals
Valuable Member
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That could be one of the issues. I would go one step further and do a full ICP water test to see what else is in your tank. 30 years should be fairly diverse biome, but could also lend to a build up of bad stuff as well that are not working with SPS. I would go here to get a full read out before you start adjusting to make sure your own testing is accurate.
Then of course grab one of the countless SPS water quality ranges to see where you are. Good luck.
IKD
2500 Club Member
I suspect your phosphate level is inhibiting SPS success. There are people that have success with elevated levels of various elements, but that usually builds up over time and the corals acclimate with it. I don’t think you’ll find SPS corals from vendors with equivalent phosphate readings, so new frags are getting ‘shocked’ in your established tank.
Dkmoo
Valuable Member
Ai what? Hydras I'm assuming? If so, thats very underwhelming for a 210 if you want to grow SPS.
As a comparison, in my 30G mixed reef with very healthy and fast growing acroporas, I have 3 AI prime and 2 reefbrite xhos to get to the 400-500PAR that some higher end acroporas need. Even if you go with the easier SPS, many recommend to stay around 300PAR.
As a reference, 1 Hydra is roughly 2 primes, so for a 210 dimension I would go at least 4 Hydras and 2 to 4 light strips of some kind (t5 or led) going the length of the tank to get to those highers par requirements for SPS.
Get a par meter - seneyes are relatively cheap and pays for itself 2-3 acro frags bc it'll take all guesswork out of your light related concerns and increase your frag survival rate tremendously
As a comparison, in my 30G mixed reef with very healthy and fast growing acroporas, I have 3 AI prime and 2 reefbrite xhos to get to the 400-500PAR that some higher end acroporas need. Even if you go with the easier SPS, many recommend to stay around 300PAR.
As a reference, 1 Hydra is roughly 2 primes, so for a 210 dimension I would go at least 4 Hydras and 2 to 4 light strips of some kind (t5 or led) going the length of the tank to get to those highers par requirements for SPS.
Get a par meter - seneyes are relatively cheap and pays for itself 2-3 acro frags bc it'll take all guesswork out of your light related concerns and increase your frag survival rate tremendously
Timfish
Crusty Old Salt
Congradulations on maintaining a systems so long!
As mentioned above lighting is on the low side for many stoney corals. Phosphate is a bit high but I've seen easy montis in higher levels appear happy. You haven't mentioned how long it's been since you've added or replaced any sand but cleaning it well and removing replacing at least some is something I would do (@brandon429 has a soapbox just for this issue
).
My suspicion though is you've jsut got a microbial balance that your current corals have acclimated too but new corals have a hard time dealing with. Something I do that helps my older tanks and I've seen PaulB post doing yearly is run a diatom filter (@PaulB also adds new wild microbial stuff to his systems periodicly). Diatom filter will filter to well below the submicron level pulling out a lot of bacteria. Corals, algae and sponges are actively moderating the microbes in the water and feedback loops can develop which may be detrimental to corals. Disrupting the current equilibrium with cleaning and changing sand as well as running GAC, reducing PO4 to less than .5 mg/l, and running a diatom filter for a day or so will help corals promote the maicrobial processes beneficial to them. Here's some videos for starters and I've got a ton of links to research papers if you want.
"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems
Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes
Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont
BActeria and Sponges
Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)
Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching
Richard Ross What's up with phosphate"
Here's just a few of the papers:
Aurabiomes
Feedback loops
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Geneotype leve differences inl immunity
www.nature.com
Sugars
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
As mentioned above lighting is on the low side for many stoney corals. Phosphate is a bit high but I've seen easy montis in higher levels appear happy. You haven't mentioned how long it's been since you've added or replaced any sand but cleaning it well and removing replacing at least some is something I would do (@brandon429 has a soapbox just for this issue
).My suspicion though is you've jsut got a microbial balance that your current corals have acclimated too but new corals have a hard time dealing with. Something I do that helps my older tanks and I've seen PaulB post doing yearly is run a diatom filter (@PaulB also adds new wild microbial stuff to his systems periodicly). Diatom filter will filter to well below the submicron level pulling out a lot of bacteria. Corals, algae and sponges are actively moderating the microbes in the water and feedback loops can develop which may be detrimental to corals. Disrupting the current equilibrium with cleaning and changing sand as well as running GAC, reducing PO4 to less than .5 mg/l, and running a diatom filter for a day or so will help corals promote the maicrobial processes beneficial to them. Here's some videos for starters and I've got a ton of links to research papers if you want.
"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems
Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes
Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont
BActeria and Sponges
Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)
Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching
Richard Ross What's up with phosphate"
Here's just a few of the papers:
Aurabiomes
Feedback loops
Error - Cookies Turned Off
Geneotype leve differences inl immunity
Intraspecific differences in molecular stress responses and coral pathobiome contribute to mortality under bacterial challenge in Acropora millepora - Scientific Reports
Disease causes significant coral mortality worldwide; however, factors responsible for intraspecific variation in disease resistance remain unclear. We exposed fragments of eight Acropora millepora colonies (genotypes) to putatively pathogenic bacteria (Vibrio spp.). Genotypes varied from zero...
www.nature.com
Sugars
Coral and macroalgal exudates vary in neutral sugar composition and differentially enrich reef bacterioplankton lineages - PubMed
Increasing algal cover on tropical reefs worldwide may be maintained through feedbacks whereby algae outcompete coral by altering microbial activity. We hypothesized that algae and coral release compositionally distinct exudates that differentially alter bacterioplankton growth and community...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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Thanks for the reply.always willing to learn more. Moving foward I started cleaning/ replacing sandy bottom a little at a time. Phosphates trending down now around 2.5. Looking to possibly adding additional lighting to existing 3 AI hydra-26. I also run 2 old led lights that the whites have died. These are on from sawnntill 11:00 pm. As I read More about keeping sps I am hearing that my lighting might not be adequate. I will borrow a par meter to see where I stand then move from there. Thanks for the input.
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Dkmoo
Valuable Member
BTW, the way you set up your tank is my dream set up. With the white stand/canopy that somewhat partitions the living area with the 3-side viewing peninsula.
Love it
Here's my 30g currently in a small NYC apartment. When I get my house I'm looking to so something similar to yours.
