Sps placement/coloration

[Devcharest158]

Hey everyone, I have a few questions about sps coral placement. I redid my DIY LED lights about two months ago and have been trying to dial in the intensity so everyone is happy as I've got a mixed reef of mainly sps but also some lps and a few zoa's.

The LED setup I have is 32 3watt LEDs (16 blue/RB, 8 white, 2 mint, and a mix of 6 violets between 390-420nm) currently running at about half power over a 60gal cube tank.

Tank parameters:
S.g. 1.026
Alk 8dkh
Ca 400ppm (bringing up)
Mg 1350ppm
No3 5ppm
Po4 reads 0 with Hanna 713

if it helps understand my lighting as I unfortunately don't have access to a PAR meter; with this setup i have a screaming banana stylocoenillea, sand dollar porites, orange leptoseris, a few zoa's, and a green encrusting type pavona within 3" of the sandbed all colored nicely. I have two cyphastrea and a darth maul porites I have to keep in the shade. 1/3 up from the bottom I have a M. Setosa, torch coral, Duncan, and blasto merletti all colored nice.

At 3/4 up I have sanjays purple stylophora doing great and a Walt Disney acro that came in a drab yellow that's now turned a nice bluish green in the past 2 weeks.

The ones I'm having trouble with are a Cali tortosa that's got nice purple tips but brown everywhere else and no green about 60% up, a sunset montipora that's getting the same light as the setosa at 1/3 up with great color on the new growth but the top of the frag is very light colored, and something similar to a beach bum montipora (forget what it was called when I bought it) 1/2 up that's completely brown.

All three of these are growing onto the rock now so I'm hesitant to break them off to move them up or down. Is it worth damaging them a bit to move them now or do you think they will color up more over time and I should leave them be?

Thanks for any input!

 

[Hemmdog]

I’d leave them be, maybe lower your light intensity a little bit if you don’t want to lose the sunset monti. Do you have any pics?

 

[Graffiti Spot]

What lights did you have before and what are the differences in settings?

 

[DesertReefT4r]

PAR meter will be very helpful, knowing is half the battle. Your nutrients may be too low if your lighting is higher PAR. Pale or brown corals can be a sign of both/either low nutrients and/or high lighting.

 

[acropora4u]

need to raise the PO4 up to around .03 to .05

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Cali tort should be green base with blue tips in normal light and mostly blue in high light. The brown base color is not good unless you just have a different variant. Maybe tell us a little more about the difference in the two lights and their settings. Someone may be able to help.

 

[Devcharest158]

Hey everyone, I'll snap some photos later today.

I'll have to get the correct Hanna phosphorus meter to accurately test my phosphates as the HI713s error is enough that "0ppm" could mean it's too high too. My nitrates were running pretty low, <1pmm, until about two weeks ago when I started researching this and have been able to get them up. What range do you guys shoot for for nitrates? 3-10ppm?

I'll check again today but they were at 5ppm via a red Sea test a few days ago.

The Cali tort came in green and blue so it's definitely something wrong with it's placement or the tank parameters.

The original light was another DIY LED system but had about half the LEDs and just royal blue and white. This one was running full power which is why I ran the new light at half power when I switched. I would prefer to raise the lighting a bit, I'm just nervous about burning some of the lower light coral I have like the sunset montipora, leptoseris, etc.

Usually with frags I'll place them in an area with lighting similar to what they were getting in the tank I purchased them from and move up or down if they lighten or brown on me.

Thanks for your help,
Nick

 

[ScottB]

The Hanna 713 is certainly sufficient. Yes, the phosphorus checker has greater resolution, but I would not be messing around near 0 with the 713. More fish poop would be good IMO.

When you say "brown" is the flesh still alive or is is STN?

 

[Devcharest158]

For those who are happy with the 713, how're you making decisions on whether your phosphates are low/high if the error is 0.04ppm and the ideal we want is 0.04ppm?

Getting zero could mean it's perfect or actually zero and getting a result of 0.04 could still mean it's 0 or up to 0.08?

I could definitely use more fish, I've only got two mocha clowns, an orchid dottyback, and a purple fire fish atm. I was planning an order from live aquaria before the quarentine.

The brown is a purply brown and looks healthy. The coral is growing and the only bits it's lost is at a tip I accidentally bumped into and crushed. . It does get these strange white little clumps on the skin every so often, almost like something it's producing in response from damage?


Here are some photos:
Walt Disney. Not as blue as the photo but turned a nice greenish blue since I got it and growing well.

Two shots of the Cali tort:. Should I clip off the tip I broke that has algae on it?

Forget the name of this one but looked similar to a beach bum or vino montipora when I got it. Very bright florescent yellow under all blue light. It gets florescent green under all blue but is straight brown under my "daylight"

My setosa that's looking good a third of the way up from the sand.

Full tank shot.

Sunset montipora: The frag I got turned the light orange in the photo and hasn't changed but the new growth looks vibrate orange and green.