Sps tank from 2006 and Problems

John467 · Feb 17, 2023

I had this tank running since 2006. It crashed some years ago. I started putting sps in it again. I have been running the same 2 400 watt metal halides. My flow is even better than before. How come I can't run as many hours of the lights without washing out the corals.

Calcium 440
Alkalinity 9
pH 8.3
Salinity 35 ppt
Temperature 80 degrees.

Poseidon03 · Feb 17, 2023

Where's your nitrate and phosphates at?

John467 · Feb 17, 2023

0 and 0

Poseidon03 · Feb 17, 2023

That could be why. They need nitrate and phosphate or will start bleaching.

John467 · Feb 17, 2023

How am I going to do that?

sczlars · Feb 17, 2023

Do you have fish? Add more/feed more, or you can dose I suppose..

John467 · Feb 17, 2023

I have more fish than every. I can over feed. And turn off the protein skimmer. Are you sure? How high should I get them?

sczlars · Feb 17, 2023

I'm aiming for PO4 at under 0.1 (0.04 or so ideal?), and NO3 at around 3-5 myself. This is from all the reading I've been doing.

John467 · Feb 17, 2023

And with my testing I can't detect anything. I don't have anything else to try. I will take the ozone offline too.

Uncle99 · Feb 17, 2023

How old are those bulbs.
They colour shift more red over time.

John467 · Feb 17, 2023

Poseidon03 said:
That could be why. They need nitrate and phosphate or will start bleaching.

The only way that I can understand this is how well the lights are penetrating since they are hanging higher than ever and I even put window screens between the lights and the tank.

John467 · Feb 17, 2023

Uncle99 said:
How old are those bulbs.
They colour shift more red over time.

New 20000k iridium bulbs and I even set the ballast to 250 watt. But I had one Monti that was almost straight up and it was fine until I set it flat and then it washed out. And it was well for 2 months.

Uncle99 said:
How old are those bulbs.
They colour shift more red over time.

sczlars · Feb 17, 2023

I would keep the ozone, if the tank is used to it. Turning it off won't (afaik) affect nitrates and phosphates; I would hesitate to change too many things in one go.

Uncle99 · Feb 17, 2023

John467 said:
New 20000k iridium bulbs and I even set the ballast to 250 watt. But I had one Monti that was almost straight up and it was fine until I set it flat and then it washed out. And it was well for 2 months.

New bulbs would have more intensity than the old.

John467 · Feb 17, 2023

Uncle99 said:
How old are those bulbs.
They colour shift more red over time.

New 20000k iridium bulb

billyocean · Feb 17, 2023

Rather than overfeed the fish..you can just dose NO3 and PO4. Brightwells NeoPhos and NeoNitro can take care of both. Some say NeoNitro can raise potassium but it doesn't effect my numbers. Although if you dose it daily it may? Another option is Loudwolf calcium nitrate

10 grams in 1000ml of rodi and dosed at 50 ml per 100 gallons of water to raise NO3 by 1ppm

billyocean · Feb 17, 2023

BTW if you do start dosing anything, monitor daily. I'm sure your rocks have probably reached saturation with phosphate but in case they haven't it's good to keep an eye on it by testing daily at first. Obviously, when rocks reach saturation the dosing will take less.

John467 · Feb 18, 2023

Is it possible that sps raised in 2013 were under metal halides and now the one's I have were under LEDs? And it would take a long time to accumulate back to metal halides?

billyocean · Feb 18, 2023

John467 said:
Is it possible that sps raised in 2013 were under metal halides and now the one's I have were under LEDs? And it would take a long time to accumulate back to metal halides?

I have heard that you cannot blast them with LED like you can with metal halide but haven't heard the reverse. Adam at Battlecorals would probably be able to answer your question on that one.