I have been experiencing really slow growth and polyp extension on most of my sps now for quite a while.
I decided to experiment with dosing nitrate in the form of the stump remover.
I started to have a couple sps suddenly bleach on me and everything started to look worse.
That's textbook eutrophication.
A nitrogen spike causes a bloom of growth which causes PO4 to become unavailable. B. A. D.
PO4 is one of the most crucial elements on the reef. Having it become locally unavailable causes REAL problems up and down the food chain on the reef and in our tanks. (Some links coming...)
Add PO4 and things will start turning around.
But make all changes SMALL.
And wait at least WEEKS – more than one week; 3+ weeks isn't a bad idea – between changes before deciding to make another change.
Having consistent nutrients is a lot more important than test numbers when you have a new tank starting out.
Starting out is a tough time cuz you spend a lot of time modeling after other reefers...and everyone is constantly battling algae. Not very good examples to follow
unless you're trying to become an algae-battler!!! LOL
As a consequence, you see lots of reefers set up a brand new system that's running GAC, GFO and bio-pellets from Day One. That's no way to balance nutrients.
Look over the
Nutrients section on my blog or just do a search for "phosphates" for a bunch of interesting reading related to this, such as:
A short-and-sweet quote from that 1991 Workshop:
"...a minimal concentration of inorganic phosphorus, which remains to be determined, is required to avoid bleaching."
All those links...and most of the rest from that section...are pretty good! Click em!
Although, I don't think you would see bleaching from dying bulbs.
They might if you turned around and eutrophied the water (can I say that???) at the same time....high light (which is their natural carbon source via the zooxanthellae) AND high PO4 is what lets them tolerate high nitrogen.
Easy sps do fine like stylos and such but ive lost most of my high end stuff lately.
Stylo's and most "beginner" stony corals definitely tolerate a lot more than some corals.
I can't remember if I have a link on the blog for this, but there's a theory of ecological strategy that says organisms fall into three life strategies, based on environemental possibilities. They are either pioneers, stress tolerators, or competitors.
When we make mistakes on our systems (inevitable) it causes stress....and stress is what can force these ecological strategies to the be engaged.
Styo's and the beginner corals I mentioned seem to be good stress tolerators, for example.
The corals that you've seen fade away were more likely to be pioneers....not very amenable to stress or competition, but very often fast growers!
Competitors are very often the undesirables.
Of course these are all ecological strategies....all organisms tolerate stress and compete on a day to day basis. Some organisms take one of the aspects to another level when stress is applied though.
(Not to be over-critical, but it sounds like you might have gotten off to a start with corals that was a little too much, too fast. Gotta leave room in the timeline for these mistakes!
)
I don't think it's the lights as a friend that operates a nice business selling frags out of his house uses these lights and his sps colors and polp extension are fantastic.
Unless your friend uses
your lights in his biz you might at least look and see if your blues are burned out at all.
If you have a light meter, you could just aim it at the lights and compare to your old readings from when you set up the lights.
If you don't have a light meter, you should know that a lux meter is only $10-$15, delivered – and works just fine for this kind of thing. (PAR meter is nice if you have access, but not strictly necessary. And expensive.)
