Trying my hand at sps.

Scorchx1245 · Jul 18, 2018

So....I got a couple frags for free. So I thought why not. One birds nest and a bunch of monti frags. The birdsnest seems to be a slight brown and the monti was literally fragged this day aka. Trimming all his sps and he gave me some pieces to try. Best way to mount these frags I have 6 montis that I just want to grow out. The birdsnest seems to have a slight brown but his big colony looks same.
Dkh 7
Calc 420
Salinity 1.025
Temp 78
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 15
Ammonia 0
Ph 8.1
Running refugium, gfo, and carbon, with kalkwasser drip. I feel my alk is low. LEDs for lighting getting around 220 at the top by the birds. Frag is around 190 to 200.

Hope I have enough done I know lacking in lighting.

Tank is 6 months old. Added some more base rock 2 months ago. Reason for new rock.

nate's reef · Jul 18, 2018

Nitrate at 15 may be a little high to bring back color without a lot of light, in my limited experience and knowledge. All other parameters seem passable, the more calcium the less alk, so having 420 and 7 shouldn't be bad. As long as you are using a reputable salt mix and doing regular changes, their ratio should work just fine for any coral. I use the cheap reef crystals and I believe they use a similar, or exactly the same ratio as you have, so I wouldn't mess with Alk at all. Try some water changes to lower the nitrate, or you may want to start growing algae in the fuge if you arent already. Since the lights in your tank are so low, that might actually be an awesome option, the limiting factor for algea growth in your display is likely lighting, so if you can get some intense lighting going in the fuge, the algae there will out compete the algae in the display tank and lower your nitrates.

Another great option to lower nitrates is coral, they suck it up just like algea, and sometimes the best way to use up a little excess nitrate is to add some more coral. If all your corals are new, it may just need a little bit of time

jda · Jul 18, 2018

These are good beginner SPS. Do not expect them to flourish until your tank gets mature enough to have coralline popping up everywhere... the tow mostly go hand-in-hand even though some have good results with SPS without any coralline. Be patient, keep your alk and calcium stable and make sure that the N does not climb too much higher.

Scorchx1245 · Jul 18, 2018

Thank you, so I am running some chaeto in my fuge, lit with this lite. Make sense why I cant get my alk up with w/c lol duh, I'm gonna test these reef Crystal's alk level next w/c. I do have some lps mainly hammer frogspawn, and candy canes, and some gsp and palys, but all 2-3 inch colonies.

nate's reef · Jul 18, 2018

Scorchx1245 said:
Thank you, so I am running some chaeto in my fuge, lit with this lite. Make sense why I cant get my alk up with w/c lol duh, I'm gonna test these reef Crystal's alk level next w/c. I do have some lps mainly hammer frogspawn, and candy canes, and some gsp and palys, but all 2-3 inch colonies.

Yeah, as long as the chaeto is growing in there that light should be fine. If you notice any popping up in the display I would get a cheap LED or something that can get the PAR up, but I wouldn't be surprised if that light works fine. I don't run a fuge on mine so I'm no expert, but i have an understanding of how to set it up. Check back in when those color up, that's always the most fun and why we all still buy brownies