Purple bonsai not coloring up

[hart24601]

It's pretty easy to tell when my system hits too low for nitrates, the acro all lose color, purple and green fades out to almost white. I regularly dose nitrate if/when I notice them losing color. No debate about it, it's very clear when it happens and dosing nitrate clearly colors them back up with effects seen overnight. My friend has the same situation, dosed nitrate and his green slimer finally colored up from pale lime to nice dark green.


Yes, NSW has very little nitrate detectable. Reefs also have a near constant supply of food that the corals eat. Our tanks are not reefs, they never will be, while NSW values were a great place to start, it is very clear there are many other factors in the wild we cannot replicate in our systems.

 

[hart24601]

Here is a bit more about my buddies tank. He was asking me about my coral's colors as I have given him frags and his were very pale. He has only 1 fish (If I remember correctly) and phosphate and nitrate were undetectable. We made a solution giving him a final tank concentration of 0.1ppm phosphate and 1ppm nitrate. He dosed that at night and the next morning levels were back undetectable indicating to us that the nutrients were being utilized very quickly. He continued dosing that amount for 2 nights, with everything being used up by morning. The colors returned very quickly and the SPS growth was pretty intense over the next week. He stopped dosing the phosphate, but continued the nitrate until the tank held under 1ppm but detectable. No other changes to the tank. The difference in color and growth was dramatic and occurred in just a few days.

I am not trying to change anyone's mind, but this was my experience plus the color in my tank. This wasn't one of those situations where there *might* have been improvement, there was drastic improvement very quickly every time my corals have faded.

 

[tofucube]

lower your alk and place mid to lower in tank. Lower light will bring out more purple.

 

[pirate2876]

They should change the name of this website to anecdotal reef keeping. I've been this game for quite a while, and all I know is opinions constantly change, scientific evidence constantly changes, and techniques constantly change. If you think your way is the only way, you haven't been in this hobby long enough.

Pics of my tank for reference:

My tank is covered in algae in this pic. Its all the 'trates.

 

[hart24601]

They should change the name of this website to anecdotal reef keeping. I've been this game for quite a while, and all I know is opinions constantly change, scientific evidence constantly changes, and techniques constantly change. If you think your way is the only way, you haven't been in this hobby long enough.

Pics of my tank for reference:

My tank is covered in algae in this pic. Its all the 'trates.

So the OP should follow this and his coral with color back up?

 

[tonymission]

I just want to say that both battle corals and wwc got back to me and they do in fact keep their tanks at .18 po4 and wwc says 30ppm no3.....

BUT wwc said it isn't the no3 they like but the 3 times a day heavy feeding that they do the corals love.

So I am sticking to my point of its not the no3 and po4 corals actually like. Ideally it's all about import and export. I feed very heavily, my corals glow, but yet I have 0 po4 and 0 no3. They like the food not the high parameters.

Ok, but you can't stick to your point. You never made that point.

You're saying corals don't like filthy water and NSW is 0/0. Obviously that's incorrect. There are also massive pools of phyto floating around in these roofs for corals to feed on, which isn't possible for us to create.

I never said WWC is dosing KNO3... But if they're holding 30ppm NO3 then the import is obviously larger than the export. It's not the export that the corals are interested in. Export just keeps it from being 50ppm or 100ppm as examples.

I do question how the parameter itself is beneficial to the corals. The nutrients lead to the elevated parameters and corals feast on those nutrients. I get that. Why pure NO3 would benefit them is beyond me, but it seems to be working. Anecdotal, yes.

I hardly came up with this... I've just copied a lot of smarter-people-than-I and seemed to be experiencing the same results.

 

[ronvdp]

Can someone with a heavy feeding schedule and great coral growth and color chime in about what they feed, how much, and tank size? I feel my tank needs more feeding but notice increased algae from it. I have no problem with the algae growth if it ultimately benefits the corals. Just looking for some more specific input on the feeding. Thanks!

 

[dodgerblew]

I don't know if I'm considered a heavy feeder but I'm a fan of the Reef Frenzy by LRS. I hold it in front of a powerhead rubbing food between fingers and not only does it thaw and blow into tank multiple sizes of food for the fish but you can see the minute particles floating through the water column which I can't help but think feeds the corals, all types. I feed 2-3 times a day. I water change every 5-7 days. I don't have a fuge. I do have a small amount of algae but it's not out of control but very manageable and tank overall looks very clean

 

[Pappy]

I feed 3-4 times a week (o po4 and 0 no3 due to large bacteria population and heavy skimming) with a mixture of oyster feast, Dr. G's frozen rotifers, phyto, fauna zoa/ric powder, mysis, and dr g's sps food. SPS PE day and night and excellent feeding response!

 

[tonymission]

Looks great btw, Pappy! Very impressive.

One thing I think we can all agree on: there's more than one way to skin this cat.

 

[hart24601]

No clue how fast you are looking for, but you can see my acro growout in the sig and see for yourself if that is alright.

Keep in mind everything I feed is in small amounts:

Daily:
I feed rod's food 3x a day. Apex autofeed their CD pellets which are suppose to have coral food on them 6x per day. Cobalt flake mixture around 2x a day. Acropower 10ml/day.

Other than daily I feed a mixture of oyster feast, baby brine shirmp and doc's brew eggs about every other night. I feed the LPS large reef frenzy 2 or 3x per week. I feed live phyto and 1-50 micron golden pearls and reef frenzy a couple times a week, spectrum pellets when I think about it.

No algae issues and as said before sometimes nitrate gets too low and I dose nitrate.

 

[dodgerblew]

I feed 3-4 times a week (o po4 and 0 no3 due to large bacteria population and heavy skimming) with a mixture of oyster feast, Dr. G's frozen rotifers, phyto, fauna zoa/ric powder, mysis, and dr g's sps food. SPS PE day and night and excellent feeding response!

spectacular tank. Indulge me with a FTS please. Your colors and placement are great! Quite the food you mix up. I forgotten to mention I use oyster feast as well

 

[Pappy]

spectacular tank. Indulge me with a FTS please. Your colors and placement are great! Quite the food you mix up. I forgotten to mention I use oyster feast as well

Thank you!

 

[Pappy]

To stir the pot even more this is 1 year progress switching from leds to T5 lol

 

[Av8Bluewater]

My Garf has been pale since I got it about a year ago.
Nutrients were mostly NO3 - 0 and PO4 .01-.03.
So every one keeps saying a little NO3 helps. I bought some Nitrate on eBay. It didn't really help. I probably brought it up to 5ppm at highest.
I don't really disagree with either side of the debate of whether some NO3/PO4 helps... but for me my tank always looks best with those close to zero.
Last year when the tank was about 3-4 months old I noticed it starting to color up but never figured out what made it happy.
I had red bugs. Got rid of those and it didn't help. I got red planaria around May last year. I thought I got rid of those but they came back and I just did treatment for them a week ago. So fingers crossed their toxins have been keeping a couple corals pale. It's my belief even pre-flatworm exit treatment their bodies give off the toxins as they die naturally. I can smell them.
So point being do a good check for pests. . especially AEFW.
One of my next suspicions is I've been using rox carbon. The zeoheads use passive carbon.. so maybe my carbon is too aggressive. I'm going to try the KZ carbon in a bag for a while. Worth a try for me. Good luck. Report back if you figure it out.

 

[Av8Bluewater]

To stir the pot even more this is 1 year progress switching from leds to T5 lol

Looks good but I'm not sure what to compare in that photo. Did things get better with T5?

 

[Stubaca]

Interesting read. Thanks all!

 

[Stubaca]

Nice tanks too!

 

[Pappy]

Looks good but I'm not sure what to compare in that photo. Did things get better with T5?

yes the growth

 

[rip]

also concider our test kits are only so accurate,so readings of "0" or undetectable may be erroneous to op hope the Bonsai blossoms for you they are very pretty sps and is on my wish list.Rip