Advice needed on SPS Montipora Cap water chemistry

[jpmazzone]

My tank is almost 8 months old and I did some testing today. I am new to the hobby an this is essentially my first time I've tested for anything other than ammonia and nitrate. I tested because I am keeping SPS corals in a Waterbox 20 tank. Setup is very simple. No skimmer and I only filter for particles and have a small bag of chemipure. My SPS look great in my opinion (see picture of a typical specimen from this morning). However, they do not grow very fast and could probably be a bit more colored up. I do have a PAR meter and they are geting about 200 PAR with a single AI 16HD light. Flow in the tank varies but averages 900 GPH. I tested because I have this idea that if I dose kalkwasser, wonderful things will happen but I want to be sure the tank even needs it. I change out 25% of the water each week and use Instant Ocean reef crystals. Water parameters are as follows:

Specific gravity = 1.026
Alkalinity dKH = Hanna Checker registered 57
Calcium ppm = 513 with a Hanna Checker
Ammonia = 0 ppm with API
Nitrate = 0 ppm with API
Phosphate = .03 with Salifert
Temp 75.5 degrees farenheit

Here is a picture of my moni cap. This has been in the tank for about 4 months and is about 2 inches. When it when in the tank it was about 1 inch.

Grateful if someone can tell me changes I might make to enhance growth and color. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

 

[KrisReef]

I had a Hanna Alk meter (755 it think) that measured in ppm, but recently, (accidentally) ordered the other Hanna ALk and measured my dKH as 7.2, which is ok but many people try for about 8, as a target number.

57 DkH doesn't make any sense, on either meter as far as a number for alkalinity. If you have 57 ppm I think that is way low and if it is 57 dKH it is way too high.

From the back of the old meter Hanna says natural sea water is typically 125ppm or 7 degrees of carbonate hardness (dKH) so I think there is something not correct in either you measurement or level of dKH.

 

[jpmazzone]

Thank you for the note. This was my first time using the Hanna meters. I used it according to the instructions and the Youtube video they posted but, I did not find it to be straight forward. I am not confident that I used exactly 1 ml of the reagent as they show. I will try it out again. As per your note, there is a conversion chart for the alk. It came out to be 1,000 per that conversion.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IMO 200 par is a little bit low. I just glue down any monti cap in my tank under MH lights and they just start growing. With that said, I see new growth on your frag, and 100% growth in just 4 months is pretty good IMO, I wish all my corals grew 100% in just 4 months.

 

[KrisReef]

The Hanna instructions/proceedures have caused more than one tester to provide interesting results.

Hint for storing the vials, rinse them out and then fill them with RODI to reduce accumulation of gunk from test chemicals.

 

[Lavey29]

On a nano tank if you are doing weekly water changes then your parameters should stay reasonably good however you do need to do regular testing also of the important elements. 200 par is slightly low for SPS but some easy SPS corals can handle this par ok. You want nitrates at 10 and phosphate at .05 to .1 however each tank is unique and if your tank is going well then only small subtle changes may be needed in your numbers. Your alk number does not make sense and was not Hanna tested properly.

 

[Boehmtown]

Dose kalk while testing your alk till it's fairly stable, raise your temp a bit. Increase your photo period length, feed more to increase your nutrients, especially nitrates. I'd do all that. In order. One at a time slowly. Once all that's buttoned up you can add more light and flow.

 

[jpmazzone]

On a nano tank if you are doing weekly water changes then your parameters should stay reasonably good however you do need to do regular testing also of the important elements. 200 par is slightly low for SPS but some easy SPS corals can handle this par ok. You want nitrates at 10 and phosphate at .05 to .1 however each tank is unique and if your tank is going well then only small subtle changes may be needed in your numbers. Your alk number does not make sense and was not Hanna tested properly.

Thanks for the advice! Maybe I will feed a bit more regularly to see if I can get the phosphate and nitrates up. I only have one clownfish and he eats some frozen misys every other day. He seems to be happy and plump so I think I am feeding him enough. And yes, on the Hanna test, I really struggled with knowing if that syringe has 1ml volume in it. I was not confident with that part of the test. The reason why I change so much water is that I figured it was an easy way to keep everything consistent.

 

[jpmazzone]

Dose kalk while testing your alk till it's fairly stable, raise your temp a bit. Increase your photo period length, feed more to increase your nutrients, especially nitrates. I'd do all that. In order. One at a time slowly. Once all that's buttoned up you can add more light and flow.

Sounds like a plan!

 

[FUNGI]

Monti Cap Growth: 4 months dosing kalk everyother night: Top is 5/19. Bottom is 9/19
Increased waterflow allows for a thicker plate growth. dKH at 8

 

[DaneGer21]

Looks good

 

[jpmazzone]

Monti Cap Growth: 4 months dosing kalk everyother night: Top is 5/19. Bottom is 9/19
Increased waterflow allows for a thicker plate growth. dKH at 8

Wow. That's insane!