Browning SPS

[Jordan Parker]

First off, thank you to the admins for accepting me into this forum.

This I my first post, so bear with me as I acclimate to the norms of this forum.

I'm seeking a bit of advice, my current problem seems to be that some of my SPS corals have taken to browning and I'm having some trouble getting their color to recover.

My tank is a 75 gallon with a 55 gallon sump.

I have what I would consider to be excellent water conditions. (Compared to most people anyway)

pH: 8.2
Amm: 0
N02: 0
N03: .75
P04: .08
Alk: 8.2-8.5
Cal: 495
Mag: 1400
Temp: 77-78°F

Tested with Red Sea test kits.

I run dual airlines from my skimmers intake outside through a window to maintain my pH, it maybe drops to 8.0 at night.

I have messed, slowly with my alkalinity over the past two weeks to accommodate the lower nutrients in the tank by dropping it to 7.5 however after undesired growth rates, raised it back up to 8.2-8.5 where everything was perviously happy.

I have over the aquarium, two Viparspectra 165w black box LED lights and run the blues at 75% from 14:00 to 00:00 and the whites at 15% from 16:00 to 22:00. (I'm currently waiting to have my Vertex Illumina repaired)

Could my brown out be a result of a lack in lighting, due to the alkalinity alteration that I had tried, or a lack of nutrients? I have been contemplating dosing nitrates to drive down the P04 further while providing some water bound food for the SPS.

I should also add that my method of nutrient control is achieved by a diluted 40% vodka carbon dosing regimen. I dose 6 times per day for a total of 1.5ml of vodka entering the system. I also have a ~20 gallon refugium that is manifold fed from my main return pipe that barely ever has any additional algae growth.

I don't run a GFO reactor or any other means of nutrient export, I also don't normally do water changes and this all started happening right around the time I decided to see how my system would react to one. Given that I do not do water changes, I supplement my system with Seachem Reef Fusion 1&2. I will be transitioning to ESV Bionic when I run out of the Seachem additive. I am also in the midst of reevaluating my dosing requirements due to the addition of several new pieces of SPS and LPS.

Thank you for any help that you may offer.

Jordan.

 

[James M]

Sorry for not helping but Welcome to reef2reef and I hope you like it here

 

[jda]

Welcome.

Brown corals is usually a sign of excess zoox. This can happen with too high of building blocks - you are OK here with good N and P levels. This can also happen with an abundance of carbon from lots of zoox or manual addition - your vodka dosing is likely contributing to this. When you say "no other means of nutrient export," do you skim? You really need to be skimming if you are adding organic carbon.

The Vipars should give you OK color and growth - nearly everybody sees big improvements by adding T5s, but you should not have just brown corals with them alone. Better lights could help, but I do not think that this is your problem.

I am not a huge fan of no water change tanks... not because they do not work, but that in order to do them right, they take more time, effort and money than just spending $8 on salt and a few minutes to do a 50g water change. However, your method of just adding Fusion 1 and 2 can get things out of whack over time and is not really a comprehensive solution. Something like Dutch Synthetic is more involved and allows for more control than this method, but it is hard work. It might be a good idea to do a few sizable water changes, reboot and start again. The the brown corals be your guide that you are not doing something right.

 

[Reefermack]

Your PO4 is very high, the recommended level is <0.2ppm, your 4 times that amount. You'll need to try bring down your PO4, I think your expectations of nutrient export is not the way to go, you need to do some regular waterchanges just to get things under control. Id consider a gfo reactor, hope this helps

 

[redpine42]

Your PO4 is very high, the recommended level is <0.2ppm, your 4 times that amount. You'll need to try bring down your PO4, I think your expectations of nutrient export is not the way to go, you need to do some regular waterchanges just to get things under control. Id consider a gfo reactor, hope this helps

Think you misread his PO4 is .08 not .8. I'm new and know nothing but I think .08 is ok?

 

[Reefermack]

Sorry my bad

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I agree with JDA, the extra carbon is probably what is causing the brown corals. However, brown corals are not always a bad thing. Are they healthy and growing? If yes, that is half the battle. Your phosphate level, though high for what most consider good for SPS, is fine for a mixed reef. LPS typically become cranky at low (SPS) PO4 levels. You might want to cut back on the vodka a bit and see if your NO3 will rise a bit and perhaps a bit of colour will return. Brown corals are also known to be caused by not enough PAR. People tend to adjust LEDs too quickly and cause bleaching, so if you can move a brown frag higher for a couple of weeks and see if it starts to colour up, that would help to confirm that your lights are set too low. Moving a frag is far safer than adjusting the lights as a first line of attack.

Dennis

 

[KrisReef]

Your params look pretty close to good, and you seem to be thinking that maybe more or less light, less vodka (more for martinis!) more P, more water changes, or .???- Your concerns suggest to me that perhaps you have been trying too hard to force everything into perfection? Sometimes when I find my tank under performing I have to remind myself to leave it alone for awhile, just maintain "things" more or less where they are and let the reef stabilize. Usually when I do this the tank and corals start to color up and look noticeably better inside of a week- if I just keep my hands out of the tank and stop tinkering with the skimmer, or raising/lowering Alk, Ca, P NO3, Mg, etc. If params are within the normal operational range then i don't need to change them. If I'm worried about metals, I add a Polyfilter and that is all I will do, no other changes and wait to see how the tank reacts.

Most importantly, I think that sometimes the tank doesn't want to drink alone, or at all! Pour yourself that drink and sit back and enjoy your reef. It will color up when it's ready. Cheers.

 

[ashr]

The best advise haha
"Pour yourself that drink and sit back and enjoy your reef. It will color up when it's ready. "

 

[Jordan Parker]

When you say "no other means of nutrient export," do you skim? You really need to be skimming if you are adding organic carbon.

I do skim, very heavily. My skimmer is rated for at least 30% more than my overall volume. I empty a thick putrid sludge out of my collection cup every other day. I also run airlines outside to keep my pH stable with the fresh air.

 

[Jordan Parker]

I agree with JDA, the extra carbon is probably what is causing the brown corals. However, brown corals are not always a bad thing. Are they healthy and growing? If yes, that is half the battle. Your phosphate level, though high for what most consider good for SPS, is fine for a mixed reef. LPS typically become cranky at low (SPS) PO4 levels. You might want to cut back on the vodka a bit and see if your NO3 will rise a bit and perhaps a bit of colour will return. Brown corals are also known to be caused by not enough PAR. People tend to adjust LEDs too quickly and cause bleaching, so if you can move a brown frag higher for a couple of weeks and see if it starts to colour up, that would help to confirm that your lights are set too low. Moving a frag is far safer than adjusting the lights as a first line of attack.

Dennis

I'm going to drop my carbon dosing by .25 ml once a week while monitoring my nutrients while doing so.

If I'm not mistaken, N03 can aid in driving down the P04 level, no?

 

[Jordan Parker]

Your params look pretty close to good, and you seem to be thinking that maybe more or less light, less vodka (more for martinis!) more P, more water changes, or .???- Your concerns suggest to me that perhaps you have been trying too hard to force everything into perfection? Sometimes when I find my tank under performing I have to remind myself to leave it alone for awhile, just maintain "things" more or less where they are and let the reef stabilize. Usually when I do this the tank and corals start to color up and look noticeably better inside of a week- if I just keep my hands out of the tank and stop tinkering with the skimmer, or raising/lowering Alk, Ca, P NO3, Mg, etc. If params are within the normal operational range then i don't need to change them. If I'm worried about metals, I add a Polyfilter and that is all I will do, no other changes and wait to see how the tank reacts.

Most importantly, I think that sometimes the tank doesn't want to drink alone, or at all! Pour yourself that drink and sit back and enjoy your reef. It will color up when it's ready. Cheers.

I like your style!

I'm going to try one thing at a time and see how it turns out, I'll be starting off with reducing my carbon dosing by .25ml per week and see how the color comes along.

 

[Reefermack]

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I'm going to drop my carbon dosing by .25 ml once a week while monitoring my nutrients while doing so.

If I'm not mistaken, N03 can aid in driving down the P04 level, no?

in theory vodka can drive down po4 but in practice..not soo much. gfo is the most common solution to dropping phos. just go easy to start and test often.

 

[jda]

Carbon dosing is mostly to bring down nitrate, but it will grab some phosphate as stuff grows, to a lesser degree. You cannot really lower either without the other. Your levels are fine. If this is because of the carbon dosing, then the might rise when you lower or quit... but the tank might be capable on it's own.

FWIW - your levels are higher than mine and all of my stuff is super colorful. Remember that throughput of building blocks is more important than residual test levels - a tank that feeds 10 cubes of food a day with heavy export with N of .1 and P of .01 has plenty of building blocks for stuff to grow. Chasing numbers on a test kit can be a fools errand.

 

[Mattrg02]

I’ve got colorful acros and run 8-9ppm nitrates and 0.08ppm phosphate. I don’t do any carbon dosing, I do run a skimmer. I’d cut out the carbon dosing.

You need to make sure you have enough PAR. Your lights could be lacking.

 

[Fadedsquirrel7]

Take carbon dosing completely offline. Water change about every 6wks. How deep is your tank and what lights do you run?

 

[Velcro]

His phosphates are just fine. How many more years do we need for the phosphate conspiracy to go away...

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

His phosphates are just fine. How many more years do we need for the phosphate conspiracy to go away...

it will go away as soon as people stop saying garlic can cure ich.

 

[jda]

It will go away when people apply start to understand two things... First, phosphate is NOT a nutrient, it is a building block... true nutrients come from sugars created by zoox for the coral, or if a coral can catch food that has carbon in it. Second, when availability is a focus and not a number on a test kit - higher residual levels of building blocks do indeed inhibit calcification and zoox production, and in some cases create more zoox.

People just look at a test kit because it is easy to understand. Having some of the building blocks, but not too many, is where the prize is for optimum calcification and health for the masses - you do see some cases on the extreme either end. Throughput with heavy import and export is more important than a number on a test kit.