Bryan's SPS. / sticks experiment

[BryanM]

So looking for info from the hive mind. I bought 4 different sps for my mixed reef... None were expensive, and I wanted to try and assess how things went. two of them seem okay, two of them seem suspect. This is two weeks in.

 

[Yazannreef]

Yeah you have some slow tissue necrosis going on. How long has you had the tank for?

It mainly happens on non established tanks ehre sps.dont do well

 

[BryanM]

tank is 1.5 years old at this point

 

[Yazannreef]

I see. Technically it should be ok with starter easy sps.

Do you check you parameter?
Mainly salinity/Alkalinity?

 

[Yazannreef]

I just checked your previous posts. From what gathered your issue is too high of calcium level 500+ is way too much. Everything else seems ok.

Do uou do water changes at all and if yes how often and are you using RODI water.

Most of the tank that can't keep sps id the source water almost everytime

 

[Yazannreef]

I can give you some established rocks to seed your tank if you want. My tank is very established and im sure that will help with your biom. Im at 94505 if you want to make the trip.

 

[exnisstech]

IME a large mixed reef is tough. I tried in my 180

With the exception of one acro monticaps are the only SPS i could keep. All the easy beginner pieces failed. I moved to the new tank and still can only keep monticaps.

Thie is the only acro to grow. This one grew from a frag on a plug

But it died after I moved it.

Were you able to keep sticks in your previous tank?
Sometimes I think its easiest to focus on what does do well and move on but that's me. Maybe start another tank?
I started the reefer 300 because I wanted to have a go at acros.

 

[BryanM]

I just checked your previous posts. From what gathered your issue is too high of calcium level 500+ is way too much. Everything else seems ok.

Do uou do water changes at all and if yes how often and are you using RODI water.

Most of the tank that can't keep sps id the source water almost everytime

I dose trace, don't do water changes, and use RODI water, and change filters/etc when the TDS there gets to 1, maybe 2 if I'm not paying attention.

35 salinity and 9 dKH.

 

[Yazannreef]

I dose trace, don't do water changes, and use RODI water, and change filters/etc when the TDS there gets to 1, maybe 2 if I'm not paying attention.

35 salinity and 9 dKH.

If you want my advise. Quit dosing all the trace elements and go back to doing weekly water changes.

You want to dose trace when your system is 99% perfect and you are looking for that 1% improvment in color and growth.

10 to 20% water changes or an automatic daily water changer will turn your tank around.

 

[Jimbo327]

If you are not doing water changes, are you sending in ICP?

 

[allof fish]

I’m going to wither out my water changes from every 2 weeks to every 1-2 months. I’m going to start adding tm an and k to my 2 part for trace elements and run carbon when needed. Also going to start sending a icp test every month or 2 to see where I’m at. I got my first acro frags a month ago so far so good except 1 unfortunately bleached out the other day, not sure why. But added some new ones last week and just waiting on where to put them

 

[BryanM]

If you are not doing water changes, are you sending in ICP?

Correct, about quarterly.

 

[Mongo1.0]

I wouldn't toss the coral though. I have had a couple of coral come back when I thought they were dead. My green plate fungia turned completely white and then gradually darkened. Months later a few small ones started growing out of it.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Without ICP's at LEAST monthly, not doing WC's and keeping acros is going to be tough to do. I'm often amazed at the sheer amount of traces I have to replenish in my 75g SPS tank both daily and monthly.

Looking at your live rock, what are your nutrient levels? For the tank being 1.5 years old, the LR looks very devoid of coraline or much algae. Do you dose any kind of supplemental bacteria?

If you are dead set on no WC's, take a look at Reef Moonshiners. I haven't done a WC in over a year and swear by RMS now. I have a full tank of acros growing like weeds, some of them high-end fussy, and very rarely have any type of RTN/STN events now. It's somewhat up-front costly, but the results in my mind are REALLY worth it, especially with trying to keep acros.

My 2cents.

 

[allof fish]

Without ICP's at LEAST monthly, not doing WC's and keeping acros is going to be tough to do. I'm often amazed at the sheer amount of traces I have to replenish in my 75g SPS tank both daily and monthly.

Looking at your live rock, what are your nutrient levels? For the tank being 1.5 years old, the LR looks very devoid of coraline or much algae. Do you dose any kind of supplemental bacteria?

If you are dead set on no WC's, take a look at Reef Moonshiners. I haven't done a WC in over a year and swear by RMS now. I have a full tank of acros growing like weeds, some of them high-end fussy, and very rarely have any type of RTN/STN events now. It's somewhat up-front costly, but the results in my mind are REALLY worth it, especially with trying to keep acros.

My 2cents.

Good info. I’m getting into more sps and acros recently. Normally I do a wc every 2 weeks but with how low my nutrients have been going to wither them out to every 1-2 months. Going to start adding tm an and k trace to 2 part to help supplement traces. I use tmp salt so to me basically adds same elements. I just don’t want to lower my nutrients anymore. Nitrates consistently <8 and phos <.07. Also going to start doing icp test every month or 2 minimum to make sure im dialed in. Once I get everything dialed in will hopefully be able to slowly get into high end Acros.

 

[skey44]

Your rocks look very new to be a 1.5 year old reef, almost like an ugly stage new with diatoms or some other slime algae. I’d suggest water changes until you get the SPS going good and then cutting back and going to element dosing after you have success. I can go 3-4 weeks without a water change but all the corals still always look better afterwards. I typically do 12% when i do them, I used to do regular weekly but now more like every other week. I don’t do ICP and am having good Acropora success with a very simple regimen.
Flow and lighting are most important. Can we see an FTS. That sometimes reveals an overall picture that can be helpful to understand the issue you’re facing.
I can tell by the appearance of your frags and the rock that something is off for spa success. Likely a big thing and not a trace element deficiency or other minutia
Lighting, flow, chemistry stability, and water changes are important. Also confirmation of no pest but this just looks like dieback from inadequate conditions to me.
Good luck! I feel like once I understood the requirements for SPS they are quite easy really. Still learning everyday looking for better color and faster growth. But keeping them alive isn’t that difficult once you get the basics. At least the basic beginner ones, not talking about speciosa or gemniferra here. Good luck on figuring it out. Most of these frags look like they can be saved to me!

 

[skey44]

Good info. I’m getting into more sps and acros recently. Normally I do a wc every 2 weeks but with how low my nutrients have been going to wither them out to every 1-2 months. Going to start adding tm an and k trace to 2 part to help supplement traces. I use tmp salt so to me basically adds same elements. I just don’t want to lower my nutrients anymore. Nitrates consistently <8 and phos <.07. Also going to start doing icp test every month or 2 minimum to make sure im dialed in. Once I get everything dialed in will hopefully be able to slowly get into high end Acros.

Add fish and corals and feed them. I think this is the best way to increase your numbers naturally. I’m still having to add nitrate despite adding ridiculous amounts of coral and fish food tot he tank daily.
Don’t skimp on water changes. Also those levels aren’t that low. They’re a little low but I’ve ran with less than 1 nitrate and 0.06 phosphate in the past. Corals were getting pale, and LPs were more often retracted than ideal, but they all survived.
I’ve been thinking of fish and coral food as organic/natural farming and adding po4 and no3 as commercial farming. I’m doing both and trying to balance the inputs. Think coral and fish food is best, but sometimes you just gotta add the chemicals.

 

[BryanM]

Without ICP's at LEAST monthly, not doing WC's and keeping acros is going to be tough to do. I'm often amazed at the sheer amount of traces I have to replenish in my 75g SPS tank both daily and monthly.

Looking at your live rock, what are your nutrient levels? For the tank being 1.5 years old, the LR looks very devoid of coraline or much algae. Do you dose any kind of supplemental bacteria?

If you are dead set on no WC's, take a look at Reef Moonshiners. I haven't done a WC in over a year and swear by RMS now. I have a full tank of acros growing like weeds, some of them high-end fussy, and very rarely have any type of RTN/STN events now. It's somewhat up-front costly, but the results in my mind are REALLY worth it, especially with trying to keep acros.

My 2cents.

If you look at the rock lower in the tank it is what you want to see.

The rock that is higher is new, and i'm not sure why its that white considering it was supposed to have been in an established tank.

And I am almost certainly going to go to reef moonshiners. I've been dosing AFR pretty much since the beginning, but calcium has crept up to 560ish. So stopped dosing that, getting another ICP done, and likely will start with moonshiners then.

 

[skey44]

I’ve had great success so far with afr on a heavy SPS system with significant growth and good color. I run my dKH about 8 and consistently getting 410-430 Ca and 1280-1380 mag. I do run 12pct water changes at least monthly or more. I do have to add some mag from time to time but I can’t make your Ca number make sense in my head. I really don’t think you need more nuanced dosing or more ICP for better success. You’re missing something basic, not nuanced. There’s a bigger issue than trace element dosing here.

Looking at your build thread it seems like you recently added new LR from an old system and upgraded lights. This could definitely affect the stability of your system/biome.
Your lights are top end now with the meridians, have you measured par? You might be blasting them with too much light.
Also the biggest two things I see missing that are present in almost every successful SPS system is a large efficient skimmer and water changes. I know it’s possible to do without these things but my guess is if you did water changes and added a big aggressive skimmer you’d have more sps success. Think the algae scrubber as only export/
no water change philosophy is an election to go the hard way for SPS.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

I don't think it's necessarily THAT hard to not do WC's and have a successful SPS system. Caveat though is that you are constantly adding trace/corrections that would normally be taken care of with water changes. If you aren't going to 100% commit to that, absolutely go with the bi-weekly or so water changes. Don't change too much though at any one time - that can be more detrimental than good.

Agreed on the large, oversized skimmer. That's a big portion as well as proper flow and lighting.