Feel like quitting 2 years almost no growth please help sps dominate

Dysto

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Interesting observation. I'm in - I just turned clouds on my Kessil 360x. It really just supplements my T-5s so it'll probably have little effect either way.

I'm happy to try it, but I'm struggling to understand why it should work.
-Does constant light variance excite the SPS to grow toward it at a faster rate?
-Are we just pumping out too much par in general and this helps tamper down the light?
-BRS investigates - does cloud coverage increase growth (at this point, we don't have a large sample size).

Hey Chaswood, wanna switch tanks with me? Haha.
From what I've seen on research about photosynthesis, the chemical process can glitch, using a molecule of O2 instead of CO2. The process works as normal, except instead of O2 as a byproduct, you get reactive Oxygen products, which the organism, plant or coral, has to expend energy to deal with as it builds up. The theory that I've heard is that the more it builds up, the more energy the coral expends just keeping it at bay. By allowing intermittent clouds, or dips in peak lighting, you give the coral a chance to catch up on processing those chemicals out, opening up the metabolic resources to focus on growing when the light ramps up again.

To clarify, because i'm constantly nervous i've not gotten my point across, imagine you're climbing a rope. Hanging on to it, your goal is to climb upwards, but as time goes by, the rope lowers. Every hour of daylight, you're able to climb six feet of rope, representing growth. Every hour the rope lowers by 1 foot, and for every consecutive hour of light, the rope lowers an additional foot, representing the build up of these reactive Oxygen products. Hour 1, you make good headway, a net gain of 5 feet. Hour 2, less distance covered, at a net gain of 4 feet. By hour six, all your effort is going into making sure you're not losing height, which in this case represents coral bleaching.
 

ap7x

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How’s the right side of your rock (the highest points) doing relative to the left side you posted? Similar growth there too?
 

MentalNote

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From what I've seen on research about photosynthesis, the chemical process can glitch, using a molecule of O2 instead of CO2. The process works as normal, except instead of O2 as a byproduct, you get reactive Oxygen products, which the organism, plant or coral, has to expend energy to deal with as it builds up. The theory that I've heard is that the more it builds up, the more energy the coral expends just keeping it at bay. By allowing intermittent clouds, or dips in peak lighting, you give the coral a chance to catch up on processing those chemicals out, opening up the metabolic resources to focus on growing when the light ramps up again.

To clarify, because i'm constantly nervous i've not gotten my point across, imagine you're climbing a rope. Hanging on to it, your goal is to climb upwards, but as time goes by, the rope lowers. Every hour of daylight, you're able to climb six feet of rope, representing growth. Every hour the rope lowers by 1 foot, and for every consecutive hour of light, the rope lowers an additional foot, representing the build up of these reactive Oxygen products. Hour 1, you make good headway, a net gain of 5 feet. Hour 2, less distance covered, at a net gain of 4 feet. By hour six, all your effort is going into making sure you're not losing height, which in this case represents coral bleaching.

Dysto, extremely interesting. Thanks for sharing that info and it was quite clear.

In your research have you seen a recommended time interval - such as a 3 hours ramp up, ramp down cycle? I heard Mike Paletta recently mentioned this interval in an interview with CoralVue.

I ask because while I can add clouds to my leds, it really just supplements my T-5 lighting. Perhaps cycling my banks of 4 bulbs and 2 bulbs for 15 to 20 minute breaks during peak hours?
 

Dysto

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MentalNote, I've not seen any specific numbers, but thats also because everyone's lights are different. More light definitely makes this buildup occur faster, as well as some environmental factors can contribute to a higher flawed photosynthesis rate, though the only one i've concrete evidence is elevated temps. Im pretty sure i've seen a theory floated around about a light cycle where it's 4 hours on, 4 hours off the entire time thats supposed to produce wild growth, ostensibly attaining three days of an otherwise normal tanks growth in a single day. Since that would be a little funky for display tank, I havent seen anyone actually go through with it. It also screws with any fish you might have, as the rapid day/night cycles stress them out pretty bad.
 
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Ryan Mansa

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How’s the right side of your rock (the highest points) doing relative to the left side you posted? Similar growth there too?
Absolutely exploded full colonies on my caps , my torts , garf bonsai , millis have grown and my tri colors tenuis (Walt Disney ) (UC orange creamsicle) have gotten bigger , not exploding but grown , but the regular non baller type acros are double the size or more easily guys it’s too crazy it’s almost funny I can’t believe it
 

HomeSlizzice

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Absolutely exploded full colonies on my caps , my torts , garf bonsai , millis have grown and my tri colors tenuis (Walt Disney ) (UC orange creamsicle) have gotten bigger , not exploding but grown , but the regular non baller type acros are double the size or more easily guys it’s too crazy it’s almost funny I can’t believe it

Awesome to hear! I'm excited to see the growth pictures.
 
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Ryan Mansa

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1st is may 25th next is this am
86E64E26-627A-4A79-B7B6-36666758F563.png
E80CBF3B-5AB3-428C-8E16-AEA0BAE30911.jpeg
 

ap7x

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Indeed, great to hear. Lighting change does seem small (thanks for the schedule pics before btw)... basically only took off 1 hr of white/green/red from LEDs but added 1 hour of T5s lol...(although still net less par, pur pretty same as before...) but as some speculate, if the cloud cover helps with high par tank, maybe that could've been the difference to push your corals towards growth from "stunted but not suffering" mode.

Flow basically went from strong pulses to strong reef crest lol, but maybe that could've been it (or contributed)...

Less sure now what change was the deciding factor (or maybe it was both). You have any thoughts? Either way, looking forward to some colony pics!
 

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So... cloud coverage just lessens the intensity and changes the spectrum? Why not just run that for your schedule then?
 
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Ryan Mansa

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Any shots of growth on your sticks? We’re you having problems growing montis?
Nothing was doing well except the greens birds nest ONLY coral that ever made the “radion hybrid “ growth rate many people where getting that I wasn’t
 
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Ryan Mansa

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Indeed, great to hear. Lighting change does seem small (thanks for the schedule pics before btw)... basically only took off 1 hr of white/green/red from LEDs but added 1 hour of T5s lol...(although still net less par, pur pretty same as before...) but as some speculate, if the cloud cover helps with high par tank, maybe that could've been the difference to push your corals towards growth from "stunted but not suffering" mode.

Flow basically went from strong pulses to strong reef crest lol, but maybe that could've been it (or contributed)...

Less sure now what change was the deciding factor (or maybe it was both). You have any thoughts? Either way, looking forward to some colony pics!
I know I have no clue what really made it happen I literally changed nothing but those two things and your right I actually didn’t change anything in a way just modified the way they where working that’s a real brain buster !!
 
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Ryan Mansa

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So... cloud coverage just lessens the intensity and changes the spectrum? Why not just run that for your schedule then?
I hate the look of dim tanks , If it came down to it I would rather look at a bright tank with stuff small and colorful over a dim lit tank with stuff doing well , it’s just personal preference I’ve been to peoples houses with LEDS on 40 -50 percent and I feel like I need to take my iPhone flash light out to see into them
 

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I tried the cloud function on my fixtures but the color rendition was too freakish for my taste, so I took a look at David Saxby scheme, I adapted it and I have been running it for over an year.

The principle is that the corals probably evolved to make good use of light changes throughout the day. When a cloud passes by, the white glitter lines almost disappear and what's left is the diffuse blue light from the skydome.

This is the reason why I make deeper cuts in the white channel than on the other channels.

Screenshot_20200708-223626_angelLED.jpg
 

Graffiti Spot

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I would love to see any pics. I just don’t see how it’s going to make a dramatic difference like your seeing. Corals that are not growing eventually start to grow even in imperfect situations and I see a lot of people that think this sudden growth is attributed to some tweak they made to their system.
 

stephj03

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I would love to see any pics. I just don’t see how it’s going to make a dramatic difference like your seeing. Corals that are not growing eventually start to grow even in imperfect situations and I see a lot of people that think this sudden growth is attributed to some tweak they made to their system.

I lean this way. The starting point wasn't really a lot of acros that weren't growing, growth was 60ml/dy alk consumption. The tank was on point and plugging along IMO, it just takes a really long time for small frags to grow out.

I think the biggest factor here was time. 1" or less frags encrusted for 1-2yrs and are now big enough for their growth to be noticeable.

It's not reasonable to me to hope for 3yr old tank frag progression in a new tank.
 
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