Help me figure out how to keep acros fast

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Alright, alright. I went a bit overzealous in the coral sales(All frags for $5 CAD... absolute steal) today and got a little acro frag. However, I'm not very good at keeping my alk stable(roughly .1 - .3ppm change daily both up and down, and I haven't figured out how much dosing I need to compensate) and my mag is pretty low(Around 1100ppm, still waiting on the milk jug to empty). What should I be doing to maximize the survival chance of this chunk of acro? Do I test daily and dose accordingly? Do I let the parameters drop? My nutrients are undetectable right now due to low feeding and powerful filtration, should I feed?

I'm not expecting it to live long, but I also don't want to waste my five bucks. Eventually I want to move it to my sump to grow out as food for corallivorous animals when it reaches a sufficient size.

 

[Kasrift]

Alright, alright. I went a bit overzealous in the coral sales(All frags for $5 CAD... absolute steal) today and got a little acro frag. However, I'm not very good at keeping my alk stable(roughly .1 - .3ppm change daily both up and down, and I haven't figured out how much dosing I need to compensate) and my mag is pretty low(Around 1100ppm, still waiting on the milk jug to empty). What should I be doing to maximize the survival chance of this chunk of acro? Do I test daily and dose accordingly? Do I let the parameters drop? My nutrients are undetectable right now due to low feeding and powerful filtration, should I feed?

I'm not expecting it to live long, but I also don't want to waste my five bucks. Eventually I want to move it to my sump to grow out as food for corallivorous animals when it reaches a sufficient size.

Starting in reverse, it won’t grow fast enough for corallivores or survive in a sump unless you have good lighting and a powerhead.

.1-.3 am swing isn’t bad, that is within the margin of error for test kits anyways. Mine swings that much, I have a kamoer doser and just split my All For Reef dosing across 24 doses but all consumption at night is less, so if I test at 8 am it will be higher than if I tested at 8pm by about a .3 swing. I could correct but it is easier and as long as I’m consistent at the time I take measurements, then I’m find. I test alk daily at 8:30pm.

Raise your mag. That you can raise with out too much repercussions, but watch your calcium too. What are you dosing and is it all manual?

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Starting in reverse, it won’t grow fast enough for corallivores or survive in a sump unless you have good lighting and a powerhead.

.1-.3 am swing isn’t bad, that is within the margin of error for test kits anyways. Mine swings that much, I have a kamoer doser and just split my All For Reef dosing across 24 doses but all consumption at night is less, so if I test at 8 am it will be higher than if I tested at 8pm by about a .3 swing. I could correct but it is easier and as long as I’m consistent at the time I take measurements, then I’m find. I test alk daily at 8:30pm.

Raise your mag. That you can raise with out too much repercussions, but watch your calcium too. What are you dosing and is it all manual?

I paused dosing temporarily to figure out how much I really need to dose, but it used to be 40ml of Dr. Holmes - Farley's calcium 1 and 80ml of alkalinity 1 daily. Sitting at roughly 420 Ca right now and around 8.something alk. Can't raise my Mg yet unfortunately because I'm waiting on a gallon milk jug to empty out.

and yeah, it's all manual. I'm using a graduated turkey baster until I can free up a graduated cylinder.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

So uhh, it's probably not gonna make it since I crushed most of the polyps when trying to mount it. Corals are way too easy to break.

 

[Pistondog]

You need to raise nutrients for long term success. Nitrate detectable, > 2ppm, and phosphate > 0.08ppm. Try a green slimer when mag is higher.and coralline is present.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

You need to raise nutrients for long term success. Nitrate detectable, > 2ppm, and phosphate > 0.08ppm. Try a green slimer when mag is higher.and coralline is present.

Nitrates are currently at 5ppm and stable. Getting more fish to fertilize the corals this sunday(Hopefully I can convince them to give me the moray for a hundred bucks ;p).

I haven't figured out how to raise phosphate yet. Coralline is present in parts of the rocks I did not flip over during renovation.

 

[Pistondog]

Reef roids are mostly phosphate. Feeding them 2x per week should do it.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Reef roids are mostly phosphate. Feeding them 2x per week should do it.

That stuff is god danged expensive... I'd rather figure out what I can react to produce phosphates.

 

[Pistondog]

Diy is cheapest
Thread 'DIY vs NeoPhos' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-vs-neophos.997388/

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Diy is cheapest
Thread 'DIY vs NeoPhos' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-vs-neophos.997388/

yeah, still trying to figure out what phosphate compound I can get my hands on here. Chemical availability in the states is fairly different to availability in Canada, although I can usually bring things over the boarder.

 

[Dburr1014]

Alright, alright. I went a bit overzealous in the coral sales(All frags for $5 CAD... absolute steal) today and got a little acro frag. However, I'm not very good at keeping my alk stable(roughly .1 - .3ppm change daily both up and down, and I haven't figured out how much dosing I need to compensate) and my mag is pretty low(Around 1100ppm, still waiting on the milk jug to empty). What should I be doing to maximize the survival chance of this chunk of acro? Do I test daily and dose accordingly? Do I let the parameters drop? My nutrients are undetectable right now due to low feeding and powerful filtration, should I feed?

I'm not expecting it to live long, but I also don't want to waste my five bucks. Eventually I want to move it to my sump to grow out as food for corallivorous animals when it reaches a sufficient size.

Raising your mag now will help in stability of your alk.
Dump some in, don't drip, wait an hour and check. Adjust your dose and get it up to minimum 1350. Do that today.

Feed heavy the next few days.

How big is your system?
Stock list?

 

[Dburr1014]

Nitrates are currently at 5ppm and stable. Getting more fish to fertilize the corals this sunday(Hopefully I can convince them to give me the moray for a hundred bucks ;p).

I haven't figured out how to raise phosphate yet. Coralline is present in parts of the rocks I did not flip over during renovation.

It's better to have detectable phosphate and zero nitrate than detectable nitrate and zero phosphate. Just feed more. Or as said, dose a phosphate.

 

[Pod_01]

Getting more fish to fertilize the corals this sunday(Hopefully I can convince them to give me the moray for a hundred bucks ;p).

So I am assuming that is Moray eel and,

That stuff is god danged expensive... I'd rather figure out what I can react to produce phosphates.

Just for you:

I don’t believe that is good fit for you.

In your case you should stick with simple fish like some small goby etc….

How is the polyp counting going?

What type of dosing do I need?

I am currently dosing calcium and alk according to this recipe, but I'm not sure what dosing size I need. Right now I dose mixed tank, not bothering to do mag yet because I'm waiting on another gallon milk jug to empty out. I keep a chunk of montipora, two heads of hammer, two Astrea snails and...

www.reef2reef.com

But on a serious note before you decide to get difficult fish and difficult corals you need to get your tank established and sorted out.
Also acros and fast should not be used on the same sentence. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby and the animals should not suffer due to reefers lack of patience. It is your tank but the critters didn’t exactly volunteer to go in the tank.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Raising your mag now will help in stability of your alk.
Dump some in, don't drip, wait an hour and check. Adjust your dose and get it up to minimum 1350. Do that today.

Feed heavy the next few days.

How big is your system?
Stock list?

Guess I shouldn't have made my post right before I went to bed...
80 gal mixed reef, 1 engineer goby, 2 astrea snails, 1 strawberry conch, 2 tuxy urchins and 1 Dascyllus melanurus.
I'll dose up on Mg when I get home today.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

It's better to have detectable phosphate and zero nitrate than detectable nitrate and zero phosphate. Just feed more. Or as said, dose a phosphate.

I'm getting some macros on saturday and there's also a little fragment of fragilaria that I want to keep alive, that's why I don't worry about nitrates as much.
(Also, .5ppm and .2ppm on the salifert looks exactly the same to me...)

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

So I am assuming that is Moray eel and,




Just for you:

I don’t believe that is good fit for you.

In your case you should stick with simple fish like some small goby etc….

Nope, just general purpose aquarium fish. A butterfly for the aips(if I can get one that won't eat corals, that is), hawkfish, wrasse, all that jazz et al. Also, I question why morays are suggested as a species - only species, as they are not territorial in the wild and at least three commonly kept species are adapted to feed on crustaceans instead of fish.

How is the polyp counting going?

What type of dosing do I need?

I am currently dosing calcium and alk according to this recipe, but I'm not sure what dosing size I need. Right now I dose mixed tank, not bothering to do mag yet because I'm waiting on another gallon milk jug to empty out. I keep a chunk of montipora, two heads of hammer, two Astrea snails and...

www.reef2reef.com

One of the contenders for what I want to do for science fair this year. It'll probably euphyllid - centric since those are the easiest single - polyp frags to get from colonial stony corals here

But on a serious note before you decide to get difficult fish and difficult corals you need to get your tank established and sorted out.
Also acros and fast should not be used on the same sentence. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby and the animals should not suffer due to reefers lack of patience. It is your tank but the critters didn’t exactly volunteer to go in the tank.

The tank is three years old and I've kept sps with success before. Tank age and ecosystem establishment should no longer be a question.

 

[stephj03]

As others have said, you don't have to wait until the end of Alk/Ca bottles to dose Mg.

I would consider dosing in small amounts over time as a good SPS keeping habit.

What other LPS/SPS do you have right now that account for your Alk consumption? How are they doing?

If you have coralline algae growth you are at the very least close to a good spot for acros.

You're going to get a lot of advice about dosing nutrients and the big 3, but I would honestly change nothing and see what happens first.

Your instinct to test often is wise. I would test every day for a WK and see if you can establish whether or not you actually need to dose alk.

Allow the coral to tell you if nutrient levels are good or bad. If the frag goes pale, add 1 more feeding/Dy of your normal fish food and amount.

 

[stephj03]

Just saw the monti and hammer. If the monti is colored up and growing well with polyps put, add the acro and change nothing if your Alk swing is about .3 IMO.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

As others have said, you don't have to wait until the end of Alk/Ca bottles to dose Mg.

I would consider dosing in small amounts over time as a good SPS keeping habit.

What other LPS/SPS do you have right now that account for your Alk consumption? How are they doing?

If you have coralline algae growth you are at the very least close to a good spot for acros.

You're going to get a lot of advice about dosing nutrients and the big 3, but I would honestly change nothing and see what happens first.

Your instinct to test often is wise. I would test every day for a WK and see if you can establish whether or not you actually need to dose alk.

Allow the coral to tell you if nutrient levels are good or bad. If the frag goes pale, add 1 more feeding/Dy of your normal fish food and amount.

Oh no, I meant I'm waiting for my family to finish drinking a milk jug. It'll probably be empty this weekend anyways.
A bunch of hammers and candycanes, pocillopora, montipora, a huge echinophora chalice and a duncanopsamia. Pocil's doing fine but I'm not certain of the monti's status, although I did just move it last weekend.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Just saw the monti and hammer. If the monti is colored up and growing well with polyps put, add the acro and change nothing if your Alk swing is about .3 IMO.

It's only coloured up as far as I can tell, but it's a bit hard to see the polyps. The hammers and other lps are doing fine but slightly retracting with the extra flow I added last week.

Both the monti and echinopora are slightly crushed when I tried to putty them onto the rocks sooooo no clue whether I'll need to reglue, treat with medication or replace them. I hope the monti comes out of this fine but I'm not certain how plating corals heal injuries.