Let your eyes be the best Judge-SPS GURUS

[merereef]

I'm not a guru, but I'll add something to this thread.

I test alk daily, which literally takes me 20-30 secs; I test alk twice a day if I'm tuning my CaRx for any reason (some people on a different sub forum want to contest the fact it only takes me this "short" of time with a salifert kit). That's the only thing I monitor that closely, daily.

some things take some time to manifest symptoms, and by then it may be too late to correct.
Lighting: for me, using LEDs if I blast them with too much light, it may take some time but things bleach out. Too little, then things grow slowly and may darken up a bit. Too wrong of spectrum and in most cases, I see more greens develop than there should be. N and P levels: too high of N and P then I can see the direct effects in my tank (algae dusting very soon, darkening of some acros, algae growth), too little and I see colors pale out. Regarding flow, I've had to turn it down lately as I've seen some tips of acros become very concave from the flow; they form little spoon like ends, and you can tell when the flesh isn't looking good. If you look at your tank daily, you get a feel for when things are running like a top and not. Not enough, and then things just look stagnant, for me.

I have a pretty large ORA Laura's purple polyp colony TN'ing but it's due to a few things: drop in PAR, increased N (maybe not so much), but the drop in par and the fact it's getting over shadowed by a huge mille colony above it, is causing all the shaded areas to die: it became brown in those areas, then TN'ed. But I didn't knee jerk to go changing everything and sending out ICP cuz I know what the cause is, likely.

I've had a complete crash within a week or so when each piece grey'ed out then all TN'ed that was thru water contamination. I believe most people who really care about acros or SPS are super in tune with their tanks.

Today... i looked at my tank havented tested nitrates in about a month, last time i checked it was on 10. I guessed by looking st my tank that it would be on 5 and after tests it was... im learning to use my eyes to guess things

 

[merereef]

I'm not a guru, but I'll add something to this thread.

I test alk daily, which literally takes me 20-30 secs; I test alk twice a day if I'm tuning my CaRx for any reason (some people on a different sub forum want to contest the fact it only takes me this "short" of time with a salifert kit). That's the only thing I monitor that closely, daily.

some things take some time to manifest symptoms, and by then it may be too late to correct.
Lighting: for me, using LEDs if I blast them with too much light, it may take some time but things bleach out. Too little, then things grow slowly and may darken up a bit. Too wrong of spectrum and in most cases, I see more greens develop than there should be. N and P levels: too high of N and P then I can see the direct effects in my tank (algae dusting very soon, darkening of some acros, algae growth), too little and I see colors pale out. Regarding flow, I've had to turn it down lately as I've seen some tips of acros become very concave from the flow; they form little spoon like ends, and you can tell when the flesh isn't looking good. If you look at your tank daily, you get a feel for when things are running like a top and not. Not enough, and then things just look stagnant, for me.

I have a pretty large ORA Laura's purple polyp colony TN'ing but it's due to a few things: drop in PAR, increased N (maybe not so much), but the drop in par and the fact it's getting over shadowed by a huge mille colony above it, is causing all the shaded areas to die: it became brown in those areas, then TN'ed. But I didn't knee jerk to go changing everything and sending out ICP cuz I know what the cause is, likely.

I've had a complete crash within a week or so when each piece grey'ed out then all TN'ed that was thru water contamination. I believe most people who really care about acros or SPS are super in tune with their tanks.

I just wanted to say thank youuu... the tip you gave me has helped me massively... i watch my tank veey closely through out the day every day and notice little things...

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Awesome thread @merereef !!!

it’s discussions like this that makes this community stand out! I’m new and slowly building up to my reef. Finding information like this really makes me think I may have some idea of what I’m getting into lol.