My Battle With Acropora Color and Nutrients.

[J. Austin]

So I've never had issues with keeping acroporas colored up and healthy, but a few weeks ago a good friend of mine told me my corals were lighter than normal. Most of you would agree that because we see our corals every day, it's hard to notice subtle changes, but friends who only see the tank weekly see that things have changed. I looked back at some photos I had taken and sure enough he was right. I test water parameters often, but only Alk and Cal. Mag, PO4 and Nitrates get tested monthly. I went ahead and tested those and my Phosphate was 0.0 on Hannah and Nitrates were 0 on Salifert.

I had discovered why my colors were so much lighter. Well I kicked into feed mode and began feeding the fish a bit more and adding various coral foods a couple times a week. That was 3 weeks ago and i'm happy to report acro colors are back!

There's a but......I have green cyno now .

In all my years of keeping an acropora dominated reef, I've never dealt with green cyno. I almost rather have red cyno, lol. So now I will start sucking it out and scrubbing/basting it off my rocks daily until it's gone.

I know there's a trade off between keeping nutrients elevated for coral health and color and keeping algae at bay. What do you guys do to maintain this balance?

 

[BoomCorals]

What are you using for nutrient export? And yea, dosing nitrate or phosphate is better than overfeeding as that will often cause unwanted issues.

 

[Eastlake]

If space and compatibility allows you could always add another fish or two to help keep those levels up.

 

[J. Austin]

What are you using for nutrient export? And yea, dosing nitrate or phosphate is better than overfeeding as that will often cause unwanted issues.

Export is handled by a full chamber of carbon changed every two weeks and a SRO XP3000 External skimmer. Water changes are 35g every two weeks. I guess I should update my signature with tank info.

My bioload isn't crazy for 210g:

6 Anthias
2 Wrasses
1 Naso
1 Flame Hawk

 

[BoomCorals]

Export is handled by a full chamber of carbon changed every two weeks and a SRO XP3000 External skimmer. Water changes are 35g every two weeks. I guess I should update my signature with tank info.

My bioload isn't crazy for 210g:

6 Anthias
2 Wrasses
1 Naso
1 Flame Hawk

Carbon and skimmer wouldn’t be nutrient export though. Are you dosing vodka or vinegar or nopox etc?

 

[J. Austin]

I agree that carbon might not be classified as a means of nutrient export, but rather more of a water polisher. I will have to disagree with you on skimming. Next to water changes skimming is a huge means of nutrient export. I also run filter socks for mechanical filtration. I used to dose vodka, but backed off when my corals became lighter in color. At the moment I'm dosing 2ml of vodka a day. I was dosing 7ml a day when my nutrients were low.

Thanks for your feedback.

Would you recommend slowly increasing vodka dosing?

Do you think that will help combat the green cyno?

 

[BoomCorals]

Skimming removes solids before they become nitrate or phosphate so I guess yea haha.

I would actually try to eliminate vodka dosing. If you use natural means of export, you’ll never get to zero nitrate phosphate.

 

[Robsk]

Export is handled by a full chamber of carbon changed every two weeks and a SRO XP3000 External skimmer. Water changes are 35g every two weeks. I guess I should update my signature with tank info.

My bioload isn't crazy for 210g:

6 Anthias
2 Wrasses
1 Naso
1 Flame Hawk

I would add nutrients the fun way in that 210...add some more fish!

 

[x2uranium]

Fish and feed the heck out of them