Need an SPS Pep Talk

[Live Water]

Never a stupid question on Reef to Reef. Yeah you can just rinse it with RO water a lot of times I rinse it with tap water because carbon neutralizes chlorine anyway, I've never use this sulfur the method as a way to reduce nitrates keep me posted on how that works out I'm curious!

A lot of times 20ppm works as long as it's consistent, a slightly dirty tank can make the sps brighten up, but I have so much macro in my system that mine stays around 5ppm

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

here's an out of the box story. Im having amazing success with my sps, acro in particular. I am running a 30 cube small hob fuge in tank tunze 9001 skimmer. bag of carbon that is it.
my work sched has been stupid. my params and nutrients are pretty high, havent tested in weeks. I hope to today. My A B alk dosing has lazy and i know its low purely based on high growth of coral and corraline looks.
Water changes have been consistent 30% every 2 weeks.temp consistent. salinity consistent. flow is med high at the top of tank. almost low at at the bottom in spots but consistent and def there.

Light is SB reef light (third light on this tank in 8 mos) Light is at 15k and 40,000 lux at the top of the tank.($15 red lux meter from amazon)

My theory why. Stability. Enough light to allow allow the corals to freely pull nutrients(po No) from the water colum while they Photosynthesise. so even thought the numbers may be high I am not getting browning.

water changes with water of an equal or relatively benign ALK. No hot rod water. Nsw, Coral Blue bucket, I/O

No GFO. Gfo strips the wc of Po the corals actually use. It should be used in limiteds amount to control "excess"

I have a long photo period but a short full intensity(10 hrs). Long blue ramp in the am and at night. This provides plenty of "blue", but gives the full power of the light too. Its based on a normal summer day.

Use of a lux meter. By using it there is no guessing how much light I have. Yes I have to do some math to estimate par, but Imo Ime most folks overthink that any way.
Yup I still have guess work as some corals I had to move to mty bluer(19k) tank where they did much better.
42000 lux at the top of the tank = approx 700 to 800 par. Ish

My Salt water is natural seawater so I have lots of available good bacteria. Many report similar results dosing Microbator Mb7.

No HITS. Hand in tank Syndrome.:D I have been sadly moroseing my lack of maint, but really Ive done well and have just let it do its thing. Insane work sched = forced Patience.

Understand Please Im not bragging, I just stumbled onto a balance by accident, you might find useful.

 

[justonwo]

Never a stupid question on Reef to Reef. Yeah you can just rinse it with RO water a lot of times I rinse it with tap water because carbon neutralizes chlorine anyway, I've never use this sulfur the method as a way to reduce nitrates keep me posted on how that works out I'm curious!

I will definitely keep you posted.

 

[justonwo]

here's an out of the box story. Im having amazing success with my sps, acro in particular. I am running a 30 cube small hob fuge in tank tunze 9001 skimmer. bag of carbon that is it.
my work sched has been stupid. my params and nutrients are pretty high, havent tested in weeks. I hope to today. My A B alk dosing has lazy and i know its low purely based on high growth of coral and corraline looks.
Water changes have been consistent 30% every 2 weeks.temp consistent. salinity consistent. flow is med high at the top of tank. almost low at at the bottom in spots but consistent and def there.

Light is SB reef light (third light on this tank in 8 mos) Light is at 15k and 40,000 lux at the top of the tank.($15 red lux meter from amazon)

My theory why. Stability. Enough light to allow allow the corals to freely pull nutrients(po No) from the water colum while they Photosynthesise. so even thought the numbers may be high I am not getting browning.

water changes with water of an equal or relatively benign ALK. No hot rod water. Nsw, Coral Blue bucket, I/O

No GFO. Gfo strips the wc of Po the corals actually use. It should be used in limiteds amount to control "excess"

I have a long photo period but a short full intensity(10 hrs). Long blue ramp in the am and at night. This provides plenty of "blue", but gives the full power of the light too. Its based on a normal summer day.

Use of a lux meter. By using it there is no guessing how much light I have. Yes I have to do some math to estimate par, but Imo Ime most folks overthink that any way.
Yup I still have guess work as some corals I had to move to mty bluer(19k) tank where they did much better.
42000 lux at the top of the tank = approx 700 to 800 par. Ish

My Salt water is natural seawater so I have lots of available good bacteria. Many report similar results dosing Microbator Mb7.

No HITS. Hand in tank Syndrome.:D I have been sadly moroseing my lack of maint, but really Ive done well and have just let it do its thing. Insane work sched = forced Patience.

Understand Please Im not bragging, I just stumbled onto a balance by accident, you might find useful.

Didn't think you were bragging at all. Thank you for the full rundown. I think my next step is to use some carbon and try the denitrator. I don't want to change too many things. If the coral don't start to thrive, I'll look at PAR and other variables relating to lighting.

By the way, I don't believe the GFO is much of an issue. I've never been able to get phosphate below 0.02 ppm, which I think is plenty for the coral. I don't think it can strip all the phosphate - at least I haven't seen that.

Thank you for sharing your experience and insight. Much appreciated.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Didn't think you were bragging at all. Thank you for the full rundown. I think my next step is to use some carbon and try the denitrator. I don't want to change too many things. If the coral don't start to thrive, I'll look at PAR and other variables relating to lighting.

By the way, I don't believe the GFO is much of an issue. I've never been able to get phosphate below 0.02 ppm, which I think is plenty for the coral. I don't think it can strip all the phosphate - at least I haven't seen that.

Thank you for sharing your experience and insight. Much appreciated.

yup, glad I could share. What im finding is the low po and no is a bit of a myth. If the corals are using up the nutrients correctly is lowers then in the tank by using them.
Gfo itsn stripping all the phosphate when correctly used but it does pull it from the WC, the same place the corals are trying to get it.
I highly encourage the lux meter route as its non invasive and isnt a change to the system. Its just a parameter check and at $15 its cheaper than a Hanna and takes about 30 sec. And a we are talking about an animal that needs light to flourish and live so Id check that first. If the corals are using up the nutrients correctly is lowers then by using them and it needs the correct light to to so.

 

[justonwo]

yup, glad I could share. What im finding is the low po and no is a bit of a myth. If the corals are using up the nutrients correctly is lowers then in the tank by using them.
Gfo itsn stripping all the phosphate when correctly used but it does pull it from the WC, the same place the corals are trying to get it.
I highly encourage the lux meter route as its non invasive and isnt a change to the system. Its just a parameter check and at $15 its cheaper than a Hanna and takes about 30 sec. And a we are talking about an animal that needs light to flourish and live so Id check that first. If the corals are using up the nutrients correctly is lowers then by using them and it needs the correct light to to so.

Do you have some tips on how to use the lux meter to figure out where I need to be? I haven't used one before.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lighting-upgrade-with-a-lux-meter-saltyfilmfolks.248417/
its pretty easy. you turn it on and hold it under the light.
90 Gallon? is it a 24in deep tank. I would look at 35000 to 45,000 lux. min to start based on what I see for livestock. Measured at the top of the tank like in the link..

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I think my last note would be, like asked before, is flow. The fuzzy guys at the top of the tank the PE should be moving.

 

[maroun.c]

Believe your corals are healthy and colors are good and that's a good start. Give them time to get established and encrusted and ull start seeing growth. U can add a bit of light intensity or time while keeping a close watch on how corals react. Making sure parameters are stablebis key. Make sure to post pics in 3 months as many times our eyes can't detect growth as good as pics do.

 

[justonwo]

A lot of times 20ppm works as long as it's consistent, a slightly dirty tank can make the sps brighten up, but I have so much macro in my system that mine stays around 5ppm

Yeah, I've had OK luck at 20 ppm, but my gut is that growth would be much higher if I were at 5 or less. As it stands, things always seem so tenuous for these corals. I think that nitrate may be partly, if not mostly, responsible.

Believe your corals are healthy and colors are good and that's a good start. Give them time to get established and encrusted and ull start seeing growth. U can add a bit of light intensity or time while keeping a close watch on how corals react. Making sure parameters are stablebis key. Make sure to post pics in 3 months as many times our eyes can't detect growth as good as pics do.

Yep, these pictures are a little outdated, though. Most of those corals have some skeleton exposure at this point, probably a result of my recent move as well as some insanely high phosphate and nitrate values after the move. I will definitely post pictures as things move along.

P.S. I did drop a media bag of carbon into the tank last night. I don't really see any downside . . . I used about 1 cup for my estimated 80 gallons of total water volume. Is that about right?

 

[Live Water]

Yeah, I've had OK luck at 20 ppm, but my gut is that growth would be much higher if I were at 5 or less. As it stands, things always seem so tenuous for these corals. I think that nitrate may be partly, if not mostly, responsible.



Yep, these pictures are a little outdated, though. Most of those corals have some skeleton exposure at this point, probably a result of my recent move as well as some insanely high phosphate and nitrate values after the move. I will definitely post pictures as things move along.

P.S. I did drop a media bag of carbon into the tank last night. I don't really see any downside . . . I used about 1 cup for my estimated 80 gallons of total water volume. Is that about right?

It really depends on the type of charcoal but it's kind of hard to over or under dosage unless you go extreme with it, sounds like it's not quite enough I would have probably gone with about a cup and a half but all that means is you're going to have to change it out faster probably in 3 weeks.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yeah, I've had OK luck at 20 ppm, but my gut is that growth would be much higher if I were at 5 or less. As it stands, things always seem so tenuous for these corals. I think that nitrate may be partly, if not mostly, responsible.

Common wisdom would say yea, but after a damsel trashed my 18 month old dsb and the skimmer died while I was out of town. I have to disagree with you now. My sps exploded with growth. At the same time I had upgraded lights in the fuge and in the dt. I had stumbled(crashed:eek:) into an accidental balance. It was a slow stable increase in nutrients and with lighting the corals were able to correctly use the available nutrients.

 

[Live Water]

Yeah, I've had OK luck at 20 ppm, but my gut is that growth would be much higher if I were at 5 or less. As it stands, things always seem so tenuous for these corals. I think that nitrate may be partly, if not mostly, responsible.



Yep, these pictures are a little outdated, though. Most of those corals have some skeleton exposure at this point, probably a result of my recent move as well as some insanely high phosphate and nitrate values after the move. I will definitely post pictures as things move along.

P.S. I did drop a media bag of carbon into the tank last night. I don't really see any downside . . . I used about 1 cup for my estimated 80 gallons of total water volume. Is that about right?

I've got about 25 reefs only two of them don't have skimmers but I could probably get away with a couple more without them if I wanted to but I gotta tell you the most successful acropora I've ever grown used a combination of ozone, a calcium reactor and fuge, I've literally had some acropora go from 5 polyps up 50 plus colonies in just a matter of months, the extension of polyps with ozone is insane they almost want to grab your finger when you stick your hand in the tank LOL

 

[Live Water]

Yeah, I've had OK luck at 20 ppm, but my gut is that growth would be much higher if I were at 5 or less. As it stands, things always seem so tenuous for these corals. I think that nitrate may be partly, if not mostly, responsible.



Yep, these pictures are a little outdated, though. Most of those corals have some skeleton exposure at this point, probably a result of my recent move as well as some insanely high phosphate and nitrate values after the move. I will definitely post pictures as things move along.

P.S. I did drop a media bag of carbon into the tank last night. I don't really see any downside . . . I used about 1 cup for my estimated 80 gallons of total water volume. Is that about right?

 

[justonwo]

I don't have room in my setup for a refugium. There is very little space.

I'm curious about the calcium reactor. I assume it replaces the 2 part doser? Is the added benefit that it supplies trace elements as well?

 

[Live Water]

I don't have room in my setup for a refugium. There is very little space.

I'm curious about the calcium reactor. I assume it replaces the 2 part doser? Is the added benefit that it supplies trace elements as well?

Yes it dissolves crushed Coral using co2 to lower the ph inside the reactor to below 6.4 then slowly drips it back into the tank, my 180 that I'm building right now I'm installing a refugium on the top of the tank which is the ideal way to do it that way it overflows back into the aquarium and doesn't have to pass through a pump allowing the pods and Plankton and other organisms to survive right into the fish's mouth LOL

 

[Live Water]

Yes it dissolves crushed Coral using co2 to lower the ph inside the reactor to below 6.4 then slowly drips it back into the tank, my 180 that I'm building right now I'm installing a refugium on the top of the tank which is the ideal way to do it that way it overflows back into the aquarium and doesn't have to pass through a pump allowing the pods and Plankton and other organisms to survive right into the fish's mouth LOL

It has basically eliminated water changes for me I typically only do a water change once every couple of months or whenever I feel like it needs new salt. I'm not 100% on this but I believe that it replaces all Trace Element Dallas it's very expensive and you're probably going to spend about a thousand bucks on it but in the long run it's much cheaper because you only have to replace the media once every 6 months 4 year and it's only about 20 bucks, that in combination with using way less salt has made it pay for itself 10x over, all I dose now is iodine and amino acids.

 

[justonwo]

Yeah, I'll have to put something like this on the menu for down the road. I don't want to make too many changes at once. Thank you for all the advice and insight.