New to sps.

[GSnake]

I wanted to try my hand at sps, I have a 1 yr old tank with few fishes and good params. Weekly water change, skimmer, aquaclear for carbon and small uv light, hob refugium w chaeto.

I just can't get sps to do well. Lps and softies I have very minimal or no problems. Sps just hasn't been working for me. These pics are from small frags I recently got and a few weeks of polyp extension but slow die off.

The first one has always been there on the rack but has been dieing from bottom. The second I've moved back to the rack after it was in front of my wavemaker flow.

Maybe it was too strong for it's liking or it could have been the addition of filter floss this week to my aquaclear that made things worse.

2nd question .. Can water be too clean?

Any input appreciated! Thanks

 

[Hemmdog]

What is your light

 

[GSnake]

My light is a popular grow black box from Amazon. Blues are off at the moment in the pic.

 

[Jvesche20]

My light is a popular grow black box from Amazon. Blues are off at the moment in the pic.

How high do you keep them and how long do you have them on for?

 

[Hemmdog]

My light is a popular grow black box from Amazon. Blues are off at the moment in the pic.

Blackboxes Nuke sps unless you have a par meter and know exactly what your getting and where.

 

[GSnake]

11 inches from top of tank. Pretty evenly spread as far as eyes can tell. I used Ryan's BRS vid on black box review as a reference to set the intensity at. 10% white for 6hrs midday and 50% blue for 11hrs. Should be 250ish par .

 

[Hemmdog]

11 inches from top of tank. Pretty evenly spread as far as eyes can tell. I used Ryan's BRS vid on black box review as a reference to set the intensity at. 10% white for 6hrs midday and 50% blue for 11hrs. Should be 250ish par .

Ok that’s good. What’s your alk,cal,mag, nitrate, and phos

 

[cooltowncorals]

Water can be to clean sure but your lps would have trouble before sps. Check your nitrates and phosphate levels.

 

[GSnake]

Just tested Cal all my. Cal 440 mg 1245, all 9.5 . Nitrate phos were undetected, or very low. Tested it at lfs earlier this week. Goes same for ammonia

 

[cooltowncorals]

If your parameters are good next thing to look at is flow and light.

 

[GSnake]

Can sps withstand peripheral flow from powerhead/wavemaker. I have mine on the right side and hitting back wall.might be too much ... I put my hand in the tank to get s feel..didn't seem like anything though.

I've seen two nice successful tanks with wavemaker in discreet locations in the bottom corner and the otherwith wavemakers pointed at front glass from the back . I'm considering to do this as well.

 

[TMB]

Alk of 9.5 is too high for low N and P, unless you have a lot of particulate food in the water column. By food I mean fish poo or other coral food added by you.
A much safer number would be something like 7.0 forAlk.
How big is this tank? How long has it been set up? How many fish, and how much are you feeding?
Do you have any algae growing on the walls and rocks? A full tank pic would help in assessing what’s going on.

 

[BranchingHammer]

When I first started sps, I purchased montiporas, Stylophora and Pocillopora. Those acros you have are very hard to keep, so I’d start with something a little easier. Just my 0.02. You got this!

 

[TMB]

When I first started sps, I purchased montiporas, Stylophora and Pocillopora. Those acros you have are very hard to keep, so I’d start with something a little easier. Just my 0.02. You got this!

I agree with this as well. Starting on the harder end of SPS is going to be frustrating to say the least.

A nice purple stylo would be a good choice.

 

[GSnake]

When I first started sps, I purchased montiporas, Stylophora and Pocillopora. Those acros you have are very hard to keep, so I’d start with something a little easier. Just my 0.02. You got this!

29 gallon. Algae on walls ya. I scrape all walls recently during water changes. 1yr old so far. Agree with lower alk too even though package says 9.5 should be ok... Thought this might be the issue. Switching to seachrm vibrant sea at next WC. Maybe I should remove filter floss then . Might be better for corals... Since I got a skimmer already. And using phytoplankton and reef roids every week.

 

[Jmareef1022]

I would say hold off on more acros for a little while, the tank isn't ready for them. Acros can handle strong flow but being blasted consistently is no good and will kill the coral, had it happen to me.


Jose

 

[OriginalUserName]

As another SPS noob I think your tank is still a little new. Even with perfect parameters they seem to die often in newer tanks. I don't know why but my experience jives with that. After some early failures when moving to my new tank I'm starting to dip my toe back into SPS myself. My tank has been up for 6 months, with rock cured for a few months before that and seeded with lots of life from old rock and losts of coraline and I'm still having mixed results.

 

[CherryStReef]

I like your reefscape. What I have learned after many failed attempts: good flow but indirect, reduce percentage of water frequently changed, more Reef Roids for sure - like every day. I would also suggest kalkwasser rather than dosing.

 

[sawdonkey]

In my experience, flow or lack thereof doesn’t kill acros or make them RTN. Light problems usually impact the coral slowly. Either brown it out or burn the tips. Not usually RTN.

Alk problems are the biggest killer of acros. Are you keeping it steady?

 

[scriptmonkey]

Could it be they need to be acclimated differently light wise?