Please help my mediocre reef tank

[firedancer414]

OK, did my PAR reading with my BRS-rented Apogee MQ-510.

Hydra 26, 12.5 inches above water surface, with diffuser (10-15% PAR reduction).

It says it's running at 54W, with the Radion AB+ spectrum ()
UV 118%
Violet 101%
Royal 82%
Blue 65%
Green 6%
Deep Red 5%
Cool White 19%

Just at water surface. 200-300 in the middle half of the tank, 75-100 around the edge.
75 175 250 75
100 250 300 100
75 175 250 75

Top of the Rock (SPS / Acro Mount points): More uniform - 100-150
Bottom quarter of the tank (LPS / softie mount points): 100-150
Sandbed (zoanthids): 100-150


Meanwhile, in the sump, the Kessil H380 mounted 15.5" from the surface is blasting the chaeto at 780 PAR, holy smokes!

It's a bit less bright than I was anticipating! So hmm, not sure if this is enough to eventually grow SPS. Might need to move the light down a bit. Thoughts?

 

[jurgenph]

Top of the Rock (SPS / Acro Mount points): More uniform - 100-150
Bottom quarter of the tank (LPS / softie mount points): 100-150
Sandbed (zoanthids): 100-150

i'm confused.

you're getting the same par reading on the top, middle and bottom?


J.

 

[Victoria M]

Try this way to document your readings.

 

[firedancer414]

Try this way to document your readings.

I like this, thank you for sharing! Will re-do tonight this way. But yes the tops of the rocks are about the middle of the tank, and I think since the lights are really high there isn't a lot of variability from the middle to the bottom of the tank.

 

[ZoWhat]

Throw this at it. it solves almost every problem

 

[Tanggy]

following along...

 

[firedancer414]

Not many updates. Have been feeding a lot more (2-3 times per day), with pellet, reef chili (2 scoops per day), and 4mL aminos. Still no detectable nutrients but acans are getting much puffier. Have a few tester SPS in there now.

Re-did the PAR measurements per someone's suggestion above, light is pretty uniform

 

[Victoria M]

Not many updates. Have been feeding a lot more (2-3 times per day), with pellet, reef chili (2 scoops per day), and 4mL aminos. Still no detectable nutrients but acans are getting much puffier. Have a few tester SPS in there now.

Re-did the PAR measurements per someone's suggestion above, light is pretty uniform

That light difuser must really knock off alot of PAR. My readings were quite a big higher, especially higher in the water column. Well, and I had my light mostly maxed out, as it is 30” deep tank. I think you can turn up your channels safely, provided you do it in small increments, if you want to. Have you checked out the PAR thread?

 

[firedancer414]

Interesting. I need to do some more Googling PAR / Hydra 26 / Reefer 170 and poke around. I think that the diffuser knocks off 15%, I have a mesh cover that knocks off another 5-10%. It's also only running at 54W max in the Radion AB+ spectrum (not the full 95W if you turn it fully on). The biggest variable that I can change is to move the light nearer to the water surface (currently 12"), if I want to achieve the recommended 250 PAR SPS levels. Will do some more thinking.

 

[Victoria M]

Interesting. I need to do some more Googling PAR / Hydra 26 / Reefer 170 and poke around. I think that the diffuser knocks off 15%, I have a mesh cover that knocks off another 5-10%. It's also only running at 54W max in the Radion AB+ spectrum (not the full 95W if you turn it fully on). The biggest variable that I can change is to move the light nearer to the water surface (currently 12"), if I want to achieve the recommended 250 PAR SPS levels. Will do some more thinking.

I think it is possible that the assumption most of us had that you were burning your corals may have been wrong. But how do the coral look now? Might be too soon to tell, but I recently observed my corals to be stretching towards the light when I reduced my intensity. I copied a schedule from AI. That Saxby one. AFTER ONLY 1 week I changed back due to my observations of the quick change in coral behavior.
Here is my current schedule. I think this was what I took the PAR measurements under. Also my light is 8” above the water line.

 

[firedancer414]

I think it is possible that the assumption most of us had that you were burning your corals may have been wrong. But how do the coral look now? Might be too soon to tell, but I recently observed my corals to be stretching towards the light when I reduced my intensity. I copied a schedule from AI. That Saxby one. AFTER ONLY 1 week I changed back due to my observations of the quick change in coral behavior.
Here is my current schedule. I think this was what I took the PAR measurements under. Also my light is 8” above the water line.

Thanks Victoria. Things are definitely improving under the new light schedule / feeding, particularly for the acans. The tester acros/SPS also seem to be doing well. I changed quite a bit (feeding much more, dosing reef chili + aminos, reducing the light photoperiod, reducing the fuge photoperiod, making the suggested ICP changes to potassium) so want to give that time to bake in, although am considering moving the light closer to the water line. I am under the impression that 150 PAR isn't going to kill the coral even if 250 is ideal for maximizing SPS growth.

 

[brawthy]

Looks like you’re staring to make some progress!

FWIW, I use the Saxby settings with reduced settings on my 425 (two 52s) and see great results. I’m not running a diffuser though. I would suggest that light setting and increase the intensity of the blue channels at each data point slightly. Lighting is tricky-just go slow. With lps your biggest concern is over exposure.

As for your nutrients, how often are you testing magnesium/alk/calc/nitrates?

 

[firedancer414]

Looks like you’re staring to make some progress!

FWIW, I use the Saxby settings with reduced settings on my 425 (two 52s) and see great results. I’m not running a diffuser though. I would suggest that light setting and increase the intensity of the blue channels at each data point slightly. Lighting is tricky-just go slow. With lps your biggest concern is over exposure.

As for your nutrients, how often are you testing magnesium/alk/calc/nitrates?

Thanks. I absolutely love how the tank looks under blues, that's an interesting thought to venture away from the Radion AB+ settings to be a bit more blue to increase PAR.

Normally I test alk ~weekly, mag/calcium ~monthly, nutrients ~quarterly, ICP test ~quarterly. Since I've been making all of these changes I've been testing each every few days.

 

[brawthy]

Thanks. I absolutely love how the tank looks under blues, that's an interesting thought to venture away from the Radion AB+ settings to be a bit more blue to increase PAR.

Normally I test alk ~weekly, mag/calcium ~monthly, nutrients ~quarterly, ICP test ~quarterly. Since I've been making all of these changes I've been testing each every few days.

Would it be possible to test every two days, throw it in a txt file, and plot it?

Getting an idea of how variable the values would be very useful, and it looks like you’re comfortable with the tech.

 

[firedancer414]

I'm not sure it's as interesting as you'd think they look like this

 

[firedancer414]

OK, since I had the PAR meter, I lowered the lights a few inches and made the spectrum more blue to increase PAR at the acro / SPS mount points to get it to >250 PAR. Here is the new PAR map.

The light is in acclimation mode for the next month, tuned to the original PAR numbers. So these changes will take place gradually.

Thank you!

 

[Victoria M]

now that is more like it! ;Shamefullyembarrased glad you remembered to place the light in coral acclimation mode.

 

[firedancer414]

Params Tonight

You can see the 3 feeding on the big ORP drops.

Alk 8.1 [8]
Ca 410 [430]
Mag 1300 [1280]

Nit 0
Phos 0

Reduced fuge photoperiod to 8 hrs, still working on getting detectable nutrients!

<3 Brian

 

[Victoria M]

BTW...coral acclimation mode changes every channel to 50%. I just relearned this the other day. I had to crank the green, red channel and white channel down.

 

[firedancer414]

It's been about 3 weeks since changing the light schedule and upping the feeding.

3 Weeks Ago

Today

The LPS are super happy. The zoanthids are growing again. The frogspawn had just had polyp bailout on a few of the heads and clearly recovered. The SPS testers are doing OK. There's a birdsnest that's super happy and growing.