Poor SPS Colouration - Best practice

[Animal Chin]

Honestly, with monti's like that the color might not come back. Sometimes when they go to far one way, bringing them back kills them, its happened to me with plating monti's before. But I like what everyone is saying here. Kill your algae and do a big water change like you plan. Take the roaphos off for now. Stop carbon dosing for sure. Keep that system simple. Skimmer, waterchanges and carbon if you want. Let the tank re settle from the shock of the full on attack you've had going on for a while. You'll probably notice a big change for the worst before it gets better, thats usually the way it goes when you're changing parameters, you might loose a coral or two but it probably has to be done to get your tank back on track.

Did I read you only fed your fish once a week? With only 2 fish there is no reason not to feed daily.

 

[Benqb007]

Thought one,



Thought two,
I feel you though. Like stated above, SPS can take several week to months to get on track; additionally, can no doubt become stagnant for those time periods as well. We all have that Stylo that grows like crazy and gives us hope, bless its heart, but trickier SPS all have that sweet spot. You're using a great LED, likewise, but I've had friends jump off the radion rodeo and onto the t5 train who will never go back. The growth and color they are now getting is pretty crazy.

 

[cumbeje]

Get an ICP test done and it will tell you what is missing. It's as easy as that. My issue was baron and potassium. Corrected and colors are great now. There is no reason to approach this in a shotgun fashion.

 

[B-rad]

I agree with cumbeje. With how sensitive corals are to change, the more precise you can be about figuring out what the issue is, the gentler the correction will be on your reef.

 

[Trevor Daniels]

Like you, my tank has pretty low nutrients. No detectable nitrate on red sea kits, and po4 at 0.01 ppm or less. I just began dabbling in sps, and it took off, growth wise. But about a month after putting a frag in my tank it would turn very pale. I began dosing aminos (I use red sea energy) and within a month my red monti cap colony colored back up. Another week after that and my acro frags colored back up. Coralline growth also took off. I've been impressed with the difference it made. After your light schedule is done acclimating I would highly suggest trying aminos.

 

[zsuzsu]

be smart, get some t5s, use the radion as a supplement for the t5s (just the blue channels) and you're done. and lose the rowaphos.

 

[brad65ford]

Do you have a par meter? You mentioned your running ab+ but at what intensity. Your algae looks like something tangs would love. Since it seems your live rock is still purging or not full cured to the point its grown coraline only, the growth of algae is taking offer. IMO you can get a tang to eat it, lower all whites/red/green lighting then manually remove and or add a refugium with bright intensity lights to out compete the lights in the main display and grow the same or different algae.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

No, not too harsh or harsh at all. I really appreciate anyones input at this time, as i'm just getting really frustrated when I see peoples tanks and their greens are popping like mad, then i see mine and its like 'oh, nice brown corals'.

The plan is to wait for full 2 weeks of dosing fluconazole, and then water change. After this, i'm probably going to not run carbon, skim drier, and feed a bit more often. In the short space of time since i have been feeding, my phosphate has jumped up from 0.009ppm to 0.04ppm, in the space of about a week. In this time, i also stopped dosing NoPox, so that might also be a reason for the drop. I'm going to test tonight and see where i am at with it, and see if its about stable.

Triton you say? Well, initially i was renting a house, had no outside tap, and wasnt allowed to plumb in an RO system. Add to this my LFS was an hour and a bit drive away, and i work 6 days a week, it wasnt plausible for me to constantly make trips there for water changes. So Triton was a way out of that. It served its purpose until it pretty much crashed by tank, even though my ICP was very good. Still, i made the move back to balling where i feel a lot more in control.

It is a relatively small system, i've just put into the system everything i had in my smaller tank before, the reactor, carbon etc. Never once did i really think that my nutrients were too low for colour. As i said before, i was always under the impression that because i had brown corals, my nutrients were too high, so i'd stop feeding the tank for a week or so. But no colour even came, when i did that.

My radion, as i said before, is still on acclimation timer, and 2 weeks in to that. Its running at 70% brightness, and i believe max intensity of 48%. Its just the SPS AB+ schedule, so not sure if i can turn the brightness up or what, perhaps the light just isnt strong enough? I've always had it on 70% brightness.

I really just feel like your issue is a very very simple one to fix. I wouldn't dose anything, I feel so strongly about this. I'd leave the lights alone for now, judging by the pic you don't have a super wide tank or areas where you're gonna see shadowing if you don't add more lights. It's a very simple setup which is good!

Brown corals could mean anything, most likely stress. I am telling you this with peace and love..peace and love. Feed daily for 1 month, maybe even add another fish. Take all carbon/GFO offline, after the first month as you start to see better coloration (you will) maybe adjust and feed twice a day sometimes. If I could go back in time to my early days and count how many corals I killed because I thought brown corals meant too many nutrients i'd have a better inventory than wwc. Nothing is a simple black and white in this hobby, you must learn this to avoid costly mistakes.

As for the water, i'm not a big fan of involving myself in challenging dosing programs to overcome obstacles. Grab one of those RODI systems from BRS; they come with adapters where you can screw them right onto a faucet, literally takes 20 seconds nothing permanent at all!

 

[domgreenslade]

Thank you everyone for your comments.

Honestly, with monti's like that the color might not come back. Sometimes when they go to far one way, bringing them back kills them, its happened to me with plating monti's before. But I like what everyone is saying here. Kill your algae and do a big water change like you plan. Take the roaphos off for now. Stop carbon dosing for sure. Keep that system simple. Skimmer, waterchanges and carbon if you want. Let the tank re settle from the shock of the full on attack you've had going on for a while. You'll probably notice a big change for the worst before it gets better, thats usually the way it goes when you're changing parameters, you might loose a coral or two but it probably has to be done to get your tank back on track.

Did I read you only fed your fish once a week? With only 2 fish there is no reason not to feed daily.

Yeah only once a week, for fear of the phos. But i've since increased that to around 3 times a week on frozen now, and slowly going to increase that to 4-5 times. Just making sure phos doesnt increase too much. So many people are telling me to remove my rowaphos, but i'm just a bit nervous in case my phosphate goes through the roof. But like you say, going to wait until the bryopsis is gone, water change, and then leave it. Its hard to just let it be, but maybe thats where i'm going wrong, by tinkering with it.

Get an ICP test done and it will tell you what is missing. It's as easy as that. My issue was baron and potassium. Corrected and colors are great now. There is no reason to approach this in a shotgun fashion.

Yep, definitely next on the list to get done and see what i'm lacking etc

Like you, my tank has pretty low nutrients. No detectable nitrate on red sea kits, and po4 at 0.01 ppm or less. I just began dabbling in sps, and it took off, growth wise. But about a month after putting a frag in my tank it would turn very pale. I began dosing aminos (I use red sea energy) and within a month my red monti cap colony colored back up. Another week after that and my acro frags colored back up. Coralline growth also took off. I've been impressed with the difference it made. After your light schedule is done acclimating I would highly suggest trying aminos.

I have this on my shopping list. But i wanted to be cautious, as i read that you'll only make your corals more brown if you have high nutrients. So again, that was my fear. But as my nutrients are quite low, i'm definitely looking to supplement aminos.

I really just feel like your issue is a very very simple one to fix. I wouldn't dose anything, I feel so strongly about this. I'd leave the lights alone for now, judging by the pic you don't have a super wide tank or areas where you're gonna see shadowing if you don't add more lights. It's a very simple setup which is good!

Brown corals could mean anything, most likely stress. I am telling you this with peace and love..peace and love. Feed daily for 1 month, maybe even add another fish. Take all carbon/GFO offline, after the first month as you start to see better coloration (you will) maybe adjust and feed twice a day sometimes. If I could go back in time to my early days and count how many corals I killed because I thought brown corals meant too many nutrients i'd have a better inventory than wwc. Nothing is a simple black and white in this hobby, you must learn this to avoid costly mistakes.

As for the water, i'm not a big fan of involving myself in challenging dosing programs to overcome obstacles. Grab one of those RODI systems from BRS; they come with adapters where you can screw them right onto a faucet, literally takes 20 seconds nothing permanent at all!

Small and simple nano, thats all i wanted. But it doesnt feel small and simple at all. So perhaps you and a few others are right. Its a simple tank, so take it back to the basics.
Wait for bryopsis to die off
Water change
Maybe add a fish, but also increase feeding. At that point, i'll begin reducing the amount of rowa i use also.

I do have an RODI system now, i wouldnt be anywhere without it. Running 0TDS. I water change with that water, and its in my RO reservoir too.

 

[peterhos]

Hi There I am new to sps corals and would love to get things right. Recently I installed new TMC leds at the recommended levels. A few days ago my green SPS had turned mostly white so I switched down to 70% on the lights… and that coral is regaining polyps. As several have said to me we just need to find the sweet spot. How about buying 6 frags of a favourite sps and putting them at different heights etc around the tank to see which ones take off? Probably different for every tank?

 

[peterhos]

PS Also, and I still speak as a beginner, just reading the original post made me feel that there was a lot of stuff going in with the tank. Often in science the simplest way is the best. Pity I am100% useless at science, so I am going to go with skimmer, water changes, filter mat and my sneaking feeling that letting the SPS themselves us where they‘re happy my be the way to go. Good luck.