Radion LPS Setting

[Thomas Reeferson]

Hey guys a little background, my tank is about 2 years old. I had a crash and most livestock died. I left it alone except for topping off evaporated water. It’s a standard size 90 gallon tank. Anyway, I’ve left my lights at 100% corrallab LPS settings. As you can imagine, I got a bunch of cyano from bad water and dead stuff. I’ve replaced all the bad equipment and have good water. I test daily for Ca, Alk, and magnesium. I test 2-3 times a week for phosphates and nitrates which are usually zero except for recently I’m up to 2 nitrates from me feeding my new fish and corals probably too much. I do frequent 20% water changes and reduced feeding a lot but the cyano remains. Is anyone else running 100% LPS in a 24 inch deep tank? It’s 48 inches long and I have two radion xr15 gen 4 pros with diffusers. Am I way over doing the intensity? Corals seem super happy

 

[gotmesalty77]

I usually run between 10 and 20 nitrate. My acans and euphyllia love it.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

I run my nitrates between 5-10 and phosphates about .08 and all my corals, soft, LPS, and SPS are thriving.

Too much light can definitely be an issue, but there are other factors at play that are causing the bloom. The cyano is out competing the other more desirable bacteria in the tank. You have a couple of options to treat it. You can try products like Microbactor 7, FritzZyme Monster 360/460 along with Seachem Stability and see if it will establish and out compete the cyano. Also doing a Chemiclean treatment will also help, but you will still want to dose with beneficial bacteria once the treatment is done to boost it so the cyano will not return. You can also add a UV sterilizer matched to your tank size and do a 3 day blackout with only the UV running. This sill kill the bacteria once it reenters the water column, but again dosing with beneficial bacteria afterwards will be crucial to keeping it from returning.

 

[Thomas Reeferson]

Too much light can definitely be an issue, but there are other factors at play that are causing the bloom. The cyano is out competing the other more desirable bacteria in the tank. You have a couple of options to treat it. You can try products like Microbactor 7, FritzZyme Monster 360/460 along with Seachem Stability and see if it will establish and out compete the cyano. Also doing a Chemiclean treatment will also help, but you will still want to dose with beneficial bacteria once the treatment is done to boost it so the cyano will not return. You can also add a UV sterilizer matched to your tank size and do a 3 day blackout with only the UV running. This sill kill the bacteria once it reenters the water column, but again dosing with beneficial bacteria afterwards will be crucial to keeping it from returning.

I dose nopox based on nitrates and phosphates. Will that help?

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Nopox will reduce the nutrient load over time, but keep in mind cyano is photosynthetic and may be consuming the nutrients so fast that you get a false reading when testing. You also want to be careful with dropping the nutrients too low. Several issues can arise from letting them fall to zero for an extended length of time. First your corals and livestock will begin to show signs of stress since phosphorus is needed for basic life functions. Also if you let it stay at zero too long you risk a dinoflagellates bloom. This is in many ways worse than cyano. Once you get an outbreak of dinos, it can take weeks or months to rid them. Some people even go nuclear and shut their tanks down and restart them because they cant ever rid the tank of them.

 

[gotmesalty77]

Nopox will reduce the nutrient load over time, but keep in mind cyano is photosynthetic and may be consuming the nutrients so fast that you get a false reading when testing. You also want to be careful with dropping the nutrients too low. Several issues can arise from letting them fall to zero for an extended length of time. First your corals and livestock will begin to show signs of stress since phosphorus is needed for basic life functions. Also if you let it stay at zero too long you risk a dinoflagellates bloom. This is in many ways worse than cyano. Once you get an outbreak of dinos, it can take weeks or months to rid them. Some people even go nuclear and shut their tanks down and restart them because they cant ever rid the tank of them.

Absolute zero brought upon quite the Dinos assault for me. I let myself get caught up in the need to have low nutrients hype. I feel like nopox can be incorporated into a dosing schedule but only under the right conditions. It definitely needs to be monitored very close no matter what though.

 

[Thomas Reeferson]

I appreciate your replies, everybody. I hear your concerns about super low nutrient levels. Because of that, I was pretty happy with the amount of fish/coral feeding that I did within reason. I feed my fish frozen Mysis everyday and a few pellets to supplement. The corals get reef roids or reef chili twice or maybe sometimes 3 times a week. I definitely have some nutrients in my tank but the more I think about it, the more I feel like I should bring down my light intensity. With the diffusers they say to account for a 20% PAR reduction so that’s why I’ve left it where it is. My tank is LPS dominant right now because they grow slower and my aquascaping isn’t all the way built up yet. When the LPS corals start to colonize I’m going to add another xr15 and diffuser with some richer rock structure. Btw, thanks everybody. This forum is super friendly and helpful. Best community I’ve encountered

 

[Thomas Reeferson]

I appreciate your replies, everybody. I hear your concerns about super low nutrient levels. Because of that, I was pretty happy with the amount of fish/coral feeding that I did within reason. I feed my fish frozen Mysis everyday and a few pellets to supplement. The corals get reef roids or reef chili twice or maybe sometimes 3 times a week. I definitely have some nutrients in my tank but the more I think about it, the more I feel like I should bring down my light intensity. With the diffusers they say to account for a 20% PAR reduction so that’s why I’ve left it where it is. My tank is LPS dominant right now because they grow slower and my aquascaping isn’t all the way built up yet. When the LPS corals start to colonize I’m going to add another xr15 and diffuser with some richer rock structure. Btw, thanks everybody. This forum is super friendly and helpful. Best community I’ve encountered

Higher rock structure*

 

[gotmesalty77]

I appreciate your replies, everybody. I hear your concerns about super low nutrient levels. Because of that, I was pretty happy with the amount of fish/coral feeding that I did within reason. I feed my fish frozen Mysis everyday and a few pellets to supplement. The corals get reef roids or reef chili twice or maybe sometimes 3 times a week. I definitely have some nutrients in my tank but the more I think about it, the more I feel like I should bring down my light intensity. With the diffusers they say to account for a 20% PAR reduction so that’s why I’ve left it where it is. My tank is LPS dominant right now because they grow slower and my aquascaping isn’t all the way built up yet. When the LPS corals start to colonize I’m going to add another xr15 and diffuser with some richer rock structure. Btw, thanks everybody. This forum is super friendly and helpful. Best community I’ve encountered

Ive got 3 on a 48" shallow 80g. They are set to 45% lps schedule . 10hr photo period. The 2 on the the OUTSIDEare diffused but the middle is not. I only have lps and I see pretty good growth out of everything.

 

[Thomas Reeferson]

Ive got 3 on a 48" shallow 80g. They are set to 45% lps schedule . 10hr photo period. The 2 on the the OUTSIDEare diffused but the middle is not. I only have lps and I see pretty good growth out of everything.

I very much believe learning never ends som not questioning you but questioning my schedule. So you think that lowering intensity won’t affect my LPS growth? I only have a Jedi mind trick and grafted monti cap (both of which have crazy growth since I’ve gotten them) in the top half of my tank. Do you think lowering the lights 10-20% will hurt their growth?

 

[gotmesalty77]

I very much believe learning never ends som not questioning you but questioning my schedule. So you think that lowering intensity won’t affect my LPS growth? I only have a Jedi mind trick and grafted monti cap (both of which have crazy growth since I’ve gotten them) in the top half of my tank. Do you think lowering the lights 10-20% will hurt their growth?

Your intensity is at 100%? I think that g4 radions are an extremely powerful light that is capable of very high par numbers lol. I think that lps are low light corals and it won't hurt them to see if they do like it. My tank is 16" and I have my lights on rms mounts. I've got Playtagyra, favites, favia, blastos, acans mushrooms and more All thriving. I've been thinking of going down to 35% or 40% actually. I figure lps is found in a little deeper water so less light is actually natural for them.

 

[Thomas Reeferson]

Your intensity is at 100%? I think that g4 radions are an extremely powerful light that is capable of very high par numbers lol. I think that lps are low light corals and it won't hurt them to see if they do like it. My tank is 16" and I have my lights on rms mounts. I've got Playtagyra, favites, favia, blastos, acans mushrooms and more All thriving. I've been thinking of going down to 35% or 40% actually. I figure lps is found in a little deeper water so less light is actually natural for them.

I totally agree with what you’re saying about being in deeper water. I guess my eyes were fooled by appearance rather than paying attention to the numbers. At the same time, my corals have great polyp extension and my Jedi mind trick and wwc grafted monti cap are growing so fast that I can see a difference from one day to the next so I’m trying to figure out if I should keep growing the sps like I am or pull down the intensity to kill cyano and be more conservative for LPS. That being said, I bought chemiclean today and I’m going to use it most likely

 

[gotmesalty77]

I totally agree with what you’re saying about being in deeper water. I guess my eyes were fooled by appearance rather than paying attention to the numbers. At the same time, my corals have great polyp extension and my Jedi mind trick and wwc grafted monti cap are growing so fast that I can see a difference from one day to the next so I’m trying to figure out if I should keep growing the sps like I am or pull down the intensity to kill cyano and be more conservative for LPS. That being said, I bought chemiclean today and I’m going to use it most likely

Absolutely use it. I used it and it completely eradicated cyano in a few days. Keep your skimmer on but take the lid off it's going to go crazy. Oxygen levels drop because of the chemicals and your tank needs that aeration. Your certain it's cyano not dinos? I'm sorry I missed where you said you had sps. Keep the intensity high for sps lol

 

[Thomas Reeferson]

Absolutely use it. I used it and it completely eradicated cyano in a few days. Keep your skimmer on but take the lid off it's going to go crazy. Oxygen levels drop because of the chemicals and your tank needs that aeration. Your certain it's cyano not dinos? I'm sorry I missed where you said you had sps. Keep the intensity high for sps lol

I believe it to be cyano and I heard to treat cyano first and if that doesn’t work then treat dinos. Should I shut the lights off when I dose chemiclean or is leaving them on ok?

 

[gotmesalty77]

I believe it to be cyano and I heard to treat cyano first and if that doesn’t work then treat dinos. Should I shut the lights off when I dose chemiclean or is leaving them on ok?

I turned mine wayyyyy down. If there's little tiny bubbles on the ends of it it's dinos. Once my cyano was gone I had a dinos out break. This has all happened within the last 2 months.

 

[Thomas Reeferson]

I turned mine wayyyyy down. If there's little tiny bubbles on the ends of it it's dinos. Once my cyano was gone I had a dinos out break. This has all happened within the last 2 months.

The bubbles seem to be on top of the sand and under the slime. Not really hanging on to the slime

 

[gotmesalty77]

The bubbles seem to be on top of the sand and under the slime. Not really hanging on to the slime

Intertwined kind of? Can you post a picture?