RTN and STN

[Herby’s reef]

Hi all,

I have been struggling a little with RTN and STN. My tank was doing great with rock solid parameters. I have a 130 gallon display, a 40 gallon sump, with a connected frag tank. I use a calcium reactor with a peristatic pump and my alk stays consistent at 7.5 to 8 salifert. My nitrates run around 5 salifert, my phosphates are 0 to .1 depending on when I last fed Hannah. Calcium is 44o, mag is 1440 by icp. I have 2 gen 3 Radion, and 2 gen 4 mounted with the pucks lined up front to back. I run an auto water changer and had been changing 3 gallons per day, but I have increased that to 5 for now. I have had about 4 frags that have rtn or stn lately, and today I noticed my homewrecker is stn at the base, and it has a small area on the tip. I sent an ICP test several weeks ago and it showed elevated tin. It is around 15 which is pretty high. I have added cuprisorb, to the reactor for this. I also had elevated tin in my RODI water at a level of 25 so I assume that is where it is coming from. I just changed out all my filters in my RODI unit, so dont think that is the problem, but the float valve in my storage tank had a wing nut, and I was using trash cans for storage that were not food grade. I have eliminated the float valve and changed to the brute food grade trash cans and I will send another ICP test out this week. For flow I run two max spect gyre xf 250, although I only run them at about 20%. MY polyps blow pretty hard in this flow, so I assume it is enough. I have lps in the tank also, so cant go too high. Most of my sps has really really good polyp extension, and the homewrecker did too until this last week.

Could the tin be the problems with my stn? Should I frag the homewrecker? It is newish, about 3 months old, so it is just the encrusted base, and the very very tip. Should I cut the tip and remount the base on a new plug? This is a small frag, probably 1/2 inch.

 

[NikoO]

I thought I was the only one!

Sometimes my frags stn for seemingly no reason. But, as I look into it I usually find the source eventually.

For Example:

When I switched from 1 Radion XR30 to an ATI Sunpower without adjusting the depth of my frag rack the change in intensity/spectrum caused my RR Pinky Floyd to start peeling at the base.

 

[jda]

I would take care of the tin, but it is probably not a huge problem. Most of the time, it comes from the salt mix, so I would look there first unless you are using rock-solid-for-decades salt it Tropic Marin or IO.

What you are doing sounds really great with the flow and CaRx. Is the tank more than a year old?

When using LED-only to light acropora, everything else has to be nearly perfect for them to thrive. There are many, many people who put T5 on with their Radions for better growth, color and stability. You might consider this.

I like to arrest the STN before I frag and remount. Cutting can be stressful. Once this is done and the coral has recovered (grown some), then I do like to cut all the dead stuff off and remount.

 

[NikoO]

@jda
How do you arrest the STN before cutting?

 

[jda]

@jda
How do you arrest the STN before cutting?

That is a great question and it is different from tank to tank... but you have to fill the gaps that the corals need. For a lot people, it starts with light, but most are not yet ready to believe it. For many, the tank just needs to mature - dry and dead rock has made this more of an issue than before. There is a large chunk of hobbyists that need both of these. Some have not figured out dosing so that parameters stay stable. A very few actually have too high of nutrients and they have become poison. In the end, it all depends. Most people chase parameters or nutrients when this is probably more of a symptom than the disease... especially in tanks less than a few years old.

 

[zoasaholic]

You stated that you were using Vibrant in the youtube video could that be the caused?

 

[Herby’s reef]

I would take care of the tin, but it is probably not a huge problem. Most of the time, it comes from the salt mix, so I would look there first unless you are using rock-solid-for-decades salt it Tropic Marin or IO.

What you are doing sounds really great with the flow and CaRx. Is the tank more than a year old?

When using LED-only to light acropora, everything else has to be nearly perfect for them to thrive. There are many, many people who put T5 on with their Radions for better growth, color and stability. You might consider this.

I like to arrest the STN before I frag and remount. Cutting can be stressful. Once this is done and the coral has recovered (grown some), then I do like to cut all the dead stuff off and remount.

This

I would take care of the tin, but it is probably not a huge problem. Most of the time, it comes from the salt mix, so I would look there first unless you are using rock-solid-for-decades salt it Tropic Marin or IO.

What you are doing sounds really great with the flow and CaRx. Is the tank more than a year old?

When using LED-only to light acropora, everything else has to be nearly perfect for them to thrive. There are many, many people who put T5 on with their Radions for better growth, color and stability. You might consider this.

I like to arrest the STN before I frag and remount. Cutting can be stressful. Once this is done and the coral has recovered (grown some), then I do like to cut all the dead stuff off and remount.

The tank is just at 1 year old, but many of the rocks are from my previous tank so they are 2 years old. I did just change from the ati hybrid t5 plus 2 Radion to the 4 rations because the wife did not like the blue hue the t5s caused in the living room. Having said this, the room is still pretty blue with the rations! I did match the pars of the previous lights to the radions very very closely, and most of my frags came from led only lit tanks. I know the tin is not from my salt because my icp test of my rodi water showed it in there also. I hope it is not the radions because I just spent so much on them! I have seen many successful reef keepers using them, but I do suppose it is possible.

 

[Herby’s reef]

You stated that you were using Vibrant in the youtube video could that be the caused?

It is also a possiblity, but I have had so many people tell me they use it all the time with no problems. I kept the cheato in when I first dosed it and the vibrant melted it. I did start having a lot of problems at that same time, but I can’t really find a reason to blame the vibrant itself. It did seem to throw my system out of wack because now I am struggling with Dino in my frag tank and I have not really added any new frags or fish that should have caused that in the last few weeks, and most of my stuff comes from very clean sources like Jason Fox. I have actually just dosed the vibrant again, because in the vibrant thread it has been shown to work on dino. I have fought Dino before, and want to get it before it gets bad. My case now is very minor. I do wish the vibrant bottle had let me know to remove my cheato, but if you read the 200 plus pages of the vibrant thread, the reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

 

[jda]

I would get the DI figured out quickly. Metals in RO is a bad foundation for any tank. However, the tin is not likely your issue even though it needs to be fixed.

PAR from a Radion to T5s is not the same. The T5 will have spectrum that the PAR meter cannot read whereas the Radion will mostly be in the visible range - the T5 have more PAR and the difference is hobby-grade tool and definition of PAR which is a limited subset of wavelengths that corals need and use. It takes more PAR from a LED system to equal that read on a T5 system, but you have to be really careful since you can get bad-wave burn from the LEDs if up too high. Sometimes you cannot even come close to the same T5 PAR level without harming corals with LED.

I feel that you downgraded lights if all kinds of acropora are your goal. Others will disagree. Happy wives are important, though, and if you can live with some issues like this or just select easier corals, then you can still have a good tank. You could also get everything else perfect. If you look at the people who have good tanks with them, they are not fighting dinos, tin or other issues - the other stuff is perfect. You can see all kinds of T5 and MH lit tanks fighting algae, dinos and parameter swings and they seem to have a bit more room for error. I am not trying to bash you, or anything... just trying to help so if you do not want to hear anymore, then I will just bow out.

Good luck.

 

[Herby’s reef]

I would get the DI figured out quickly. Metals in RO is a bad foundation for any tank. However, the tin is not likely your issue even though it needs to be fixed.

PAR from a Radion to T5s is not the same. The T5 will have spectrum that the PAR meter cannot read whereas the Radion will mostly be in the visible range - the T5 have more PAR and the difference is hobby-grade tool and definition of PAR which is a limited subset of wavelengths that corals need and use. It takes more PAR from a LED system to equal that read on a T5 system, but you have to be really careful since you can get bad-wave burn from the LEDs if up too high. Sometimes you cannot even come close to the same T5 PAR level without harming corals with LED.

I feel that you downgraded lights if all kinds of acropora are your goal. Others will disagree. Happy wives are important, though, and if you can live with some issues like this or just select easier corals, then you can still have a good tank. You could also get everything else perfect. If you look at the people who have good tanks with them, they are not fighting dinos, tin or other issues - the other stuff is perfect. You can see all kinds of T5 and MH lit tanks fighting algae, dinos and parameter swings and they seem to have a bit more room for error. I am not trying to bash you, or anything... just trying to help so if you do not want to hear anymore, then I will just bow out.

Good luck.

Don’t worry, I have thick skin, I dont take it as bashing, I appreciate the advice. I really only dosed the vibrant because of slight bubble algae, very very slight. I really believe it threw the system out of wack and that is what caused the dinos. I dip everything, but I did notice Dino in the tank at my lfs and I had purchased snails from them a week earlier, so that could be the source.

So should I run my radions higher until I figure out the t5 situation? I just turned them down when I noticed the STN, but I had the homewrecker under around 500 par because that is what it was in in the tank it came from. I might be able to put the t5s back up and use the extra radions on the frag tank. I will talk to the wife.

 

[Herby’s reef]

Don’t worry, I have thick skin, I dont take it as bashing, I appreciate the advice. I really only dosed the vibrant because of slight bubble algae, very very slight. I really believe it threw the system out of wack and that is what caused the dinos. I dip everything, but I did notice Dino in the tank at my lfs and I had purchased snails from them a week earlier, so that could be the source.

So should I run my radions higher until I figure out the t5 situation? I just turned them down when I noticed the STN, but I had the homewrecker under around 500 par because that is what it was in in the tank it came from. I might be able to put the t5s back up and use the extra radions on the frag tank. I will talk to the wife.

Also, I have read multiple times that the homewrecker likes to be blasted with lights.

 

[Herby’s reef]

So that is why I had the par so high on it.

Sorry about the weird multi posts, I somehow messed it up when posting

 

[Reefer1978]

You stated that you were using Vibrant in the youtube video could that be the caused?

It is also a possiblity, but I have had so many people tell me they use it all the time with no problems. I kept the cheato in when I first dosed it and the vibrant melted it. I did start having a lot of problems at that same time, but I can’t really find a reason to blame the vibrant itself. It did seem to throw my system out of wack because now I am struggling with Dino in my frag tank and I have not really added any new frags or fish that should have caused that in the last few weeks, and most of my stuff comes from very clean sources like Jason Fox. I have actually just dosed the vibrant again, because in the vibrant thread it has been shown to work on dino. I have fought Dino before, and want to get it before it gets bad. My case now is very minor. I do wish the vibrant bottle had let me know to remove my cheato, but if you read the 200 plus pages of the vibrant thread, the reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

I am one of those people - and no issues with SPS what so ever. I am dosing Vibrant for 1.5 years at this point.

Davenkim - side question - how much do you feed and how often?

 

[jda]

I would keep them lower... as long as you have enough. Under lighting seems to be better than burning them when they are already stressed.

500 PAR from a LED is usually a bad idea although this seems to be fine with T5s or MH.

 

[Herby’s reef]

I am one of those people - and no issues with SPS what so ever. I am dosing Vibrant for 1.5 years at this point.

Davenkim - side question - how much do you feed and how often?

I feed reefroids 1.5 tsp 3 to 4 times per week, and lrs reef frenzy to the fish daily.

 

[Herby’s reef]

I would keep them lower... as long as you have enough. Under lighting seems to be better than burning them when they are already stressed.

500 PAR from a LED is usually a bad idea although this seems to be fine with T5s or MH.

Ok, thanks, that is what I was figuring.

I am not offended, you are obviously much more experienced than me and I honestly appreciate the advice, but dont many many successful reef keepers succeed using just radions. That Is one of the main reasons I purchased them. It is a bit heartbreaking to spend so much a find out that I downgraded. Most of the tanks I have seen on tank tours, and on people’s tanks such a Sanji seem to be radions. I was trying to do what is best for my coral, but maybe just wasted money instead!

 

[jda]

...so it is all in the nuance and details of what you see online combined with where you are in the hobby. There are radion-only tanks that look really good to new hobbyists, but are just so-so to more experienced people. WWC and Vivid have really nice displays under just Radions that look pretty good, but I have seen significantly better with my own eyes that I doubt that less experienced would miss - they do not look like Copps tank, or Steve Weast's old tank or JBNY's tank. Now, they are in retail and have different goals than you and I, so this is a different level and expectation... and I would probably do the same thing that they do if I was in retail... so these are not good case studies.

There are a lot of mixed and softie reefs that are Radion lit, but that is not what you are going after.

Dr. Joshi has a nice tank - I have not seen it in person, but have chatted with him multiple times... he will flat out tell you that the Radions are not as good as the Halides were, but they make up for it in other ways like not having to run a chiller. He uses 10 of them over a larger tank to replace 3x Halides, so more than most people use (which gets overlooked as a nuance). Here are some of his own words. https://reefs.com/2016/01/05/leds-500-gallon-reef/ He gives a lot of talks at different conferences and is very open and honest about just about everything - he is not as much of a fanboy of anything than other people out there. I have always found him very approachable if you ever get the chance to attend. His talk at 2015 MACNA had a lot of locals regretting their LED purchases... those that bought into the premise that everything would be the same with less power and electricity and everything would look and grow the same. It also set a pretty good bar for the people who stayed invested to not expect the "same thing" and to consider the overall package. His talks to me always balance on giving up something to get something and he has always made it clear that if pure acropora performance was what he was after, then he would still have the MH (similar to the opening on the BRS lighting comparison videos).

OrionN, I think, has a really nice LED acropora tank. From what I can tell, his is about as good as I have seen, but it also appears that he is on-the-money with everything else. This tank might be a good case study for you.

The bottom line is that more people than not end up adding T5s to the Radions in acropora situations. Then, some portion of these figure out that the T5s made the difference and sometimes add more T5s and drop the LEDs for even more gain - dropping the "best of both worlds" for the paradigm of "being all in is better than playing both sides." I tell people all the time, and it really makes a lot of them mad, that you will have a ceiling with LEDs over an acropora tank where most never can get to 75-80% of what they could with better lights.

I do not think that the Radions are your issue, just that if you want to continue to use them, you need to get this solved... like you did not know this already. Although we will never know, it is possible that you would not be seeing any issues at all with T5s or MH over this tank... this is just me supposing. There are plenty of people who disagree with me... a lot, actually.

Sorry for the TLDR.

 

[Herby’s reef]

I would take care of the tin, but it is probably not a huge problem. Most of the time, it comes from the salt mix, so I would look there first unless you are using rock-solid-for-decades salt it Tropic Marin or IO.

What you are doing sounds really great with the flow and CaRx. Is the tank more than a year old?

When using LED-only to light acropora, everything else has to be nearly perfect for them to thrive. There are many, many people who put T5 on with their Radions for better growth, color and stability. You might consider this.

I like to arrest the STN before I frag and remount. Cutting can be stressful. Once this is done and the coral has recovered (grown some), then I do like to cut all the dead stuff off and remount.

This tank is 1 year old but much of the rock came from my previous tank that is 1 year old.

...so it is all in the nuance and details of what you see online combined with where you are in the hobby. There are radion-only tanks that look really good to new hobbyists, but are just so-so to more experienced people. WWC and Vivid have really nice displays under just Radions that look pretty good, but I have seen significantly better with my own eyes that I doubt that less experienced would miss - they do not look like Copps tank, or Steve Weast's old tank or JBNY's tank. Now, they are in retail and have different goals than you and I, so this is a different level and expectation... and I would probably do the same thing that they do if I was in retail... so these are not good case studies.

There are a lot of mixed and softie reefs that are Radion lit, but that is not what you are going after.

Dr. Joshi has a nice tank - I have not seen it in person, but have chatted with him multiple times... he will flat out tell you that the Radions are not as good as the Halides were, but they make up for it in other ways like not having to run a chiller. He uses 10 of them over a larger tank to replace 3x Halides, so more than most people use (which gets overlooked as a nuance). Here are some of his own words. https://reefs.com/2016/01/05/leds-500-gallon-reef/ He gives a lot of talks at different conferences and is very open and honest about just about everything - he is not as much of a fanboy of anything than other people out there. I have always found him very approachable if you ever get the chance to attend. His talk at 2015 MACNA had a lot of locals regretting their LED purchases... those that bought into the premise that everything would be the same with less power and electricity and everything would look and grow the same. It also set a pretty good bar for the people who stayed invested to not expect the "same thing" and to consider the overall package. His talks to me always balance on giving up something to get something and he has always made it clear that if pure acropora performance was what he was after, then he would still have the MH (similar to the opening on the BRS lighting comparison videos).

OrionN, I think, has a really nice LED acropora tank. From what I can tell, his is about as good as I have seen, but it also appears that he is on-the-money with everything else. This tank might be a good case study for you.

The bottom line is that more people than not end up adding T5s to the Radions in acropora situations. Then, some portion of these figure out that the T5s made the difference and sometimes add more T5s and drop the LEDs for even more gain - dropping the "best of both worlds" for the paradigm of "being all in is better than playing both sides." I tell people all the time, and it really makes a lot of them mad, that you will have a ceiling with LEDs over an acropora tank where most never can get to 75-80% of what they could with better lights.

I do not think that the Radions are your issue, just that if you want to continue to use them, you need to get this solved... like you did not know this already. Although we will never know, it is possible that you would not be seeing any issues at all with T5s or MH over this tank... this is just me supposing. There are plenty of people who disagree with me... a lot, actually.

Sorry for the TLDR.

thanks for the reply. I honestly had no idea. I really thought that t5 and halide were all outdated tech. Maybe I will put the t5 back up.

Thanks so much for taking the time to teach me!

 

[jda]

While I do not think that Radions are the best for acropora, they might be right for your tank depending on your goals. You take right over best any time.

 

[terri_ann]

I respect jda and his knowledge, and openness. I do believe that All Lighting, whether MH, T5 and Leds or combinations, can grow all corals. I think there is plenty of proof However, it is a fine line especially with acropora. The question you might want to ask yourself is " Do I go with the best lighting and all other practices I have had success with considering how I manage my tank?"

Whether tin, vibrant, lighting or anything else has impacted your corals, it is my opinion that you will need to determine what you will and can do to grow the healthiest corals that you can. They are living creatures and what works today, may not work tomorrow. We must adapt and help them to our best ability. I wish your corals and you the very best!