SPS lighting acclimation in new tank

[Piker]

Hi!

I'm just looking for feedback on my current lighting acclimation and stocking plan. I am at 1.5 months post reset, some live rock in the sump, almost all new dry rock in display.

From now until 3 months: less than150 par, softie/lps lighting at 8 hours daily. I'll be adding some montipora at the end of month 2.

Beginning with month 3: Start slowly upping towards the goal of 300 par/ 10 hours daily over the next 3 months (I'll probably use the automatic acclimation feature in mobius).

I'm running 4 T5's and 4 xr15's over a 75g for those interested. I'll probably only be running ati blue plus T5's, and T5's will only be on for 4 hours of peak.

I'll appreciate any feedback. Trying to get coralline on the rock before I crank it... but also get some nice acros in there before a year is up.

 

[Bpb]

Introduce coraline manually and it’ll spread faster. I don’t see anything wrong with the light acclimation…just rememeber, resetting with a large amount of dry rock will make the tank volatile and unreliable for upwards of a year or more. Yes some people manage to sort it out sooner but that is incredibly uncommon. Just expect headaches the first year. Light acclimation looks fine.

 

[keatonmjenkins]

Like Bpd said, that new rock cycle is going to be hellish. What I did for my own tank that had new rock was waited to add corals for 6 months. That let me get nutrients stable and the bio load to develop better and no loss of corals after that 6 months.

 

[Bpb]

Like Bpd said, that new rock cycle is going to be hellish. What I did for my own tank that had new rock was waited to add corals for 6 months. That let me get nutrients stable and the bio load to develop better and no loss of corals after that 6 months.

For me, I am at literally the one year mark to the day on my tank since I put rocks and sand in. My rocks were dark cured for a long time. Long enough to get feather dusters and sponges colonizing it. But of course once you flip them all around and hit them with light and flow, basically everything dies off and rearranged where it colonized so I dealt with massive nutrient swings and hair algae the first 6 months. The long dark cure may have helped a bit, but not as much as I expected.

Now one year later the rocks are about 50% coated in bright coraline. Zoas and lps are mostly very happy. But still struggling with sps. I feel like I’m very close to turning the corner. Nutrients and alkalinity are super stable. Triton test was clean. Still just waiting for sps to perk up and actually grow

 

[keatonmjenkins]

For me, I am at literally the one year mark to the day on my tank since I put rocks and sand in. My rocks were dark cured for a long time. Long enough to get feather dusters and sponges colonizing it. But of course once you flip them all around and hit them with light and flow, basically everything dies off and rearranged where it colonized so I dealt with massive nutrient swings and hair algae the first 6 months. The long dark cure may have helped a bit, but not as much as I expected.

Now one year later the rocks are about 50% coated in bright coraline. Zoas and lps are mostly very happy. But still struggling with sps. I feel like I’m very close to turning the corner. Nutrients and alkalinity are super stable. Triton test was clean. Still just waiting for sps to perk up and actually grow

Yea I pretty much did the same thing but used lights and expecting hair algae for the first couple months. It all goes away though once I got out of that stage it also allowed me to dose vibrant without having to worry about impacting anything.

people need to realize this hobby is all about slow progress and little to no tweaking in the tank haha.

 

[Piker]

Introduce coraline manually and it’ll spread faster. I don’t see anything wrong with the light acclimation…just rememeber, resetting with a large amount of dry rock will make the tank volatile and unreliable for upwards of a year or more. Yes some people manage to sort it out sooner but that is incredibly uncommon. Just expect headaches the first year. Light acclimation looks fine.

Thanks BPD,. I did scrape some Coraline from my other tank and CUC has Coraline as well.

Appreciate the feedback from everyone!