SPS Pros - are my frags looking healthy? (Video)

[sanzz18]

For help in keeping them alive....

Stable parameters, proper amount of light. About all you can do.

I am trying my best to keep everything stable. My light is no higher than 300 par on any of the rocks (radion g5s & t5s), x3 mp40 on 90% RC mode.

they all look pretty new and a bit stressed. If they were just added thats normal, but, if they've been in the tank a while, there may be a stressor. Has your alkalinity remained stable? what are your phosphates?

They been in over 10 days. My alk has slowly risen to just under 8 to 9 over the course of 2 weeks, not sure why given I stopped dosing. I do have enough nutrients (I think) for alk that high (PO4 is now 0.08 & NO3 are 18).

Could just be adjusting then. My advice for new frags and new sps systems in general is don’t over strip the water with too much carbon, gfo etc. Doesn’t matter what your po4 Hanna reader measures.

Should I stop with carbon right now? GFO (only 1 cup stripped my PO4 from .27ish to 0.08 in a couple days). Only reason I care to lower them is because I am battling turf algae and don’t want to fuel it more.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I am trying my best to keep everything stable. My light is no higher than 300 par on any of the rocks (radion g5s & t5s), x3 mp40 on 90% RC mode.



They been in over 10 days. My alk has slowly risen to just under 8 to 9 over the course of 2 weeks, not sure why given I stopped dosing. I do have enough nutrients (I think) for alk that high (PO4 is now 0.08 & NO3 are 18).



Should I stop with carbon right now? GFO (only 1 cup stripped my PO4 from .27ish to 0.08 in a couple days). Only reason I care to lower them is because I am battling turf algae and don’t want to fuel it more.

Gfo is not your friend. It won’t help with your turf algae either. I don’t care what @homer1475 says
I believe I recommended this before. Put down the Hanna po4 checker, relax and enjoy your tank

 

[BranchingHammer]

Should I stop with carbon right now? GFO (only 1 cup stripped my PO4 from .27ish to 0.08 in a couple days). Only reason I care to lower them is because I am battling turf algae and don’t want to fuel it more.

Did the lowering of phosphate just occur within the past few days with the new additions in the tank? Rapid reduction of nutrients is a common stressor for acros. In general, it's best to aim for stability rather than numbers. There are great SPS tanks on this forum with high nutrients PO4 above 0.1 and NO3 above 30, and there are also those that have beautiful acros with much lower nutrients. There's not really one number that is perfect for everyone. It's all about stability in your specific tank.

 

[Perry]

My advice, not so conventional...
Let P04 and N03 be what they are, and not control them until acros start looking saturated with color. Test kits can unfortunately lead us in so many wild goose chases. Feed the fish, provide ample light and flow, use a protein skimmer and call it a day
In time, your corals will dictate a change, assuming one is needed. Chasing numbers is just that...

 

[BirdFish5000]

Listen to these guys; I've had endless up endless problems with dying acropora frags while trying to keep no3/po4 "perfect" with GFO, carbon dosing, etc.

 

[sanzz18]

Gfo is not your friend. It won’t help with your turf algae either. I don’t care what @homer1475 says
I believe I recommended this before. Put down the Hanna po4 checker, relax and enjoy your tank

You have commented on one of my posts months back about gfo. It is not necessarily that lowering my phosphates is what I think will get rid of turf algae, it is once I do get rid of it to try to keep it away. I honestly have no idea how to get rid/manage turf algae all while keeping SPS healthy. It is hard to enjoy with all the turf taking over lol. So further guidance would be much much appreciated! lol thanks

Did the lowering of phosphate just occur within the past few days with the new additions in the tank? Rapid reduction of nutrients is a common stressor for acros. In general, it's best to aim for stability rather than numbers. There are great SPS tanks on this forum with high nutrients PO4 above 0.1 and NO3 above 30, and there are also those that have beautiful acros with much lower nutrients. There's not really one number that is perfect for everyone. It's all about stability in your specific tank.

Phosphates, I believe, were lowered when all the frags were in the tank already. I will double check. I wasn't intending to drop them as much as they did or as quickly. I only did 1 cup of standard BRS GFO for over 180 gallons of water. I was actually trying to keep my numbers around 0.1. I don't understand how to keep it any more stable until I see PO4 ramping up almost approaching 0.3 with raging turf algae likely thriving off that.

My advice, not so conventional...
Let P04 and N03 be what they are, and not control them until acros start looking saturated with color. Test kits can unfortunately lead us in so many wild goose chases. Feed the fish, provide ample light and flow, use a protein skimmer and call it a day
In time, your corals will dictate a change, assuming one is needed. Chasing numbers is just that...

I am not as much chasing numbers as I am trying to manage nutrients with an algae problem. Of course this seems like it can be causing other problems. Not sure how to make everything happy in my tank anymore lol.

Listen to these guys; I've had endless up endless problems with dying acropora frags while trying to keep no3/po4 "perfect" with GFO, carbon dosing, etc.

I am trying to listen to them lol. How do I do that and manage/not repeat this....



...once it finally clears up?

 

[Kevinmj70]

My advice, not so conventional...
Let P04 and N03 be what they are, and not control them until acros start looking saturated with color. Test kits can unfortunately lead us in so many wild goose chases. Feed the fish, provide ample light and flow, use a protein skimmer and call it a day
In time, your corals will dictate a change, assuming one is needed. Chasing numbers is just that.

I think Perry has some good advice. From the background of the video it looks like you have a nice tank, you have somehow gotten to the point of your life & you have managed that. Enjoy the journey of the next step. You will get there. Don’t get me wrong, I am a science not “touchy feely” guy, but you will get “the feel” of your tank and eventually those Acros.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

You have commented on one of my posts months back about gfo. It is not necessarily that lowering my phosphates is what I think will get rid of turf algae, it is once I do get rid of it to try to keep it away. I honestly have no idea how to get rid/manage turf algae all while keeping SPS healthy. It is hard to enjoy with all the turf taking over lol. So further guidance would be much much appreciated! lol thanks



Phosphates, I believe, were lowered when all the frags were in the tank already. I will double check. I wasn't intending to drop them as much as they did or as quickly. I only did 1 cup of standard BRS GFO for over 180 gallons of water. I was actually trying to keep my numbers around 0.1. I don't understand how to keep it any more stable until I see PO4 ramping up almost approaching 0.3 with raging turf algae likely thriving off that.



I am not as much chasing numbers as I am trying to manage nutrients with an algae problem. Of course this seems like it can be causing other problems. Not sure how to make everything happy in my tank anymore lol.



I am trying to listen to them lol. How do I do that and manage/not repeat this....



...once it finally clears up?

You need to decide what’s more important to you at the stage your tank is in at this moment. No algae or happy/healthy sps.

There’s a bunch of “stable/stability” talk on this thread, as per usual, but imo it’s all coming from the wrong perspective. Adding a bunch of products or media to achieve certain test result is the opposite of a stable system. There are a ton of sps death threads here that start with “my parameters are perfect and stable”, so that means, to me, that y’all’s “stable” means jack squat. I have no idea what my no3/po4 is……my alk was 6.5 last night and is 8.2 now…..and guess what???? No tank/sps crash. Shocker

So if I was in charge of your tank…..assuming you have good lighting and no contaminants, I would throw away all of your gfo and order +50 turbo snails for the algae. That’s it.

 

[sanzz18]

Just posting my parameters I had just tested just now.

ALK - 9.2
CAL - 435
MAG - 1245
PO4 - 0.12
NO3 - 12.1

Tonight, this is how my green slime is looking. Not good at all.

 

[sanzz18]

Sorry, did not realize there were replies.

I think Perry has some good advice. From the background of the video it looks like you have a nice tank, you have somehow gotten to the point of your life & you have managed that. Enjoy the journey of the next step. You will get there. Don’t get me wrong, I am a science not “touchy feely” guy, but you will get “the feel” of your tank and eventually those Acros.

I hope I do because this tank has given me nothing but stress lol.

You need to decide what’s more important to you at the stage your tank is in at this moment. No algae or happy/healthy sps.

There’s a bunch of “stable/stability” talk on this thread, as per usual, but imo it’s all coming from the wrong perspective. Adding a bunch of products or media to achieve certain test result is the opposite of a stable system. There are a ton of sps death threads here that start with “my parameters are perfect and stable”, so that means, to me, that y’all’s “stable” means jack squat. I have no idea what my no3/po4 is……my alk was 6.5 last night and is 8.2 now…..and guess what???? No tank/sps crash. Shocker

So if I was in charge of your tank…..assuming you have good lighting and no contaminants, I would throw away all of your gfo and order +50 turbo snails for the algae. That’s it.

I would definitely rather have happy/healthy SPS. There is so much information online and I am just trying to make the best choice for my tank to achieve what I want to achieve. Would you still run carbon? I literally turned off the pump that feeds my carbon/gfo reactor from my apex app just now. The way my green slimer looks in the picture above, do you think it can survive it?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Sorry, did not realize there were replies.



I hope I do because this tank has given me nothing but stress lol.



I would definitely rather have happy/healthy SPS. There is so much information online and I am just trying to make the best choice for my tank to achieve what I want to achieve. Would you still run carbon? I literally turned off the pump that feeds my carbon/gfo reactor from my apex app just now. The way my green slimer looks in the picture above, do you think it can survive it?

I only run carbon if I need to remove a medication.
I have no idea how the slimer will do. They don’t recover over night and sometimes never do regardless of the methods put in place. But I’ve been where are you….worse actually. I can remember spending an obscene amount of money after stressing all day during a tsa live sale. Thinking I was ready for a bouquet of rainbow Tenuis bc my biopellets had brought my no3/po4 to the “ideal” range. I had scored an angry bird, tsa bubble yum, tsa rainbow fusion and some others I can’t remember….what I do remember is the small panic attacks I was having on my way home, wondering if the stn had stopped over the following weeks. This wasn’t the only time this happened but it was the last time. I stopped worrying about those numbers and my sps started surviving. Then most started to thrive.
This is supposed to be enjoyable. Everything from watching snails and hermits eat algae to seeing fish gobble up food and yes, polyps dancing on acropora. So unless you’re starting a coral farm business in the next couple weeks, stop stressing over some stupid test kit. Your reef tank will thank you for it.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Just posting my parameters I had just tested just now.

ALK - 9.2
CAL - 435
MAG - 1245
PO4 - 0.12
NO3 - 12.1

Tonight, this is how my green slime is looking. Not good at all.

I don’t know many ppl that have great success with gfo but the ones I do know that do keep their alk around 7.5-8

 

[Sabellafella]

I have another set of SPS frags that I will be mounting soon. I just wanted to see if you guys think they are looking good or if anything looks wrong. I know the monti grafted cap isnt looking too hot, but I care more about the acros.

Let me know what you guys think.

Yellow piece looks a little haulted. Re mount it, and dip. Move It around, needs to get going. Otherwise everything looks great.

 

[Perry]

Good morning,
I will simply echo what Charlie is stating above I haven't measured P04 in 2 weeks, last time I did, it was .13ppm. I measure N03 weekly, but that's just to see if anything I am purposefully doing to lower is working, last week was 30-50ppm. Yes I have algae, I run my lights with plenty of white, and man do them acros love it, but so does green turf, lol. Elbow grease quite frankly is the best approach, you got to get in there and use a toothbrush, knife, whatever it takes, and remove manually. I usually do a water change after, and add some bacteria, and wait a couple weeks and repeat. It takes serious work to get that pristine look Your acros are pastelling, which is a sign that nutrients are low, so feed some fish, pull socks/mechanical filtration, protein skimmer, and run a shorter photo period for now. As the corals regain color, slowly ramp up. They really want white light, blue is for show

 

[Dburr1014]

I am trying my best to keep everything stable. My light is no higher than 300 par on any of the rocks (radion g5s & t5s), x3 mp40 on 90% RC mode.



They been in over 10 days. My alk has slowly risen to just under 8 to 9 over the course of 2 weeks, not sure why given I stopped dosing. I do have enough nutrients (I think) for alk that high (PO4 is now 0.08 & NO3 are 18).



Should I stop with carbon right now? GFO (only 1 cup stripped my PO4 from .27ish to 0.08 in a couple days). Only reason I care to lower them is because I am battling turf algae and don’t want to fuel it more.

Lowering po4 takes a really long time. It is bound in the rock and to extract it takes a long time.
I understand why you want to lower it but I wouldn't keep going up and down with it either.
One way I found is to lint the po4 being added in the first place.
Flake and pellets are loaded with po4. I started feeding frozen food everyday which has somewhat less po4.
If it were my tank in this position of where you are right now... I would wean of the gfo slowly so the po4 doesn't rebound quickly. Let them come back up and see how the frags do. You may have to test everyday.
From what I read, it seems like your tank is less than 2 years.
How was the system started?
Where did you source the rock?
Can you source more live rock(small pieces) from lfs or online? Different strains of bacteria can help a system.

What lights do you have? I see you have about 300 par. What are the settings? Reds, greens, blues, whites, ect...
How long at max if you have sunrise/sunset?

@Charlie's Frags I'm always amazed by your nutrients and colors of your tank. (like everyone else)

 

[sanzz18]

I only run carbon if I need to remove a medication.
I have no idea how the slimer will do. They don’t recover over night and sometimes never do regardless of the methods put in place. But I’ve been where are you….worse actually. I can remember spending an obscene amount of money after stressing all day during a tsa live sale. Thinking I was ready for a bouquet of rainbow Tenuis bc my biopellets had brought my no3/po4 to the “ideal” range. I had scored an angry bird, tsa bubble yum, tsa rainbow fusion and some others I can’t remember….what I do remember is the small panic attacks I was having on my way home, wondering if the stn had stopped over the following weeks. This wasn’t the only time this happened but it was the last time. I stopped worrying about those numbers and my sps started surviving. Then most started to thrive.
This is supposed to be enjoyable. Everything from watching snails and hermits eat algae to seeing fish gobble up food and yes, polyps dancing on acropora. So unless you’re starting a coral farm business in the next couple weeks, stop stressing over some stupid test kit. Your reef tank will thank you for it.

Yeah, ever since trying to keep acros (which is really, all I honestly want to keep for corals besides a few others mixed in), it has been stressful. I know you said forget parameters and let the tank do its thing, I just don't understand how where my nutrients are (not low by any means) and alk is, why my frags are having a hard time hanging on; where the majority of SPS keepers keep there parameters at or lower than mine. Is it GFO itself or how fast it dropped my phosphate this time?

Good morning,
I will simply echo what Charlie is stating above I haven't measured P04 in 2 weeks, last time I did, it was .13ppm. I measure N03 weekly, but that's just to see if anything I am purposefully doing to lower is working, last week was 30-50ppm. Yes I have algae, I run my lights with plenty of white, and man do them acros love it, but so does green turf, lol. Elbow grease quite frankly is the best approach, you got to get in there and use a toothbrush, knife, whatever it takes, and remove manually. I usually do a water change after, and add some bacteria, and wait a couple weeks and repeat. It takes serious work to get that pristine look Your acros are pastelling, which is a sign that nutrients are low, so feed some fish, pull socks/mechanical filtration, protein skimmer, and run a shorter photo period for now. As the corals regain color, slowly ramp up. They really want white light, blue is for show

I am reading all of what you all are saying. I just don't understand how 0.08-0.12 phosphates and nitrates above 10 are low nutrients and would be causing whatever my acros are doing. I feed fish pretty well, I have no socks or fleece rollers. I just use chaeto/fuge and a skimmer. I am definitely not willing to turn off the skimmer though because it helps me keep my ph over 8. My photo period is 12 hrs using WWC radion template; my par is lower because of the long photo period.

Lowering po4 takes a really long time. It is bound in the rock and to extract it takes a long time.
I understand why you want to lower it but I wouldn't keep going up and down with it either.
One way I found is to lint the po4 being added in the first place.
Flake and pellets are loaded with po4. I started feeding frozen food everyday which has somewhat less po4.
If it were my tank in this position of where you are right now... I would wean of the gfo slowly so the po4 doesn't rebound quickly. Let them come back up and see how the frags do. You may have to test everyday.
From what I read, it seems like your tank is less than 2 years.
How was the system started?
Where did you source the rock?
Can you source more live rock(small pieces) from lfs or online? Different strains of bacteria can help a system.

What lights do you have? I see you have about 300 par. What are the settings? Reds, greens, blues, whites, ect...
How long at max if you have sunrise/sunset?

@Charlie's Frags I'm always amazed by your nutrients and colors of your tank. (like everyone else)

Thanks for commenting. I mostly feed frozen food actually. The 1 cup of GFO I used appears to already be wearing off as it went from 0.27-28 to 0.08 quickly; and now it is back up to 0.12. Yeah my tank is about 20 months old at this point so was hoping that I wouldn't be having the problems I am having. The tank should be able to handle acros from what others have said to me.

I started it with dry rock (Marco) and bottled bacteria. Less than a half a year into the tank, my buddy gave me a piece of live rock from his, at the time, 2-3 year old tank to help seed mine.

I have x4 radion xr15 gen 5 pros. They are using the WWC template. They run for 12 hrs which is why I keep the PAR on the lower side. Template below:

Their settings change a few times throughout the day and later in the day gets bluer. This is mostly peak times I guess. I also have x4 t4 bulbs for a hybrid setup. They turn on from 12-5P.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

IMO ,Just like there's advice to not do anything, there's advice to do testing and dosing and chasing numbers , but you need to have some knowledge of what your doing, most are not quite there yet, thats why it's just easier to give the advice to do nothing ,feed more do waterchanges stuff like that, but its totally possible to chase around numbers(aiming for any set parameter is technically chasing numbers) that's how you hit the target, but if you don't know how to shoot, then here's a shotgun and just point it that way with water changes.

Your phosphates might be higher than that test is showing, or maybe very intense lights , i almost see the start of them getting brown, the green slimer in that last picture compared to the first video lost a bit of its green color, with an overall brown tint, I see the green hair algae is "healthy looking" and very thick forming in most rock cracks. gfo does work but in a system going from never using it, a very small amount must be used with low flow (gph) for the the first week or two, the issues with gfo is how fast it strips because it's so efficient or used to aggressively and the system has never had it before, it needs to adjust, think months to lower levels not days unfortunately its usually days with most implications because it does work so well. In the beginning sometimes a timer or one day on one day off works good for example. There are tons of ways to do anything but I like to test and adjust and act if I see something going on. "Chasing it"

 

[Dburr1014]

Yeah, ever since trying to keep acros (which is really, all I honestly want to keep for corals besides a few others mixed in), it has been stressful. I know you said forget parameters and let the tank do its thing, I just don't understand how where my nutrients are (not low by any means) and alk is, why my frags are having a hard time hanging on; where the majority of SPS keepers keep there parameters at or lower than mine. Is it GFO itself or how fast it dropped my phosphate this time?





I am reading all of what you all are saying. I just don't understand how 0.08-0.12 phosphates and nitrates above 10 are low nutrients and would be causing whatever my acros are doing. I feed fish pretty well, I have no socks or fleece rollers. I just use chaeto/fuge and a skimmer. I am definitely not willing to turn off the skimmer though because it helps me keep my ph over 8. My photo period is 12 hrs using WWC radion template; my par is lower because of the long photo period.



Thanks for commenting. I mostly feed frozen food actually. The 1 cup of GFO I used appears to already be wearing off as it went from 0.27-28 to 0.08 quickly; and now it is back up to 0.12. Yeah my tank is about 20 months old at this point so was hoping that I wouldn't be having the problems I am having. The tank should be able to handle acros from what others have said to me.

I started it with dry rock (Marco) and bottled bacteria. Less than a half a year into the tank, my buddy gave me a piece of live rock from his, at the time, 2-3 year old tank to help seed mine.

I have x4 radion xr15 gen 5 pros. They are using the WWC template. They run for 12 hrs which is why I keep the PAR on the lower side. Template below:

Their settings change a few times throughout the day and later in the day gets bluer. This is mostly peak times I guess. I also have x4 t4 bulbs for a hybrid setup. They turn on from 12-5P.

Do you ramp up and down?
May I suggest to lowering or turning off the red and green spectrum. White light has them both in it and that may be enough. I set mine at 6% and 12% respectfully.
So your ~300 par is with the t5?
I don't have those lights but I would think they can punch a lot more than that. I recently visited a members tank in my club and he's getting 700 par with radions. I'm pretty sure he has Gen 5.
You are doing the right thing (well, could be a debate) in doing longer period/lower par; shorter period/higher par.

 

[Rick5]

Some good advice in this thread. I'd take it and hope for a speedy recovery of those frags.

If your phosphate really is .12, my guess is that the phosphate has been yo-yo-ing wildly up and down due to being stripped and leaching out repeatedly, as the frags' skin is thin and looks even thinner on the slimer (in the second photo).

That algae isn't a big deal. I'd use a cleanup crew rather than GFO or anything else to artificially augment phosphate or even nitrate. I'd also stop testing phosphate and nitrate.

 

[Rick5]

I am not as much chasing numbers as I am trying to manage nutrients with an algae problem. Of course this seems like it can be causing other problems. Not sure how to make everything happy in my tank anymore lol.

Bud, that's the definition of chasing numbers.

Do you understand what these folks mean by thin skin? If you look at a healthy sps, even if just a tiny frag, the skin should look thick and plump, rather than thin and nearly see-through.