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

[BirdFish5000]

Yeah, I mean, if you've already written them off, then why not?

 

[Neuratox]

Some very nice looking frags. I'm no SPS expert, but I love the colors that you've picked. I was peeking into my tank this week using a red light after lights out... I was blown away by how far my polyp extension was. It must have been 3x as much as lights on. Maybe check and see if you've got the same thing going on. I know mine are pretty heathy. They've got strong color and are growing quickly from the small frags that they were.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

No sir, nothing.



Oh I heard nothing but great things about it IF you have to use it with very few bad things said about it.

Maybe I should use it since I am counting most of these frags as a loss already .

There many sps crash stories from using flucozanole. I lost several nice acros the 1 time I tried it at 1/2 the recommended dose.

 

[sanzz18]

There many sps crash stories from using flucozanole. I lost several nice acros the 1 time I tried it at 1/2 the recommended dose.

Well good thing I pretty much have a fowlr haha. I honestly don’t think I have any choice at this point. Not one invert I tried so far has touched it, nor do any of my 5 tangs or foxface. I can’t keep up with it manually. What other option do I have when I am pretty sure I have maiden’s hair algae and nothing will touch it because its toxic to inverts?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Well good thing I pretty much have a fowlr haha. I honestly don’t think I have any choice at this point. Not one invert I tried so far has touched it, nor do any of my 5 tangs or foxface. I can’t keep up with it manually. What other option do I have when I am pretty sure I have maiden’s hair algae and nothing will touch it because its toxic to inverts?

You’re correct. I would nuke it with flucozanole if I didn’t have any sps corals

 

[sanzz18]

Hey all, so here’s an update. So I nuked the algae like I said I would. The rest of the sps is pretty much dead. Going to do a 25% waterchange and run carbon to get the fluconazole out of my tank.

At this point, my tank is a couple months away from the 2 year mark. The only thing thriving in my tank is GSP of course.

I am not sure what my nutrients are but pretty sure they are high with the algae die-off, haven't been testing for them. My alk, tested last week, was 10.0, 10.2 seemed to be the ceiling.

How do I get my tank ready to try SPS again?

Do I really need to start with easier types of corals (that I don’t really want) like leathers and easier LPS?

 

[Dburr1014]

Hey all, so here’s an update. So I nuked the algae like I said I would. The rest of the sps is pretty much dead. Going to do a 25% waterchange and run carbon to get the fluconazole out of my tank.

At this point, my tank is a couple months away from the 2 year mark. The only thing thriving in my tank is GSP of course.

I am not sure what my nutrients are but pretty sure they are high with the algae die-off, haven't been testing for them. My alk, tested last week, was 10.0, 10.2 seemed to be the ceiling.

How do I get my tank ready to try SPS again?

Do I really need to start with easier types of corals (that I don’t really want) like leathers and easier LPS?

Skip the leathers of you want sps.
Just try some easier sps or lps.

 

[sanzz18]

How long should I wait? Should i fix anything in my parameters or let my tank continue to do its thing? How do I provide the best chances of SPS success after all my tank chaos lol?

 

[sanzz18]

Because it has been so long since testing, I just wanted to see what my tank have been doing parameter wise. Here are tonights levels:

Alk - 9.6
Ca - 450
Mg - 1380
Po4 - 0.55
No3 - 34.3

Let me know what you guys think. I am still not using GFO. Just did a 25% (45 gallons) water change after obtaining these levels.

 

[educatedreefer]

Not
fancy yet lol



I don’t have no PE on everything. What pieced are you looking at s



How do I do fix thin tissue? What would you do? At about 20 months of tank life, this seriously makes me just want to give up lol.

Thin tissue on SPS frags could be resulting from lack of necessary amino acid supplementation, too intense lighting (Dana Riddle pointed out corals can always have too much light ) resulting in expulsion of zooxanthellae in order to reduce oxidative stress from overproduction via photosynthesis, or maybe lack of water flow which inhibits nutrient absorption due to barrier surrounding tissue not being disturbed? I have 50-60X water flow rate in my SPS tank and also read that photosynthesis rate of corals are the same at 100-200PAR as it is at 400PAR so no sense in blasting them with too much light.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Because it has been so long since testing, I just wanted to see what my tank have been doing parameter wise. Here are tonights levels:

Alk - 9.6
Ca - 450
Mg - 1380
Po4 - 0.55
No3 - 34.3

Let me know what you guys think. I am still not using GFO. Just did a 25% (45 gallons) water change after obtaining these levels.

High p04 and n03, has this been coming down?

 

[sanzz18]

No it has been going up since I wiped out the hair algae. Haven’t intervened besides the one waterchange last night.

Trying to follow the advice of @Charlie’s Frags and others have recommended on here. I just want to make sure nothing else should be done.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

No it has been going up since I wiped out the hair algae. Haven’t intervened besides the one waterchange last night.

Trying to follow the advice of @Charlie’s Frags and others have recommended on here. I just want to make sure nothing else should be done.

Ok

 

[sanzz18]

Ok

I know I know, I still get anxious about letting my tank go lol. I am at a lost though because when parameters are stable and a tank that “should” be old enough to handle SPS, it didn’t.

Clearly I misused GFO (even though I used 1/3 the recommended amount) and stripped PO4 way too low way too fast.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I know I know, I still get anxious about letting my tank go lol. I am at a lost though because when parameters are stable and a tank that “should” be old enough to handle SPS, it didn’t.

Clearly I misused GFO (even though I used 1/3 the recommended amount) and stripped PO4 way too low way too fast.

Yeah possibly, it could be anything with sps,lol. I run much, much lower nutrients so I'm no help for that N&P bracket.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I know I know, I still get anxious about letting my tank go lol. I am at a lost though because when parameters are stable and a tank that “should” be old enough to handle SPS, it didn’t.

Clearly I misused GFO (even though I used 1/3 the recommended amount) and stripped PO4 way too low way too fast.

Throw some cheap sps in there and see what happens

 

[Roli's Reef Ranch]

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.

I have 90% of those in my tanks. How long have you had them? They look like fresh cuts since there is no encrusting on the glue. I typically let them encrust on a plug before mounting. The color looks okay, but I like to let them settle in first. How is the flow in their current position?

 

[sanzz18]

Throw some cheap sps in there and see what happens

I will definitely do that. Everything looking good based on what I did, am doing, and what the levels are look like?

I have 90% of those in my tanks. How long have you had them? They look like fresh cuts since there is no encrusting on the glue. I typically let them encrust on a plug before mounting. The color looks okay, but I like to let them settle in first. How is the flow in their current position?

That first post is officially in the past lol, 90% of the sps on the rack is no biomedia in the sump haha

 

[sanzz18]

@Charlie’s Frags, My most recent numbers were 9.0 for alk, .43 po4, and 36.6 no3. The only thing that is becoming a pain is my glass is needing to be cleaned much more frequently now and my refugium looks like a hot mess with (better there the display of course but still). Any recommendations or continue my hands off approach? I know that there are people with successful reef tank with their numbers much higher but can’t help to feel hesitant on continuing to let my nutrients go higher.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

@Charlie’s Frags, My most recent numbers were 9.0 for alk, .43 po4, and 36.6 no3. The only thing that is becoming a pain is my glass is needing to be cleaned much more frequently now and my refugium looks like a hot mess with (better there the display of course but still). Any recommendations or continue my hands off approach? I know that there are people with successful reef tank with their numbers much higher but can’t help to feel hesitant on continuing to let my nutrients go higher.

How many hours is your refugium light on?
How are the sps corals doing?