LeMasterReef
Community Member
Good evening everyone!
So a little about my tank. It’s a 36”x18”x12” deep. Between that at my sump I’ve calculated somewhere around 45 total gallons. I’ve had the tank running in this house for 7 years. Tank is running bare bottom. I run filter socks and a skimmer for mechanical filtration, cheato in the sumo. Carbon every once in awhile to polish the water. Flow in the tank is provided by 2 mp10s running at 75% on gyre mode unsynced. Tank had been controlled with a reef keeper since setting it up but recently upgraded to an apex system. It’s also lit by an XR-30 blue running AB setting at 70 percent.
In the time I’ve been in the hobby I’ve had some success and many failures. My tank certainly gets more attention in the winter than it does in the summer. I live in a very rural area so buying coral requires a 2 hr drive or ordering online. I’ve really just kept softies and mostly fish. Have never given the tank the dedication it takes to be successful In the hobby. My definition of success for my tank would be to have a thriving SpS dominate system. Over the winter I decided to give the tank the attention it needs to give Stony corals a shot.
Fall of last year I rebooted the tank. Clean from display to the sump and fresh aqua scape with dry rock.
Fish list
Pair of clowns
Two blue chromis
Midas blenny
Pink Anthias
Coral
Duncan
Gsp
Mushroom
Chalice
Red digi
6 acro frags
Zoanthids
Sps frags have been in the tank for 2 months. The chalice is growing the Duncan was one head when I got it and now it has baby heade all around the skirt of the original. I added the six acro frags over the last 2 months. The first one was a forest fire digi. It lost all polyp extension and turned a dark color. I thought it was a for sure it was dead. So I buckled down on water testing at that point my nitrates were 40ppm so I did several large water changes to bring them down to under 10. I’m using Red Sea blue bucket salt, keeping alkalinity at 8. Phosphates were showing 0.00 on Hanna checker. After bringing the nitrates down below 10 I noticed a small amount of color on the digi. So faint that I wasn’t even sure if I was seeing it correctly. I’ve been keeping Ca,Alk, and Mag as stable as I can.
Alk 8-8.5
Mag 1320+
Calcium 435
Slowly but surely the red digi began to turn bright pink. I was super extracting that it was recovering.
I’ve been keeping alk and calcium stable by dosing kalk. The digi never has returned to red, it’s still a neon pink color. I decided that maybe it was starving due to the lack of P04 in the system. I began to dose Nyos Phosphate. I was very careful with the first dose and 24 hrs later I tested and got my first reading above 0.00. The tank registers .02. I started testing every few days and when the phosphate would drop to .01 I would then dose 1ml and wait and test again. Tanks been fairly stable at around .03 for a bit with no further dosing. nitrates were 11 at the time. Everything seemed happy. The digi still is light in color. The chalice is growing well. I decided that I would check my alk consumption and start dosing B ionic. For about the past week the SPS has seemed to be unhappy and the digi was starting to have less polyp extension again. I tested nitrates and ret had made there way up to 15. That’s really the only parameter that has changed and I’m wondering if that is causing my digi to be in happy. I’m preparing to do a few water changes to bring the nitrates down to around 5 to see what happens effect that has on the SPS. I know this has been a long winded post but I was hoping for some advice on what I’m missing to be successful with SPS corals
So a little about my tank. It’s a 36”x18”x12” deep. Between that at my sump I’ve calculated somewhere around 45 total gallons. I’ve had the tank running in this house for 7 years. Tank is running bare bottom. I run filter socks and a skimmer for mechanical filtration, cheato in the sumo. Carbon every once in awhile to polish the water. Flow in the tank is provided by 2 mp10s running at 75% on gyre mode unsynced. Tank had been controlled with a reef keeper since setting it up but recently upgraded to an apex system. It’s also lit by an XR-30 blue running AB setting at 70 percent.
In the time I’ve been in the hobby I’ve had some success and many failures. My tank certainly gets more attention in the winter than it does in the summer. I live in a very rural area so buying coral requires a 2 hr drive or ordering online. I’ve really just kept softies and mostly fish. Have never given the tank the dedication it takes to be successful In the hobby. My definition of success for my tank would be to have a thriving SpS dominate system. Over the winter I decided to give the tank the attention it needs to give Stony corals a shot.
Fall of last year I rebooted the tank. Clean from display to the sump and fresh aqua scape with dry rock.
Fish list
Pair of clowns
Two blue chromis
Midas blenny
Pink Anthias
Coral
Duncan
Gsp
Mushroom
Chalice
Red digi
6 acro frags
Zoanthids
Sps frags have been in the tank for 2 months. The chalice is growing the Duncan was one head when I got it and now it has baby heade all around the skirt of the original. I added the six acro frags over the last 2 months. The first one was a forest fire digi. It lost all polyp extension and turned a dark color. I thought it was a for sure it was dead. So I buckled down on water testing at that point my nitrates were 40ppm so I did several large water changes to bring them down to under 10. I’m using Red Sea blue bucket salt, keeping alkalinity at 8. Phosphates were showing 0.00 on Hanna checker. After bringing the nitrates down below 10 I noticed a small amount of color on the digi. So faint that I wasn’t even sure if I was seeing it correctly. I’ve been keeping Ca,Alk, and Mag as stable as I can.
Alk 8-8.5
Mag 1320+
Calcium 435
Slowly but surely the red digi began to turn bright pink. I was super extracting that it was recovering.
I’ve been keeping alk and calcium stable by dosing kalk. The digi never has returned to red, it’s still a neon pink color. I decided that maybe it was starving due to the lack of P04 in the system. I began to dose Nyos Phosphate. I was very careful with the first dose and 24 hrs later I tested and got my first reading above 0.00. The tank registers .02. I started testing every few days and when the phosphate would drop to .01 I would then dose 1ml and wait and test again. Tanks been fairly stable at around .03 for a bit with no further dosing. nitrates were 11 at the time. Everything seemed happy. The digi still is light in color. The chalice is growing well. I decided that I would check my alk consumption and start dosing B ionic. For about the past week the SPS has seemed to be unhappy and the digi was starting to have less polyp extension again. I tested nitrates and ret had made there way up to 15. That’s really the only parameter that has changed and I’m wondering if that is causing my digi to be in happy. I’m preparing to do a few water changes to bring the nitrates down to around 5 to see what happens effect that has on the SPS. I know this has been a long winded post but I was hoping for some advice on what I’m missing to be successful with SPS corals
