Why cant u keep sps?

[JT2418]

My problem is I don't get good growth. I can keep sps alive fine just want grow. lol

 

[ycnibrc]

Watch reefdudes episode with tropic marine guy they talk about bacteria and trace elements very interesting.

 

[ycnibrc]

My problem is I don't get good growth. I can keep sps alive fine just want grow. lol

Sps use bacteria as food. In the ocean they feed all day thats why they grow so fast.
Watch this and u will understand a little bit more about what help coral grow beside photosynthesis

 

[SeaDweller]

Watch reefdudes episode with tropic marine guy they talk about bacteria and trace elements very interesting.

Lou Ekus makes a lot of sense, doesn't he?

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Zeofood is more like coral food not bacteria source

Hmmm...I don’t have any problems with high nutrients, I have the opposite. So, maybe the Zeobak is sufficient as far as Bacteria go?

 

[ycnibrc]

Lou Ekus makes a lot of sense, doesn't he?

The guy knows his stuffs. Now u know why before we have old tank syndrome. Its depletion of trace elements and bacteria cause even mature tank to crash all of a sudden

 

[ycnibrc]

Hmmm...I don’t have any problems with high nutrients, I have the opposite. So, maybe the Zeobak is sufficient as far as Bacteria go?

Yes

 

[SeaDweller]

The guy knows his stuffs. Now u know why before we have old tank syndrome. Its depletion of trace elements and bacteria cause even mature tank to crash all of a sudden

Yup. But also, old tank syndrome occurs when people don't do enough of water changes, back then. People get lazy and it finally catches up to them.

 

[Alberta79]

My sps where doing great in reefer 350. Tank was 14 months old and thriving in sps color and growth under 4 ai primes. The tank was doing so good I decided to reward it switching thge lights to (3) xr15 gen 4 with difusers. Now all my sps have bleached out and I am struggling with high nitrates. Even running the lights at 20% I cant seem to revive the sps. I added a reef octopus lr150 yesterday so hopefully getting my nitrates down and keeping the lights at 20% I will once again be able to save the sps that are not totally dead and start with new sps frags. The first time since I started in this hobbie I felt discouraged. I will get this reef tank back to where it was!

 

[LARedstickreefer]

My sps where doing great in reefer 350. Tank was 14 months old and thriving in sps color and growth under 4 ai primes. The tank was doing so good I decided to reward it switching thge lights to (3) xr15 gen 4 with difusers. Now all my sps have bleached out and I am struggling with high nitrates. Even running the lights at 20% I cant seem to revive the sps. I added a reef octopus lr150 yesterday so hopefully getting my nitrates down and keeping the lights at 20% I will once again be able to save the sps that are not totally dead and start with new sps frags. The first time since I started in this hobbie I felt discouraged. I will get this reef tank back to where it was!

Did you match par with the radions? If not, and you bleached the corals, it will take a long time to reverse the damage.

I’d guess your nitrates spiked when the corals quit taking them up?

 

[ycnibrc]

My sps where doing great in reefer 350. Tank was 14 months old and thriving in sps color and growth under 4 ai primes. The tank was doing so good I decided to reward it switching thge lights to (3) xr15 gen 4 with difusers. Now all my sps have bleached out and I am struggling with high nitrates. Even running the lights at 20% I cant seem to revive the sps. I added a reef octopus lr150 yesterday so hopefully getting my nitrates down and keeping the lights at 20% I will once again be able to save the sps that are not totally dead and start with new sps frags. The first time since I started in this hobbie I felt discouraged. I will get this reef tank back to where it was!

Sps is very good at reducing nitrate thats explain why your nitrate is high when your corals are in trouble. You might need to look at some others cause because light changes alone cant kill your sps

 

[LARedstickreefer]

What’s the over/under that we can train our sps to eat Cyanobacteria?

 

[SeaDweller]

What’s the over/under that we can train our sps to eat Cyanobacteria?

+100,000 that they can't LOL

 

[Alberta79]

Did you match par with the radions? If not, and you bleached the corals, it will take a long time to reverse the damage.

I’d guess your nitrates spiked when the corals quit taking them up?

I did not. Par meters are hard to come by up here. I was ruinning the ab+ schedule on the primes so I selected the same schedule on the radions but started at 60%. I heard the radions where powerfull I just underestimated how powerfull. When I asked for advise on r2r about new light selections a lot of people said your tank is doing awesome dont change anything. Should have listened lol

 

[Waynerock]

Wow great im so glad that i can help u. Everyday i keep reading thread that reefer have problems with keeping sps and every thread are almost the same scenario. Start out good for a few months then crash with no reason all parameters are good so what give??? Im not advocate for zeovit so i only suggest adding bacteria source to see if it can improve. For me as a hobbyist i want to see reefer successful at reef keeping thats the only way the hobby can grow and sustain in the long run.

as per this discussion I ordered some ZeoBak just to make sure my corals have the best chance possible. God knows I have spent far more on total BS so I will be stoked if this stuff woks. I dont have a problem growing SPS and my rock was Florida live rocks so hopefully I have what my corals need to live already but more is better. I think one of the missing links with success in our tanks is Bacteria hopefully this product will work but whats 20.00 in this hobby

 

[Alberta79]

Sps is very good at reducing nitrate thats explain why your nitrate is high when your corals are in trouble. You might need to look at some others cause because light changes alone cant kill your sps

You are probably correct. When I noticed my nitrates rise from 10ppm to 35ppm and holding steady, I tested my fresh salt water (RSCP) and it was mixing at 25ppm. So I switched salt from rscp to fritz rpm. I however did the switch very slowly 10g water changes every week in my 92 gal system. Making sure my ALK was exact.

 

[Waynerock]

I did not. Par meters are hard to come by up here. I was ruinning the ab+ schedule on the primes so I selected the same schedule on the radions but started at 60%. I heard the radions where powerfull I just underestimated how powerfull. When I asked for advise on r2r about new light selections a lot of people said your tank is doing awesome dont change anything. Should have listened lol

Man I have 3 primes over my 250 and was kinda toying with the idea of going all out with radions, I went with 3 of the prime 16s and glad I did. I dont even know why I spent the money on the 16s because if it aint broke...I am extremly happy with the new primes though and kept my modified Saxby schedule from the old primes and corals did not have a clue. Hopefully your corals are just in shock and will come back, BTW Brightwell aminos are awesome and are supposed to help corals heal from big stresses.

 

[Alberta79]

Man I have 3 primes over my 250 and was kinda toying with the idea of going all out with radions, I went with 3 of the prime 16s and glad I did. I dont even know why I spent the money on the 16s because if it aint broke...I am extremly happy with the new primes though and kept my modified Saxby schedule from the old primes and corals did not have a clue. Hopefully your corals are just in shock and will come back, BTW Brightwell aminos are awesome and are supposed to help corals heal from big stresses.

If I could go back I would have upgraded to the new hydra 32 lights and then I would know the spectrum would be the same and I feel i would have better judged par levels. However they where anounced 2 days after I bought the radions

 

[ycnibrc]

Here’s a short video of my corals close up 2.5 years growth.

 

[charlesk]

Great post Anthony. I hope it gets many people to think about their systems. I agree with you on many points, and my live rock is Indonesian live rock, from 2004. I bought it back then from will of AquaSD when he was running ops out of his garage, some of my rock is even older than that.

here’s my take on it. Yes bacteria is very underrated in the hobby and especially for SPS. I do think they need it and I do dose bacteria too, mainly to diversify the population and ecosystem. Lou Ekus put it the best way: bacteria is the main food source of PO4 for corals and it’s the main way they get it. So I do think bacteria help with the overall system, and for corals, to boot.

but honestly it DOES come down to the skill of the reefer too. Lighting, flow, salt, to me these are all secondary. Keeping parameters stable in a certain range and knowing what TF you’re doing helps ALOT. Take @bubbaque for example, he started his new system with brand new everything. Maybe lost one or two frags? System took off like nothing. I started a frag tank with some rock from my tank, brand new water, and very minimal equipment that housed a ton of frags for a couple months before they went into my current system. Zero losses. There are plenty who get into it who read a lot and “know” what to do, until they get into a situation and then don’t know what to do. It’s experience.

there’s a lot of knee jerk reaction I feel, and I think the biggest down fall for a lot of people who try sps is the fact they don’t provide enough nutrients aka building blocks aka N and P aka fish poop because they don’t feed enough to their fish/tanks. People get into researching the hobby and don’t realize they need to feed their dang fish and not worry about low levels of this and that and how to not grow algae.

like people will run GFO on a new tank. Add macro to a new tank. Turf scrubber, all this junk; biopellets, carbon dose, etc. everything has a use but it’s important to know WHEN to implement them.

Having a diverse population helps for sure no doubt but I hope noobs just don’t think adding bacteria and all is good in the world of SPS... it does come down to skill, diligence and experience I feel.

Can our share what you dose for bacteria? Dr Tim, Bio Spira etc?