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question about coral growth, coloration and phosphate control


Prinz

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let me start with what i have set up right now,

my tank is an oceanic 67ish gal,

 

36x18x24

 

2 kessil a360 -8 hours total runtime at 100% intensity and color 1 hour each ramp time and ramp down

1 hydra 26 hd  = 8 total hours runtime at 80 max white and blue, with 1 hour ramp time and ramp down

 

skimmer rated for 120 gl

 

running reactor with pura phos lock

 

dosing 20 ml of red sea nopox

 

cal = 425

alk = 10

mag 1450

5

 

just added 3 macro algae, ( all 3 are getting good grow rate )

 

i have issue with phosphate and im still battling with it, hence the pura phos lock, nopox and jsut added the macro algae last week,

 

what i dont understand is that i have some growth on some of my sps, and coloration on others but not all seems to be reacting the same way, is this normal?

 

im not really complaining with whats going on with my lil ocean right now, i just to ask what do i need to make growth and color be a lil better

 

thanks

 

phos - .21

nit - 1salinity = 1.02

52886983_2384925441764805_8288931000289853440_n.jpg

53513237_336048617026688_6655897036061147136_n.jpg

Edited by Prinz
unfinished detail
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these are my issue right now with coloration

 

1 is a rainbow mille and the other is rift raft something, if i remember it right, good growth and polyp but lack coloration

 

thanks

 

 

25 mille.jpg

25 rift raft.jpg

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That's a lot of light. Possible that you might be blasting them with too much? You used a par meter?

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here it is, it is on ramp down timer, hydra 26 is about 1 ft from the top of the water and kessils are 8 inches from top of the water

25 full tank.jpg

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I don’t know about those lights, but I am currently battling back from too much light. I had almost zero growth for over two months. I dialed the lights back a bit and my growth is starting up again. Your situation could very well be different, but I hadn’t experienced lack of growth from too much light before and was surprised what happened when I turned them down. 

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(edited)

You can always try amino like fuel, red sea colors, or acropower. That might help enhance the colors too. I use the red sea colors and it works pretty well for me.

 

I personally can't say if you have too much light or not until you test your par. I currently have a 48'' and use 3 x hydra 26s and 4 T5s. I only run the hydra at around 50-70% and have no issue with coloration. 12 hrs photo period to include ramp up and down.

Edited by littlelise1985
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Get rid of the nopox, phos lock, all that unnatural stuff. 0.21 phosphate is not a problem. Just keep it steady by balancing out your water changes and how much you feed.

 

Also, if your first few pics are true to life, turn down the white channels and intensity. You're going to grow more algae than corals with that intense white light.

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thanks for all the input, 

18 minutes ago, gws3 said:

Get rid of the nopox, phos lock, all that unnatural stuff. 0.21 phosphate is not a problem. Just keep it steady by balancing out your water changes and how much you feed.

 

Also, if your first few pics are true to life, turn down the white channels and intensity. You're going to grow more algae than corals with that intense white light.

it is showing .21 on the test kit but i know it is off as green hair are growing also same time as the corals, will definitely turn down intensity and white channels when i get home today, water change is 5 to 7 gal a week and feeding is on timer twice a day but not a lot

 

those pics are taken yesterday before i made this post 

 

15 hours ago, YHSublime said:

That's a lot of light. Possible that you might be blasting them with too much? You used a par meter?

will be tuning down the light a bit later, nope i have not used a par meter 

53622411_2041678725887824_6513000106868867072_n.jpg

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How long were you running at those settings?  Have you seen much coral mortality shortly following addition at these settings?  Only asking because I feel like that may be too much light. I would personally decrease max intensity, or increase ramp up/down time and decrease from 8 hour hold time at max (while still keeping the same light on/off times).

 

I’m also in-line with @gws3 in terms of color.  I honestly don’t remember the exact color setting my A360WEs originally ran at but they were pretty ‘white’.  I ran into a number of issues so decreased color to sub 50% (I believe at 40% at max).  Doing that helped combat a number of issues and kept algae growth in DT at a minimum.

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3 hours ago, DFR said:

How long were you running at those settings?  Have you seen much coral mortality shortly following addition at these settings?  Only asking because I feel like that may be too much light. I would personally decrease max intensity, or increase ramp up/down time and decrease from 8 hour hold time at max (while still keeping the same light on/off times).

 

I’m also in-line with @gws3 in terms of color.  I honestly don’t remember the exact color setting my A360WEs originally ran at but they were pretty ‘white’.  I ran into a number of issues so decreased color to sub 50% (I believe at 40% at max).  Doing that helped combat a number of issues and kept algae growth in DT at a minimum.

its been about 2 or 3 months since i started running these settings, luckily i never had any mortality after running this setting,, i have played with the setting with color at 80 and intensity at 15 ( or is that too low for intensity? ) for the kessil and just running blue at 70% and white at 15% on the hydra 26

 

3 hours ago, ImGoingCoastal said:

Just out of curiosity.... How old is the tank?

-A-a-ron
 

the tank is nearing its year old mark

 

1 hour ago, A.ocellaris said:

Dont go for zero phosphate or zero nitrates... it's even worse.

i dont think i will reach 0 phosphate, reason me saying that is as some of my corals grow so are the gha, nitrates too, per the picture of the warcoral 

 

as of today i am cutting feeding to once a day

took off the GFO

stop using nopox 

and will be doing 10 gal/week water change instead of 5 or 7

kessil is at 80 color and 15 intensity

hydra 26 at 70 blue and 15 % white

will be keeping my macro algae

continue dosing alk and cal using 2 part doser to maintain calcium at 420 and alk at 10 magnesium is at 1400 

 

am i still missing something??

 

thanks

 

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3 minutes ago, littlelise1985 said:

Stopping your nopox rapidly will do a lot of damage (changing anything rapidly), but that's your call. Good luck.

 

i hope it wont since i was just using 10 ml/day, will be keeping an eye on the inhabitants how they react, but thanks for the heads up

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Just my $.02 but Id limit the amount of things I change all at once. It makes it difficult to isolate the cause. And the side effects of changing so much so quickly could also result in bigger issues.

-A-a-ron

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49 minutes ago, ImGoingCoastal said:

Just my $.02 but Id limit the amount of things I change all at once. It makes it difficult to isolate the cause. And the side effects of changing so much so quickly could also result in bigger issues.

-A-a-ron
 

of course, i started yesterday, shut off gfo, will be doing water change this sunday and start with pulling back with the nopox it will prolly take me a week till i completely stop using nopox, then it will just be water changes and the macro from there going forward

 

thank you

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6 minutes ago, Prinz said:

of course, i started yesterday, shut off gfo, will be doing water change this sunday and start with pulling back with the nopox it will prolly take me a week till i completely stop using nopox, then it will just be water changes and the macro from there going forward

 

thank you

 

I personally have been using nopox since I started. This product is great and is just another form of carbon dosing. To say that your issue is from this product does not do it justice.

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Just now, littlelise1985 said:

 

I personally have been using nopox since I started. This product is great and is just another form of carbon dosing. To say that your issue is from this product does not do it justice.

hi littlelise1985,

 

its not i am saying that the issue with my tank was caused by nopox, i agree with you that it is a great product, it has in some way helped controlling the nitrates and phosphate, as of right now i am just trying to zero in what is helping me and what is not helping me, i am not saying that i will not be using nopox again if the need arise, basically right i am just doing the process of elimination, if the macros and water changes fix my problem then its a win win for me as it means less expenses on additives and more for corals :), if it is doing good for your tanks lucky you, continue with it, i wish it will continue to do so, again, im not saying that the problem my tank is having started with the nopox, i already have gha problem even before i even started using it

 

hope that clears things, 

 

thank you

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I think you're making the right changes. All at once does seem a bit fast, but regardless long term you'll be better off. 

 

People buy into marketing too much with all the products out there to control nutrients amongst other things. Look at the best names in aquaculture and their husbandry... They don't use nopox and other expensive products on their thousands of gallons. It would be uneconomical and is not needed. Balancing nutrients in and out is all that's needed. Much more natural and easier on corals. 

 

Also, I'm not sure that's GHA. Could be bryopsis. Bryopsis sometimes looks stringy and not like a fern as sometimes pictured. Try turning off flow and taking a clear pic. If bryopsis, it can grow in practically 0 nutrients. If it's a type of green algae the bluer spectrum will help a lot. And some algae eaters if your clean up crew is weak.

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Ah I see, you’re basically using the Kessils as supplementation or possibly the shimmer.  At 15% intensity I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘too much light’ issue (still would be nice to get par readings though).  

From the FTS it looks like you are doing a good job with removal/remediation, it is just to pinpoint the source.  It looks like you have a powerheads on either side of the tank.  Are they stirring up a lot of the detritus and allowing it to make its way to the sump or are you mainly getting it during water changes?  If they run on alternating schedule, are they each rated for >1800gph?

I’m more of a minimalist and try to keep things as simple as possible.  If it were me, I’d just ween off the gfo slowly and only use if a problem arise.  Nopox is fine as it’s really just vodka and vinegar, so it’s basically just ‘feeding’ your bacteria (I just wouldn’t rely solely on it for nutrient control as you could run into further issues).  In terms of concept, this filtration should be just fine.  However, since your skimmer is over-sized, that may pose an issue if you cut down on feeding.  Also, just out of curiosity, do you find yourself changing the settings on your skimmer often? Lastly, what does your fish stocking look like?  As mentioned previously, algae grazers and increased CUC may be a good idea.

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If growth and color are something your trying to improve and nothing is really wrong, changing things, especially that list you wrote up, is going to give you the opposite result your looking for.  Sounds to me like you just need to let things go if things are growing, one year is about the point where you should be letting the tank do its own thing and let the corals grow.  Once things are growing and stable then you can worry about tweaking colors and growth.

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there has been a lot of input to the question and issues i am having in my tank, and i appreciate it very much, and to answer some questions

10 hours ago, DFR said:

From the FTS it looks like you are doing a good job with removal/remediation, it is just to pinpoint the source.  It looks like you have a powerheads on either side of the tank.  Are they stirring up a lot of the detritus and allowing it to make its way to the sump or are you mainly getting it during water changes?  If they run on alternating schedule, are they each rated for >1800gph?

thanks, i try to although sometimes i do not have time, its hard when you work 70 hours a week sometimes, but i do try to manually remove them, yes i have 3 powerhead, 1 mp10 on the left side at 60% on random lagoon setting, a jebao pp4 on both side, on short pulse at 65 to 70%, and they run 24/7, and 1 return line pointed to the front of the tank and one mostly blowing towards the surface for water agitation

 

11 hours ago, DFR said:

 However, since your skimmer is over-sized, that may pose an issue if you cut down on feeding.  Also, just out of curiosity, do you find yourself changing the settings on your skimmer often? Lastly, what does your fish stocking look like?  As mentioned previously, algae grazers and increased CUC may be a good idea.

in fact yes sometimes, most of the time it skim dry, then sometimes it will overflow, 

 

my fish stocking are as follow

 

1 melanurus wrasse the devil

1 starry blenny the accomplice

2 clowns

3 anthias

1 banggii

1 coral banded shrimp

 

i tried to introduce 20 blue legged hermits but my melanurus jsut chomp on them overnight and those that was able to stay on my rocks the starry blenny picks them and drops them on the sandbed to the waiting melanurus

 

4 hours ago, Piper27 said:

If growth and color are something your trying to improve and nothing is really wrong, changing things, especially that list you wrote up, is going to give you the opposite result your looking for.  Sounds to me like you just need to let things go if things are growing, one year is about the point where you should be letting the tank do its own thing and let the corals grow.  Once things are growing and stable then you can worry about tweaking colors and growth.

 

we all aspire for growth and coloration and all the good stuff, and i know this hobby is no overnight success, i appreciate your input, i might as well do that just that sit back relax and watch them grow and let it do what it needs to do,

 

we'll see what happen in the next couple of weeks or month

 

thanks all

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