Looking for Suggestions for Beer Trade :) in SE Austin

[Dhayden]

Hey guys. I got a 20gal. nano I could use some experienced eyes to look at. I am having trouble with some SPS. Everything else in the tank looks pretty good. But I have never seen much growth, just good polyp extension. Got plenty of light over the tank. Parameters look OK i think. Would greatly offer a couple beers or a margarita or two for some suggestions. Give a shout out.

[+ACampbell]

How much light? What kind of SPS? Got a Pic?

[Dhayden]

150w 20k (hqi i think), plus 2 24w atinics. I will post a pic tomorrow when lights are on. Got one purple acro, and one pink pollicipora (dont judge my spelling )

[thedude]

Sounds to me immediately you aren't putting out enough par in the 420+ range. Lights that come in 10k are there simply because they encourage extreme growth with a high par. With a 20k, not much energy is getting to your corals. As Andrew said, let's get some pictures and more information about your setup.

John

[Dhayden]

Ok here are some pictures. I ordered some new light bulbs from Catalina Aquarium, a 10k 150w hqi, and 2 24w ultra atinics. They got some good reviews from reefcentral, and their prics are really good. My fixture is a odyessa, cant peat the price on the thing, its built well, but i think the lights are crap. Right now there is a 20k 150w, and 2 24w atinics, there colors are kind of funky though, for a 20k the tank is awfully white. Anyway got a prizm skimmer, doesnt skim much but it works, my water params are 0 Amon. 0 NO2, 5 - 10 NO3, 1350Mg, 450 Ca, 13 dKh, Ph is 8.0. I have trouble keeping the ph high. Run a airstone once in a while and it helps. The tank has only been cycled for 5 months. Three fish, 40lbs of rock and prob 30 lbs of sand. All these pictures are right before work and right after lights came on so things are not really open. Oh yea Atinics run for 12 hours, MH for 6.

Piece of Poli that has been struggling for a while after falling into a torch now is dying off. I have a few little frags of this, dont see any polys coming out anymore.

Piece of poor acro not doing well. When I got it, it looked like the one in Johns avatar.

The LPS's are doing well, the green candy has grown a head, the red candy i was trying to save was devoid of life is coming back.

rest of tank looks good, but i get little to no "growth" even from the zoas.

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[hammondegge]

i think you will see growth with the 10k. goes easy on acclimating the tank to the new light even the new actinics are going to be putting out more light. use some sunscreen and/or short cycle the lights.

[thedude]

Agree with Robert, go very easy on acclimating the corals to the new light. You will be doubling or even tripling the amount of energy your corals receive and they need to be weened on to it.

The only other thing that I can see is flow and the related problems. What kind of flow do you have in the tank? With that much rock, it would be very easy to have dead spots accumulate and trap pockets of waste. What does your phosphate level test at? Do you have any nuisance algae growing?

[Dhayden]

Right now there are 3 powerheads, 1 in each upper corner on a old wave timer and one behind the rock blowing accross the back. I was thinking about trashing all of them and using one sieo620, but have not done that yet. I do seem to have a lot of detritus. I need more Nass. Snails. Never tested for phosphates, and mostly havent bothered because I have had no alage problems, didnt even get any real problems during cycle. Just a good brown diatom period.

[Dhayden]

since most things are glued to the rock and I dont have much floor space left. How do you acclimate the light? Window screens over the top of the tank? 2 layers etc.. remove 1 per day? Need a little more info on that one if possible.

Thanks Guys,

offer for beer is still open btw

[hammondegge]

yep. put 2-3 layers of vinyl widow screen over the tank. shorten the timer on your lights to about 2/3 cycle. remove one layer of screen per day and then increase your cycles by and hour a day until back to normal. something like that.

[Dhayden]

awesome info!

Thanks

[Dhayden]

I think I found the culprit.. Was doing a water change as John was suggesting and figured hmmm, maybe I should test my water. Out of my RO unit I got a PH high off the chart, and 1 - 1.5 ppm Amonia. Guess my cartridges are shot . You think I should have amonia in my tap water?

[thedude]

You're actually the second person recently that has had ammonia coming out of their tap. I have no idea if it's supposed to be there or not but I do know you'd be amazed at the amount of crap they put into our water.

Do you have a TDS meter on your RO unit or a DI cartridge? The color changing DI can be a lifesaver along with the dual tds meter and both can be had on ebay for under 20 bucks.