JimH's 32 Gallon Coralvue T-60

[jolt]

I recently cut mine back (about two weeks ago). Currently at 50% max intensity and 45% color max. I'm really struggling with trying to get that tuned (max intensity, vs max color, vs length of time lights are on). They come on at about 11% intensity and 10% color at 7am, and parabolic curve to the max and then back down to original parms at 8pm. but I had gotten up to about 52% intensity max and thought I was seeing bleaching. Do you think this could also be related to hair algae growth, I've been fighting that a little too.

How high off the water is your light? mine is at about 8", tank depth is 20"

Suggestions appreciated!

[Reburn]

Don't worry homes me and you in the same boat lol.

I'm about 6" off the water and 20" depth. My lemon Millie was about 8" in the water right in the cone of shame. I have a raspberry Mille 4" to the left of it and it's doing fine. The lemon Mille was at full polyp extension until it started to RTN. I have seen some increased Alage growth but with my P04 being at zero it is helping in that front. I had been dosing p04 and every time I do I see a little Alage growth until it's used up. I stopped routinely dosing p04 a couple weeks ago when I started the KZ nano package. I have started dosing the KZ nano package 2 weeks ago and it has been helping tremendously with my colors on everything. I won't give the products a good review yet but I am starting to lean that way. I believe that they are helping the colors color with an absence of p04 My nitrates stay flying at about 10ppm. Alk 9.6-9.9, ca 460-500, mg 1500-1600.

My schedule on my light is.

2:30 - 3:30pm ramp from 10% intensity to 45% intensity and ramp whites from 0% to 60%

3:30 - 9:30pm intensity at 45% and color at 60%

9:30 - 1030pm everything ramp down and off at 1030pm

[jolt]

From what I can tell we have very similar systems. If you are getting good acro color and growth with that profile maybe I should slowly move towards something similar.

Very interested to hear how the KZ works for you in the long run. Do you use all 4 supplements?

[Reburn]

Yes I am using all 4 from the KZ nano package.

Sponge power

Coral vitalizer

Pohls extra

Amino acids lps

My color is getting better. I wouldn't say it's great. Running 0 p04 for so long took the color out of my corals.

[jolt]

I'm pretty sure that's where I am at with color too. I guess there is still a ton for me to learn ...

[Reburn]

yea I think the kessils are still a good light. I have seen some amazing tanks of SPS lit by a kessil. I do think they can be kinda hard to tweak though. It doesn't help that It can take months for the pieces to color back up. Im going to stick with the kessil for now but it does frustrate the living heck out of me trying to find the butter zone.

And to be honest if I dump the kessil im going straight to MH or T5.

[SAM]

You can do it Jim!!! Don't worry about the coral, I'll hook you up.

Hang in there, the tank will stabilize and will get better.

If not, it just mean it's time to upgrade to a bigger tank....easier to have stable perimeter. Lol....go excuse to get a bigger tank.

[jolt]

Thanks SAM! I am already planning the upgrade for sometime late next year

[FarmerTy]

Boo! That's no fun Jim! Let me know when you are ready for a replacement Jedi Mind Trick frag. I'll hook you up too!

Sent via Tapatalk

[jolt]

Thanks JeeperTy! (What is no fun: upgrading or mini-crashes??)

[nori4dori]

Sorry to hear about the mini-crash. But I doubt reefing would be all this fine, without all the headache and worries! You are doing all the right things, so keep at it.

[ShawnKoto]

I have been setting myself up for the disappointment of a mini crash. When I first got into freshwater I jumped in both feet and screwed a bunch of stuff up and lost some plants and fish accordingly. You have a ton more experience than I do of course, but for me I like to fumble along a bit even though it comes with some disappointments and setbacks. I learn a lot when researching what is wrong you have a great setup and it is going to bounce back nicely.

[jolt]

Thanks Shawn, appreciate the kind words!

[FarmerTy]

Thanks JeeperTy! (What is no fun: upgrading or mini-crashes??)

Aren't they one in the same? [emoji57]

[jolt]

Well I pulled out 5 acros today in various stages of dead or dying. Tossed 2 of them, did emergency STN measures on 3 (cut and superglue). I've yet to save a piece from STN so far. Maybe this time ... Still have several acros hanging in there, so there is hope

[nori4dori]

oh man. this must be so heartbreaking. i hope things turn around for the better.

the small pH swing and the alk swing that you mentioned - i doubt they would cause STN (with acros, you never know though). Have you measured your nitrates and phosphates?

[jolt]

Hey furam28, yes I measure them frequently. I always read zero for both, although I have been fighting some hair algae for about 6 weeks so I assume there is bound up phosphate in there. I am aware that nitrate and phosphate are too low and I need to figure out how to gently increase them, but was concerned about triggering a hair algae fiasco. My bioload is pretty low (small clown and orchid dottyback, 2 clearner shrimp, small cuc)and I feed sparingly for the last couple of weeks seeing how it affects hair algae.

Last readings were:

Nitrate 0

Phosphate 0

pH 8.06

temp 78.4

Mag 1560 (always high from water changes and I have never dosed, I do 5% weekly water changes)

Ca 420

Alk 8.1 (up fro 7.8 when I got back from the weekend, recall I increased the drip rate on the doser, so up 0.3 in three days on the way to 9.0 target)

I recalibrated my refractometer yesterday and salinity now looks a little low at 34ppt so am slowly raising it

After conversing with reburn I have a theory that my lighting profile was too intense and too long, and I've been feeding too little because trying to cut down on hair algae. So, weakened and new corals just triggered into RTN/STN by the alk swing. At least that's the theory

I have several acros that are still hanging in there with good polyp extension and continued encrustation.

[Reburn]

Jim,

Quick question while I am formulating a longer response. What are you feeding? How much? Are you feeding particulate sized foods such as reef chili, coral snow, or reef roids? Are you feeding rods food? How do you feed it? What is your coral bio load like? Mushrooms, SPS, LPS, zoa, NPS?

[jolt]

I feed mysis every day unless I feed Rod's. I feed Rod's once a week. I feed nutri-cell 3 times a week (http://reefbuilders.com/2013/08/30/nutricell-life-spectrums-microfeed/). I dose 2ml Red Sea aminos daily.

I still have:

frogspawn (doing great)

meteor shower (growing great, great polyp extension)

jack o lantern (doing great)

pink and green birdsnest (doubled in size, in hindsight now I think a little bleached)

three ricordeas (not too happy right now, I think I had them in too much shade and they don't get enough to eat and am unable to target feed due to cleaner shrimp)

three acans (doubled number of heads, good color)

green monti cap (brown but growing too fast for my tank)

red monti cap (growing, looking a little bleached)

red planet (encrusting slowly, kind of brown, little polyp extension)

rainbow nasuta (brown/red colored, encrusting slowly, no polyp extension)

raspberry delight (brown/red colored, encrusting slowly, no polyp extension)

blue bottlebrush (double in size, great polyp extension, still a bit blue/green but I think somewhat bleached now)

red table (encrusting, polyp extension, maintaining pretty good color)

cali tort (encrusting, polyp extension, maintaining pretty good color)

$500 efflo (encrusting, never seen polyps, looking kind of bleached)

tri-color valida (encrusting, good polyp extension, browned/bleached)

unknown acro (crazy polyp extension, browned/bleached)

superman monti (looking good)

forest fire monti (encrusting, good color, poor polyp extension, believe it is harrased by cleaner shrimp perching on it)

a couple of monti digis (encrusting, good color, polyp extension)

blue milli (some polyp extension, dark brown/purple color)

green suharsonoi (still green, minimal encrusting, just sits there)

hawkins echinata (still bluish, just sits there)

nauti spiral monti (good color and polyp extension, reasonable growth)

pink sand dollar monti (reasonable polyp extension, not much growth yet)

Note that most of my frags are small, in the 1/2 to 2 inch range. The only large frags I have are frogspawn, meteor shower, and tricolor valida

[Reburn]

Ok so here are my longer thoughts.

I preach this and I know everyone things I'm crazy but I have seen some amazing tanks come crashing down from stray voltage. Check periodically. Use your multimeter and check AC and DC voltage in the tank. Turn off your Equipment piece by piece and write down what voltage each piece puts into the tank. I had a tunze 9002 skimmer that had a pump that was going out. It went from leaking 2 vDC to 10 vDC. It's cheap insurance and only takes a minute to check.

Your salinity is fine as long as it hasn't been swinging. I am running 1.024-1.025 with a target of 1.0245 which is 32.5ppt. I wouldn't get too hung up on salinity as long as its within normal parameter ranges and Hasn't been swinging. Swings in salinity as it relates to osmotic shock is a real thing and I WOULD NOT alter your salinity right now with your coral in a weakened state. The benefits of running a higher salinity is to make it easier to keep some parameters high. There are many articles about this on the interwebbings.

Your Temp, Ph, Mg, Ca, Alk all look good. Have they been swinging. I know about your alk and ph swinging but to be honest I don't think that is a problem. The swings didn't seem like much to be honest. It was less than 1 Dkh on you Alk. My alk will swing throughout the week from 9.3 to 9.9 and my ph will swing daily from 8.05 to 8.30, give or take a little on each side. This hasn't been a problem in my tank yet.

Your NO3 and PO4 are low. I'm sure Ty is typing a much more articulated response faster than I am about running a ULNS (Ultra Low Nutrient System) and how he feels it contributes to coral health. I agree with what Ty is going to say. I feel that you need to be feeding more with a decreased lighting profile. I feel that you are running your lights to bright and driving the metabolism of the coral to the point that they have used up all available nutrients and are starving and bleaching. I will get to the lights in the next paragraph. I personally feed some particulate based foods multiple times a week, (Reef Chili, Rods food, KZ coral Vitalizer) as well as dosing multiple kinds of amino acids. I see that your dosing AA and that is good. I think what your dosing is fine but it may be time to increase the dosage a bit on the nutri-cell and the rods food. What I do is feed Rods food on the days that I don't feed reef chili. Rods food is good as a particulate based food as well. I break off a chunk and hold it in my fingers and rub it in my fingers in the water slowly. This allows a snow storm of particulate sized foods to go into the water column and well as some larger particles for the fish to grab. I always turn off my return pump and leave just my powerhead running for 15-30 minutes after I feed to keep the food in the tank and not in the fuge. I only feed krill once a week and mysis every other week because my coral bioload is much higher than my fish bioload. At a glance your fish bioload looks very low Timfish will probably chime in at some point and talk about how fish poop helps feed your coral. Since our tanks are almost identical I am going to keep telling you what is working for me. While YMMV and I never claim to be right or know it all I can just tell you what is working and not working for me in my system. My fish bioload is 2 clowns one 2" and one 1.5", a royal gramma basslet 2.5", a sixline wrasse 2", a tanakas possum wrasse 1.5" and a full sized firefish. I will be adding another goby at some point after I get a net top fashioned as my last Dracula goby went carpet surfing. I am also skimming a little bit wet and I am running a lit fuge with 2 baseball sized clumps of cheato and guilt myself into a 5g water change every 4-6 weeks for really no reason at all.

What are you using to check PO4 levels. If your using a Hanna great if you are using a titration test I would look into verifying your PO4 readings against a Hanna. Are you running a lit fuge? If not what is your current method of nutrient export?

I will Continue on to the Lighting in the next response.

[jolt]

Thanks for taking the time to analyze this and comment reburn.

I have a titanium probe on my tank which should be pulling off any stray voltage, but I will take your advice and measure.

I use a hanna meter for the phosphate check. Swings on my params have been minimal for months. Week to week typically +/- 0.3 on alk, +/- 10 on ca, +/- .3 on pH over the course of a day with the low end being +/- 0.1 week to week.

I already reduced my photo period yesterday so will see if that helps. On at 10am, off at 8pm, start intensity 11% peak 45%, start color 20% peak 60%, parabolic curve (I adjusted spectrum too since I was running considerably bluer than you)

I'm not panicking about the salinity, just want to move it into my desired range slowly.

I tend to agree, my system is too low in nutrients and too high on light so that will be my focus moving forward

I do not have a fuge, I am running skimmer and GFO for export. I also clean the hair algae with a toothbrush and vacuum what I remove using a siphon arrangement through some floss in a sock back into the sump. Doing this every other week right now to not disturb things too much.

[Reburn]

While I'm sure some will debate the need for a grounding probe I don't like then and won't use them. I have seen too many GFCI malfunction and not trip with minimal voltage going through them such as 6-11 volts. Plus think about it this way. If you touch a power line and are not grounded do you get shocked. The answer is no. I worry about the grounding probe completing the curcuit and shocking the tank while the GFCI doesn't trip. With all that being said pull the grounding probe before you measure for stray voltage as you want it to stay in the tank so you can get an accurate multimeter reading and not have it flowing out the ground.

[Reburn]

It's no problem bud I just want to help

Your parameters seem good and testing with the hanna so I'm inclined to believe that is close as the hannas can get to accurate. I wouldn't mess with your salinity for a while. Increasing your salinity will cause your parameters to change (Alk, Ca, Mg). I would honestly let that parameter be for now. In several weeks if you still want to change it great, but not now. I would leave everything as stable as possible. I am getting the feeling that you need to increase your fish bioload slowly and increase feedings slowly and decrease your lighting cycle. I would discontinue the use of GFO. It will give you a feel as to where your tank sits without chemical altering. The only thing I run is 1/3 cup of carbon in a mesh bag rinsed in RODI water not tap water before use and changed monthly. Are you running carbon. If so how much and how frequently do you change it? I think that what you're doing for the hair algae is a good idea and I would continue but I think that the root cause is too long of a lighting cycle.

One thing I didn't think to ask is all the frags you lost were they new arrivals. If so how did you light acclimate them? I have had to be extra careful with frags from MH systems as the kessil seems to cook them. I put them in the corner of my frag rack and slowly move them towards the middle of the rack. I can be less careful with frags that come from an LED system. I also seem to have to baby maricultured pieces and WC pieces. I am running less nutrients then they receive in the ocean and when you couple that with my lights they really struggle. I have to start them at a lot lower light level then frags out of an aquarium.

[jolt]

I run 1/4 cup GAC, changed monthly. But I have been rinsing in tap water. I will change to RODI.

I think I should ramp down the GFO slowly, not just turn it off. I'll do that over the next couple of weeks.

One thought occurred to me. This all began when I went away for 4 days. Thus no feeding for 4 days. If the nutrients were hovering on the verge of causing a crash with my regular regimen, then 4 days of no feeding + the alk swing could certainly have triggered the problem? Also, looks like my nassarius snail is going to die soon, and that could be linked to low nutrients too.

Most were new frags (less than 6 weeks in tank) Some were not. My typical light acclimation is two weeks on the frag rack and then slowly moving in to higher light.

[Reburn]

I rinse carbon in RODI because I know my water supply corporation uses chloramines and I try to not introduce them into the tank. Plus I don't want the carbon to suck up anything bad that is in my tap water. I don't have any scientific data to back me up but I know it can't hurt to rinse in RODI.

I think your correct erring on the side of caution slowly discontinuing the use of GFO. I recommended to just stop because with your minimal feedings I don't believe you will see a increase soon. However I agree that it is better to err on the side of caution. I killed a bleached mille by dosing 0.04 PO4. So I believe a rapid change to this parameter can kill weakened coral. Good thinking!!

I really don't know anything about nassarius snails or what they eat so I am no help there lol.

I agree with your thought on the no feeding for 4 days and your parameters swinging just a little triggered the problem. I think that the ph swing was the catalyst. I don't really have any good suggestions on how to mitigate that risk in the future. I cheat and have my skimmer air line run outside to help stabilize the ph and orp. You could do that or you could use a CO2 scrubber. I don't really know if either of these is really even needed when you corals are at 100% health though. I know a fellow ARC reefer that is using a CO2 scrubber and he likes it because it helps him keep his PH up. But I believe that the bleaching was the root of the problem.

I feel that you are fighting the same battle that I am with the lights and trying to find the correct intensity. My example is my lemon mille. It was a fully encrusted plug and had been stable on my frag rack for a couple weeks and growing so I cut a piece off and put it into my rock at the desired location. It slowly bleached over 2 weeks and then when I dosed PO4 last week bam the piece in the rock RTN'ed and was gone in 12 hours, the night before it was at full polyp extension and maintained polyp extension even while it was RTN'ing. The encrusted plug that is still on the frag rack is doing great and coloring beautifully. I feel that I lost that piece of that frag ultimately to too much light.