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Wanting to start keeping SPS


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This is really long, but, I wanted to be fairly thorough. I have had a saltwater tank for the last 21 months keeping mostly your beginner corals and reef safe fish.

In the last month or so I bought a 5 pack of acropora from Liveaquaria. Since the purchase I have observed PE but zero growth. With the upcoming swap I would like to be in the position to purchase more without loosing any.

I have a 75 gallon tank with a 20 gallon sump and 25 gallon refugium, 2 color Vegas, 2 MP40W ES, Tunze 1073.05, Bubble Magus doser - dosing alk, calc, and mag, korallin S1502 Biodenitrator, Reef Octopus DNW150B Protein Skimmer using Eheim 1048 feed pump, 3 TLF 150 Phosban Reactors (run by 2 Cobalt MJ1200) with carbon, GFO, and BioPellets, DA ReefKeeper Elite, SL1, monitoring PH, Temp, and ORP and running ATO.

I use DRTIMSAQUATICS Waste-Away weekly along with essential elements, Iodine, Strontium, and Potassium all used sparingly. I have and use practically ever test kit, Mostly Salifert with Elos for calc and Hanna Checker for Phosphorus. A few others for redundancy. I use RODI water with 0 TDS. My Params are Alk 9, Calc 400, Mag 1480 currently (still dropping from Bryopsis eradication), Potassium 370, everything else essentially 0. My PH is between 7.84 and 8.1

My tank looks more like a science project than anything else. I know there is overkill going on, but, every addition has been in response to some catastrophe.

Suggestions?

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Catastrophes, sounds as if your parameters could be varrying. Sps do NOT like parameters changing at all. Phosphates also inhibit growth. Phosphates can read 0 but be bound up in other things.

 

Bryopsis outbreak could have been feeding off phosphates?

 

Another thing to note... Sps grow incredibly slow (certain ones do better than others). I've taken pics every 2 weeks awhile back and you could see growth for sure, but hard to see as a daily thing. Something you might try, if the frags are decent size, break a tip off one (and glue it on a plug). Normally this will initiate tissue growth from that point. It starts healing, then will sprout up.

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Thanks for the input. Your dead on with the phosphates being an initial problem and the varying params. I've come along ways with phosphates - organic and inorganic. I have spent the last three months "curing" my tank of GHA and Bryopsis, thus loosing many corals along the way. I was feeding mysis at night and my 11 year old was feeding flake by day - cause they looked hungry, lol, you gotta love them. The result was a massive algae outbreak that took a ton of patience to cure. I bought MrSaltwaterTanks Guide to Algae control when it went on sale at Christmas time and it was extremely helpful.

 

Raising the mag over 1600 for two months was a double edged sword for stability though. Add to that the ATO issues I had to iron out causing the salinity to fluctuate (it is over 40' away). I couldn't even grow coraline for a while. I now have a pretty good growth on the rocks and back wall.

 

The frags are pretty small. I did cut them off of their plugs and glued them on to the rocks. I tried using Korallen-zucht (sp?) speed glue, the results were ugly. The frags were handled alot. I will take some pictures for comparison, that is an excellent idea.

 

In summary, maintain STABILE params and compare before and after pics. Solid advice, will follow.

 

You think the low PH could be a problem? I have weighed the pros and cons of Kalkwasser and would like to not add another process if it can be avoided, thus avoiding increased equipment cleaning. Also was concerned with reports of it causing the sand bed to solidify. Not sure if the Waste-Away bacteria would circumvent that or not. I hope to soon test out running my skimmers airline outside and seeing if that helps out. I do run an opposite light cycle on my refugium but could use a better light if that matters?

 

Any input is welcome.

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Realize that with phosphate levels being higher that it will inhibit growth as the skeleton has an issue calcifying.

 

As far as SPS growth, all depends on the acro you have. Once settled in and they have a stable environment they'll start to grow. As branches grow branches and those branches grow branches you'll be amazed at how quickly the frag goes from frag to colony. As Pat mentioned cutting branches will often cause it to fork so if you have a coral that just keeps growing out and not branching, trim it and make a frag and it will likely split off to 2-3 more branches and you have a frag to get another coral!

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I too bought one of those frag packs, everything is still alive. I have found a lot of time the coral will just sit "dormant" and not grow, but still be healthy. I had a 1" frag of a green acro that did not grow at all for 6-8 months - then it just took off like a weed and grows like crazy. Digitata grows super fast in my bank, but some of the thicker acros dont grow nearly as fast. So just like everything in this hobby - patience is key. I have also always been on the side of "keep it simple", which it doesn't sound like you did # ; ) I just have a small fuge, LR, skimmer, ato with kalk (mrs wages pickling lime) and that's it. no additives at all. I feed once or twice a week, and water changes once every month or two (sometimes longer - just depends on how lazy I am). Not saying having all of that "stuff" is bad, its just personal preference. In regards to your glue - just buy ANY superglue GEL (be sure it says gel) - it works well and is cheap. I try to use a full bottle at a time (not hard since there is so little) as capping and re-using doesnt tend to work all that well.

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In my experience with the AI Sols and sps, it takes awhile for the frag to settle in, awhile for it to adjust to leds. and then awhile for it to start growing. And at that rate it grows very slow. Part of the reason I am switching back to MH and T5. Other reason is that the blues, purples, and dark greens in my sps were almost non-exsistent.

 

Now pieces that I bought as a colony that were healed and larger grew much quicker of course.

 

Also, you have some very nice equipment for filtration and the removal of substances. It is stripping the water of nutrients your sps would normally use. Anytime you are stripping the water of nutrients I have found it beneficial to dose some additives that put these nutrients back into the water column.

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phosphates were my nemesis for a while. I think I have solved the root cause (overfeeding) and have adjusted for it. I feed the fish with a turkey baster only what they will eat 5 to 6 times weekly. I perform 10% weekly water changes religiously. The dollar store will be my next stop for some glue :) Sounds like the higher phosphates in the beginning initially slowed the growth, at least did not help it. With the frag pack I did not receive species specific info, so there could be a bunch of slow/stunted growers. And patience is key here (as with everything in this hobby, lol.)

 

If i missed anything or if there is something else to add, I'm open to it. Everyone has been very helpful and appreciated. As a side note I keep my SG at 1.024/5.

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post before yours says 10% weekly.

 

way more than i did back when i ran sps. i was on a 0% never change program. haha. then it all went downhill after a year. lol

 

I guess I should learn how to read. I'd like to say I do 0% but that does not quiet work with SPS, even with an ATS!

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I guess I should learn how to read. I'd like to say I do 0% but that does not quiet work with SPS, even with an ATS!

 

 

Which ATS did you go with? or did you make your own? I bought one from Santa Monica and it fell apart with magnets rusting in my fuge in about 3 weeks. I just use the red LED's to fuel my Chaeto growth now (which exploded).

 

Also, my weekly 10% didn't start until December, they were more like 20% to 30% every 3 to 4 weeks.

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I'm not running one currently but likely will in the future. I just have the opinion that they are a great means of nutrient export (Phosphate/Nitrate), just not a full filtration system and rather a supplemental filtration! Notice I said opinion!

 

If you ever want to buy a nice one, Bud makes one that seems to be of great quality. He knows what he's doing and is a really nice guy:

 

https://www.turbosaquatics.com/vb4/showthread.php?41-The-Turbo-L4-Algae-Scrubber

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That is a sweet DIY job. seriously.

 

TurboFloyd or FloydTurbo forget which...aka...bud. His appeared to be of much better quality than the one I bought. I agree with the "opinion" of "supplementation." After all I went through getting rid of GHA, it would kill me to intentionally overfeed to "encourage" it. They swear by them though and they seem to be alot more practical than Inland Aquatics - size and price wise. Thanks

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If you bought the corals withing the last month then there is likely to be some settling in and any param swings now could slow that progress. It sounds as if you are doing stuff right in many regards. Don't over complicate things by switching and adding all the time. The tank is well aged which is something that few of us can claim when we started chucking sticks into out tanks. :)

 

You'll most like see the coral begin to expand where it was glued to the plug and it will encrust the plug before it really begins to take off and some corals can do this is 2-3 weeks while others take months....

 

As Dustin said above....once it branches, then the branches branch and pretty soon it's a colony. Sure seems slow at the beginning though.

 

I have a tri-color I picked up nearly a year ago that is finally growing exponentially.

 

How about some pics so we can see the tank!!!!!

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