Help Me Color My SPS. Timeline

[lionfish300]

Try Hanna it is digital much easier

[mhucasey]

Originally Posted by milsaltnewbie07

Thanks matt, I ended up doing 10 ml and mixed 2 tblsp in about 8 oz of RODI. This raised it to about 2ppm. But frankly I hate Salifert no3 kit because all the low number look the same lol

Yes sometimes those shades are hard to tell apart. Just shoot for having some pink hue when looking through the side of the vial. I'm interested stop see what results you have

[markalot]

Originally Posted by milsaltnewbie07

Thanks matt, I ended up doing 10 ml and mixed 2 tblsp in about 8 oz of RODI. This raised it to about 2ppm. But frankly I hate Salifert no3 kit because all the low number look the same lol

Have you tried looking through the side?

I did notice, comparing 3 kits, that some of the cards were crap. I kept the best card with the most color difference. One of the cards had 3 squares of the same color, or at least my eyes couldn't tell the difference.

[milsaltnewbie07]

Originally Posted by mhucasey

Yes sometimes those shades are hard to tell apart. Just shoot for having some pink hue when looking through the side of the vial. I'm interested stop see what results you have

Will do. Just fiy I checked no3 this morning before dosing and went down just a bit. So I toned down my dosage from 10ml to 5ml, which put me at 5ppm, im guessing this seem to be the sweet spot for most people so I will leave it there

Originally Posted by markalot

Have you tried looking through the side?

I did notice, comparing 3 kits, that some of the cards were crap. I kept the best card with the most color difference. One of the cards had 3 squares of the same color, or at least my eyes couldn't tell the difference.

Yea your not kidding. Im finding my self having to ask the wife to double check test. But like matt says, as long as its light pink its good to go.

[milsaltnewbie07]

OK from good to bad. Seems im getting stn/rtn on some of my acros. I been keeping params stable at 8dkh, 420 cal, 1400 mag, No3 at 10ppm, Phos is unknow at this time since I ran out of hanna test kits but shoud have them by tomorrow. I even lowered my temp to 78F, by placing a fan in the canopy and using it at a exhaust fan. Im kicking my self because I have no clue why this is happening. I removed gfo today, just in case, was thinking of adding gac just in case I got any chemicals or anything that may harm tank by mistake, while I cas cutting the wholes for the fan. However I don't know if this is a good idea since the whole stn/rtn might get worst. Keep in mind when I ran gac/gfo I do it passively in a mesh bag but it does the job for me. Any ideas or suggestions??

[markalot]

I would keep the GFO out of the tank and let it ride for a while, see if things settle down. I've been through this before and unfortunately don't have any really good ideas. My big acros, the slimer and blue stags, would live through the ups and downs but a lot of other acros would go full zombie and slowly die off no matter what I did. Hopefully things will turn around soon.

[milsaltnewbie07]

The tank is still rtn. This is getting to me. Params have been spot on stable. Im hoping i recover soon, im tire of loosing frags
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[milsaltnewbie07]

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[markalot]

Too clean, look at your rocks, spotless and I can see into the next room. Make sure to feed some coral food on a regular basis, get some food in the water. Also make sure not to move PO4 too fast. .09 to .1 PO4 sounds about right for now. Maybe lower the light level, it may be too bright for how clean the water is.

If the corals had already been damaged some might be zombies and still showing symptoms from the original issue. Superglue the edges if you can and hope for the best.

[milsaltnewbie07]

Originally Posted by markalot

Too clean, look at your rocks, spotless and I can see into the next room. Make sure to feed some coral food on a regular basis, get some food in the water. Also make sure not to move PO4 too fast. .09 to .1 PO4 sounds about right for now. Maybe lower the light level, it may be too bright for how clean the water is.

If the corals had already been damaged some might be zombies and still showing symptoms from the original issue. Superglue the edges if you can and hope for the best.

Thanks Mark, i guess ill start nightly coral feeding with coral frenzy that i have. Hoping that helps. Im so depressed lol i lost my scc and my new CC raspberry shortcake yesterday. So we are at 10 or 11 so far. Sucks because i was about to put in an order soon with all the live sales going on. No way i can do it now untill i can get tank back to normal. Learned my leason. No more trying to go ULNS. From now on , im sticking with my dirty tank. Btw yours is starting to look better.

[Denadai]

Originally Posted by Led reef

Temp 81 lol. U are coocking corals lol

I never had a problem even keeping 83,5. Just be sure to have good flow around the tank

Best Regards

[milsaltnewbie07]

Originally Posted by Denadai

I never had a problem even keeping 83,5. Just be sure to have good flow around the tank

Best Regards

Neither have i Denadai, but i lowered it just to give it a try just in case. As far as flow i ran a gyre 130 at 60% pulse and mp10 at 40% reefcrest.

[ReefWreak]

Originally Posted by milsaltnewbie07

Neither have i Denadai, but i lowered it just to give it a try just in case. As far as flow i ran a gyre 130 at 60% pulse and mp10 at 40% reefcrest.

40% in a 62 cube?! I run at 85% in my 29g biocube, and it isn't that much flow!

I take it that the gyre puts out a lot of flow?

I ask out of surprise, and also because when my old MP10 died, I ran a korallia nano for flow for a week, and it was kinda meh flow, and my corals all browned out. About a month later with a new vortech, I was back to business and everything had colored back up again.

[milsaltnewbie07]

Originally Posted by ReefWreak

40% in a 62 cube?! I run at 85% in my 29g biocube, and it isn't that much flow!

I take it that the gyre puts out a lot of flow?

I ask out of surprise, and also because when my old MP10 died, I ran a korallia nano for flow for a week, and it was kinda meh flow, and my corals all browned out. About a month later with a new vortech, I was back to business and everything had colored back up again.

Yea the gyre is insane, i have to run it at pulse and cant go above 60 % without almost knocking corals of their base lol. I just run the mp to get the backsides of the tank more, but in reality i can go without it. I used to run the mp10 at 100% RC before the gyre, but for the money the gyre is amazing

[milsaltnewbie07]

Well i water tested today and i got the following.
8dkh as always on salifert
5ppm no3 salifert
0 po4 on hanna....
So i was like wth i have been getting .09 lately. Well apparently i had been doing it wrong. I was pressing the black button and not holding it. Therefore i would never get a timer countdown. I would add solutiong once c2 came out , swirled it untill diluted, put the tube in and pressed the black button. It would blink a few times with a --- on the screen, and i would get a number. Apparently this was wrong, since like i said you must hold untill countdown appears to get the correct reading.

Anyways, after seeing 0's today and last night i wondered ..whats eating up all the phosphate? ?. I have gfo offline as well as gac. Im still running matrix and macro (cheato). So i decided to feed the tank and test an hour later. No way i could have 0 po4. Well an hour later i got a .04 a bit better. Guess i will have to keep an eye out on this, since i dont want to starve out the tank again.

[markalot]

Originally Posted by milsaltnewbie07

Well i water tested today and i got the following.
8dkh as always on salifert
5ppm no3 salifert
0 po4 on hanna....
So i was like wth i have been getting .09 lately. Well apparently i had been doing it wrong. I was pressing the black button and not holding it. Therefore i would never get a timer countdown. I would add solutiong once c2 came out , swirled it untill diluted, put the tube in and pressed the black button. It would blink a few times with a --- on the screen, and i would get a number. Apparently this was wrong, since like i said you must hold untill countdown appears to get the correct reading.

Anyways, after seeing 0's today and last night i wondered ..whats eating up all the phosphate? ?. I have gfo offline as well as gac. Im still running matrix and macro (cheato). So i decided to feed the tank and test an hour later. No way i could have 0 po4. Well an hour later i got a .04 a bit better. Guess i will have to keep an eye out on this, since i dont want to starve out the tank again.

Maybe .04 PO4, maybe just particulates in the water effecting the reading. This is why I prefer the ELOS Expert high rez kit rather than the Hanna. Sahin and other long term reefers recommended this kit. Only a few places sell it, and don't get the regular kit which is no good, must be the expert high rez kit.

So the super clean rocks and clear water make sense now, 0 PO4. You will find that things can suck up PO4 like rocks and new sand. It's probably best to treat feeding like dosing and get a schedule of feeding set and then adjust as needed. I've been making a habit of feeding a little coral food every day with a big gob of it once or twice a week.

[milsaltnewbie07]

Originally Posted by markalot

Maybe .04 PO4, maybe just particulates in the water effecting the reading. This is why I prefer the ELOS Expert high rez kit rather than the Hanna. Sahin and other long term reefers recommended this kit. Only a few places sell it, and don't get the regular kit which is no good, must be the expert high rez kit.

So the super clean rocks and clear water make sense now, 0 PO4. You will find that things can suck up PO4 like rocks and new sand. It's probably best to treat feeding like dosing and get a schedule of feeding set and then adjust as needed. I've been making a habit of feeding a little coral food every day with a big gob of it once or twice a week.

Guess i will have to order that elos then. I tested today and im at .10 po4 and holding at 5 ppm no3. Guess i will try to hold these number here and see the progress. But yea today i have seen amazing p.e which could be things are on their way up

[markalot]

Originally Posted by milsaltnewbie07

Guess i will have to order that elos then. I tested today and im at .10 po4 and holding at 5 ppm no3. Guess i will try to hold these number here and see the progress. But yea today i have seen amazing p.e which could be things are on their way up

Nicely done. I'm still all over the place, probably because I insist on running bio-pellets otherwise PO4 never stops climbing. At least that is how I think it works, unfortunately I have a bad habit of changing too many things at once.

[milsaltnewbie07]

Quick update on the tank.i have to report that ever since*stopping prodibio and increasing nutrients , my tank is doing amazing. Things are coloring up very nice to include reds and pinks which i have never been able to have. Right now i am at*
No3 25ppm yes 25 salifert
Po4 at .09 hanna
8 dkh salifert
420 calc salifert
1400 mag salifert
Temp steady at 78f
I guess like some of you said my low nutrients were at fault. I have stopped kno3 dosing, to let no3 drop a bit since its a bit high. However i*will let tank settle on its own, as opposed*to adding any chems.

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[milsaltnewbie07]

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[mhucasey]

Woot! I'm so happy that it is working out for you! The corals look great!!

[milsaltnewbie07]

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[milsaltnewbie07]

Originally Posted by mhucasey

Woot! I'm so happy that it is working out for you! The corals look great!!

Thanks Matt. So happy, i gave up on the whole ulns experience and went back to k.i.s.s lol. Btw keep those updates going on that of yours. That aquaforest stuff looks amazing

[mhucasey]

It's funny how many amazing tanks were created before anyone knew what their Phosphate values were

I'm testing but resisting the urge to do any changes unless the corals give me a reason to...easier said than done of course

[scrapz]

Originally Posted by scrapz

If youre coral are not dying, leave the system alone for a few weeka to stabilize. Getting good colors is all about stability, not chasing number. You'll see many great tanks with parameters in all sorta of ranges.
K.I.S.S. method.

Not a told you so but yeah.. This years trend seems to be chasing numbers with so much use of chemical solutions. I just feel like people should sit back and let nature run its course sometimes.

Take mhucasey for example, he is reading high phos and nits but his corals are looking better than ever and he is just going by eye instead of trying to fix it.