Low nutrients - New to sps

A

A_Sig

[My first frag I got was pocillopora (i think thats how you spell it) and it turned brown under power compacts. So i bought some halides and placed it higher up thinking that it would change back to it's green color. Still brown. I was reading on the forum and every one is talking about low nutirent levels in there tanks. What exactly does this mean??? Does it mean that i should not put in as much phyto and zoo plankton into the water to feed the other corals. I only put one capfull a week and all my other corals seem to be doing fine from it. I have GSP, finger leather, colt coral, torch coral, and some anthillia. I know the sps is still alive though because it is still very fuzzy with polyps. Let me know what to do so that i can get some more sps in there.]
 
[do u mean like calcium stronchim iodine and stuff like that. they need goos levels of calcium and stontrium. how long has it been like this. i dont think phosphates is the resion. it might of been the lighting.check water quality like ph ammonia nitrate nitrite.]
 
[nutrients = n : any substance that can be metabolized by an organism to give energy and build tissue.
(ammonia phosphate iodine magnesium calcium nitrates etc etc...are all nutrients)

Oragnic nutrients is what you need to avoid in a SPS tank, food (whether it gets eaten or not) is the biggest cause. I would target feed your phyto rather then dumping it into the tank. Do feed frozen foods too? Make sure you are not adding the 'juice' you thaw it in to the tank.

When people refer to low nutrient reefs they are usually mean mainly phosphates and nitrates.]



Edited By mwolek on 1087425555
 
[I have two different kinds of pocillopora in my tanks, and they don't demand a lot of light. It is possible that your pink coral turned brown under the PCs because it wasn't getting enough. Zooanthellae is a symbiotic algae that is brown in color and it may have taken over the coral under those conditions. It can be expelled by the coral over time, like a mushroom or ricordia does.

In this case, you've switched it from PCs to MH, and put it in direct lighting. It may still be getting over the shock of the new lighting, rather than acclimating it slowly in your tank.

Lower nutrients would be more pristine waters. SPS thrive in low-nutrient tanks, where feeding is quite light compared to a FO (Fish Only) tank.

Check out my ID page to see the two corals (check under SPS):

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/]
 
[I think my phosphates may be high, i keep getting slime algae on the sand... My nitrates were kinda high durring may because of the semester but i have been doing water changes (almost every four days) durring that month and they have dropped alot. My test kit reads 20 ppm, still a little high. It will all drop (hopefully to zero) after i finish my stand and i can put my larger refugium.]
 
[Signey,

Are your MH's the same bulb at the same distance as the tank they came from? Different theories about pigmentation exist, but one theory is that that the intense color we see out of some of our sps corals is due to basically over exposure to a certain spectrum, kinda like a sunburn. The thing is, this is VERY coral specific, and what what brown in one tank could very well be bright green in another, and vice versa.

Buying an sps on color alone is always a kinda dicey proposition. And it not coloring up the way you want it, is not really an indicator of coral health.

One more thing worth mentioning is your alkalinity. Higher Alk seems to promote a bit more coloration in corals. I remember reading an article a few years ago about a research facility that uppped the ALK on their tanks before the people who were responsible for writing grants came to look at them. This made them appear a bit more colorful than they would normally be.

Similarly other matters of tank chemistry can have profound effects on how a coral colors up, pH CA levels, and perhaps nutrient level. Although, tbh, the other factors discussed have a much higher impact on coloration that nutrient level, ime. Unless...your water is so nutrient dense, ie dirty, that it is robbing you of some PAR reaching your coral. Just some things to think about.]
 
[I think he just needs some time. If he's got all that zooanthalles in the acro... then it's gonna take time for it to expell itself out as Marc said. It took over three months for mine to adopt to my tank and its thriving right now. The colors are finally coming out.. green and blue in one. red tip on another, and green tip one another. the purple is pretty cool looking.

I think what's helped also is that I feed my fish once a week now instead of every other day and I have a fan blowing on the sump.

Since then, the corals have done very well. Especially when I leave the tank alone, which was my biggest problem.


:blush21:]
 
[
One more thing worth mentioning is your alkalinity. Higher Alk seems to promote a bit more coloration in corals. I remember reading an article a few years ago about a research facility that uppped the ALK on their tanks before the people who were responsible for writing grants came to look at them. This made them appear a bit more colorful than they would normally be. said:
Thats interesting...You know a lot of SPS keepers push thier alk and ca up a little to try and boost growth, this could be why we see so many tanks with real colorful SPS, maybe its just a side product of people keeping thier alk a little high to promote growth]
Click to expand...
 
[Once a week!?!?! OMG. One day I'm going to post videos of my feeding routine, to shock the world! :wwww:]
 
[Once a week is almost like don't feed at all, I feed 8-12 oz of my own culture veryday, I think the more you feed the less nitrate in you tank, I have not see cyno since few days after I started doing this.]
 
[Hmm, overfeeding maybe my weekness. I feed both of my tangs three times a day!!! I heard the only way to keep them healthy is to feed them. I am running a skimmer but it's a seaclone... My filtration consists of a hang on tetra tech 500 that i turned into a very small refugium with a 13 watt pc light over it and the sea clone... I need to hurry up and finish my new stand so that i can have my sump/refugium running.]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top