I Suck at SPS. Help please. :(

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by camaro7019

Its your ai sols, they are not on bright enough, i had this problem with mine, i switched from 2 150 watt metal halides to 2 ai sol's and i started them at 50% on blue royal and white 12" from water, i started getting rapid tissue necrosis on my main acropora colony, i thought maybe it was to much light, but then i noticed my green star polyps were going brown, i still thought too much light but i thought na cant be, so i kicked them up to 80% guess what, it was the light lol my green starts are growing so fast, my sps are growing like crazy!!! turn your lights up man, atleast to 50-60%

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Ya, I gotta agree with that. While that might have been a good starting value, I would of ramped those up a bit every few days until you got to at least 60% range.
Mine are 6 inches off the water and 100/100/85 and we've all been discussing how that maybe isn't enough light to keep the colors where they were.

That is so counter intuitive when I've got bleached corals! I've asked for advice, so I'll do it.

Can I do 1% per day?

[Aquattro]

I don't have experience going from T5 to the Sols, but I started my sols at 65/65/65 and went to 100/100/85 over 7 or 8 days. You could probably do 5% every couple of days.
As for feeding, sure, maybe it helps fine tune corals, I don't think so, but really, until you've got the basic fish food light combo worked out, i wouldn't be adding any extras to the soup.
Simply up the feeding of the fish a bit. So what if you get a bit of algae on your glass every couple days, takes 10 seconds to wipe with a mag float.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Enigma

That is so counter intuitive when I've got bleached corals! I've asked for advice, so I'll do it.

Can I do 1% per day?

We don't know they're bleached from too much light, and in fact, I'm pretty sure you could ramp those suckers up to 200% across the board and not bleach SPS. Sure, too much too quickly can bleach them, but I'm guessing they've just faded from lack of light. If you leave an acro in an unlit tank for 2 weeks, you're going to get a white coral.

[Aquattro]

All this talk of light has me playing with mine now Cranked white up to 90%.

[molotov]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

All this talk of light has me playing with mine now Cranked white up to 90%.

HAHA......that's to funny. I'm now doing the same thing.

[Enigma]

You guys!

I'm not going to have any sand bed left in a week with all of the siphoning I'm going to have to do to get rid of the cyano at higher lighting levels! I would say the health of the corals is more important than the sand, though.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Enigma

You guys!

I'm not going to have any sand bed left in a week with all of the siphoning I'm going to have to do to get rid of the cyano at higher lighting levels! I would say the health of the corals is more important than the sand, though.

Well, the cyano is not a result of the light. I have no cyano, my lights are cranked. The cyano is something else that is feeding on something in the tank. So you siphon it and manage nutrients until it out consumes itself, and then it dies off. Adding things like chemiclean is just a band-aid for people that don't have the patience to fix it properly. Sure, it looks like crap for a while, but you come out the other end of the battle with a better tank and more experience in the hobby. Nothing good happens fast is a rule right across the board...removing cyano overnight is not a good thing. Take more of a holistic approach and accept that some months the take will rock, some months, not so much. Just deal with it in it's proper time frame and enjoy the process.

[Aquattro]

Actually, I do have some green cyano type crud growing these days, probably a result of the clove polyp die-off. I turkey baste it away and don't give it a second thought. It'll clear up on it's own with my regular maintenance routine.

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Nothing good happens fast is a rule right across the board...removing cyano overnight is not a good thing. Take more of a holistic approach and accept that some months the take will rock, some months, not so much. Just deal with it in it's proper time frame and enjoy the process.

Brad, I've been working on eradicating the cyano since August. I thought I was finally winning the war, but when I added the Sols it exploded over the course of four hours. It was shocking. I wish I had taken video of it (or time lapse photos), as what happened seems to be unprecedented. Even I scarcely believe what I witnessed.

I used the Chemiclean after that, and I believe quite firmly that it was the right choice for me. It didn't eradicate the cyano, but it knocked it back so that it is much more manageable again. Frankly, I wish I had done it much sooner than I did. I had the Chemiclean for weeks before I actually used it.

It only really grows/comes back when the whites are on. The blues and royal blues don't seem to do much for it. The whites aren't on yet, and there isn't a speck of it in my tank. By the time the whites go off, the sand around my plate coral will have noticeable cyano (not plague proportions, but it'll be there).

Despite a couple of lingering issues . . . I think my tank looks pretty amazing. I get a lot of satisfaction from it, and I can honestly say that I have never felt so good about something that I've created. I'm generally really optimistic about it . . . I'm just having one of those "moments."

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

We don't know they're bleached from too much light, and in fact, I'm pretty sure you could ramp those suckers up to 200% across the board and not bleach SPS. Sure, too much too quickly can bleach them, but I'm guessing they've just faded from lack of light. If you leave an acro in an unlit tank for 2 weeks, you're going to get a white coral.

I did not know that. It totally makes sense now, but I just hadn't thought about it that way.

How about my green birdsnest? The polyps are green, and most of the branches are its normal tan/brown colour, but a few branches are white.

I've cranked the whites up to 25 and the blues and royal blues up to 30.