When Coral Coloration Matters; Fauna Marin Balling Light

[Craigdillman]

Originally Posted by PFoster

If it aint broken, dont fix it!

If your tank is coming along nicely right now and your parameters are staying relatively in the right range then just keep doing your wc's!

Personally I think it would be better do do 12% every week as opposed to 25% biweekly.
25% bi weekly would technically be changing more water.
But coral like stability for the best growth and coloration. So for 2 weeks your parameters are dropping, dropping, dropping, then spike!

Now with a weekly wc you might need to bump it to say 15% to have the same added value of removing DOC's and other organics and replenishing elements but its pretty close to the same and would be more stable.


There is simply no replacement for water changes!
I can not state strongly enough how good water changes are both for removing everything you dont want, and replenishing every thing you do want.

If anyone has had the pleasure of meeting Anthony Calfo before he will tell you all about his tank he used to have where he did 90% weekly wc's. He would drain the tank the the bottom so the fish could barely swim, then refill with fresh sw.
No skimmer
no additives
nothing
But he will also tell you how he lived very close to the IO plant and would just drive down the street and pick up some in his pickup truck, and how crazy cheap it was for him.
So back to reality as this is not at all viable for us here!

Yea it was weird going to this tank my old 30 gallon had no skimmer no dosing and I did weekly 5gallon WC and had frags double in a months time. Since moving corals over haven't seen much growth yet mind you I'm sure they are all under the acclimation of new tank better lights skimmer and getting settled in. Some of the frags/mini colonies are just starting to encrust onto the rock which I have heard they need to encrust before they go back to growing up after i so rudely plucked them from the stable 30 gallon

Another thing i have noticed is that I'm getting less polyp extension on the sps than i did with the 30 gallon no skimmer so I'm wondering if I'm over skimming or not feeding enough "sps food" osier feast and rotifers or coral snow. Before i had to watch it due to only relaying on WC to export nutrients but now i feel like I'm not doing it enough cause its getting skimmed out or fugue using it.

Or am i just being impatient and need to wait for things to catch up. The SPS looks healthy don't get me wrong just not the insane extension i was getting in the 30, the LPS looks more colourful but I'm sure they liked the "dirtier water" of the 30