SPS growth and scrubbing

[Vannpytt]

I have for 6-7 months tried to keep SPS with scrubber only now. Please look at my post in the design forum for more information and detail since start.

The total setup is:

Filtration
Deltec skimmer rated for 1000 liters heavy stock
ATS with 6x39w T5HO (3 on each side)
Flow and rough plastic canvas as recommended

Light
8x39w T5HO
480w LED 2:1 White(14000 kelvin 25000 kelvin Blue)
This is evenly divided on the tank lenght.

Flow
4x 6105 Tunze Stream 2-12k w/controller
1x Tunze Wavebox

Rock/Sand
About 70kg mixed dryrock/highquality liverock
About 5-7cm sand bottom (2m*60cm)

The story
I started this tank in end july 2010 with RO/DI water, some water from my old tank, fish from my old tank and rock from my old tank. After a few weeks the scrubber started growing yellow/greenish, but in spite of this I got a massive outbreak of green hair algae. It took the better part of 3-4 months before I had lights off for 3-4 days while running GAC And skimming to get rid of the algae. After that everything looked fine. Since startup I've had undetectable n and p levels, probably due to all the algae.

I have since startup had fish, 10 or so, which has been fed 5-10 cubes worth of pellets flakes frozen food variants. Originally I maintained my KH and CA with a dosing pump and Randy's 2 part. This was replaced with a Calc reactor a month and a week ago and keeps the level spot on. (dKH 11ish CA 520 without any precipitation). The pH has been 8.4-8.3 since start.

I have since December received both SPS (Acropora, Montipora, Stylopora, Porites), 3-4 LPS and some soft corals. The first to go was the two soft corals. They just melted away. Now, a month or so ago my LPS started shrinking and loosing it's coloration. I also lost a H.Crispa (Anemone) a few weeks ago. MY SPS are loosing tissue, or was up till last week when I increased Iodine from undetectable to 0.06. (I have not dosed this at all).

I dose:
Iron- Don't really know how much to dose. The scrubber is growing decently green, so I take this a good sign.
CA/MG/KH from the reactor
2-3 weeks between each 15% water change.
(Last week I bought amino acid and trace minerals from fauna marine which I will try to dose)

I feed:
Currently very little.
2x a day Ocean nutrition Prime Reef Flakes 1,5 teaspoon
2x a day Ocean Nutrition Spirulina Flakes 1,5 teaspoon
1 Sheet of Nori (25cm*25cm)

The Problem
I have some brown algae type on rocks, some green on my rocks, and film on my glass every day, even when I feed so little and run my skimmer. I do not currently run GAC. My SPS won't grow much, and there is no good coloration or poly extention (due to one of my angels). I used to have good PE during night, but now it's simply just gone. I have lost several SPS due to tissue necrosis, both RTN and STN, with some SDR inbetween. Even if the fish was the cause for nipping, it would not explain the Anemone death by disease. I just recently got some zoas back, but I've lost 3-4 rather pretty colonies of those also.

Don't know how to troubleshoot this anymore. Water parameters seems "perfect". I should have sufficient light, more than decent flow so I really don't know what else to try anymore. Suggestions would be welcome. Attached is picture of problems.

I changed the light tubes on my scrubber 3 weeks ago, but there has not been much change in the growth. I do have some detritus on some of the rocks, which seems to feed the algae, but this is inconclusive as there is not really that much. and there can be detritus without algae, and algae without detritus.

[SantaMonica]

Screen pics please

[Vannpytt]

Cleaned a few days ago. Will post when I take it out again. It's green and long hairs. Just like on the video I have posted before. It has run even longer hairs, but I'm not sure why or when it changed. Probably with the light getting overdue. Question is if it run "underpower" for too long, and shit has built up in the tank again. That said, where the is no light on the scrubber, the growth is very thin and brown. Where there is lights (and in deed the area I calculate for filtration with light and flow) the growth is green like the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxAFDha41bw

[Vannpytt]

This was in april when the lights where 8 months old. (The video in the post above is 7 months old lights)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Pcaj6K6kw

[Floyd R Turbo]

Your algae growth in that recent 7 day shot looks great, and from what I can tell, the april video shows long green hair growth too. Remind us, how big is your tank, what are the dimensions of your scrubber, and what K rating lamps are you using on the scrubber?

I have read many threads regarding LEDs and coral death. Have you considered that running the LEDs at too high of an amperage can cause bleaching? The problem seems to originate in the human perception, when you switch from MH of T5 to LED, in order to get the level of brightness and coloration (especially from just CW and RB LEDs) people tend to crank them way up, which dumps about 2x the actual light power into the tank, which the corals can't handle. Were you running the exact same lighting setup, watt for watt, from each type of lamp source, on the old tank versus this one?

In combination with that, you're still running a skimmer. Skimmers IMO should really be called Strippers. You pay money for them and get nothing in return except a warm fuzzy feeling, just like the other kind of stripper :lol:. But I digress. Skimmers have repeatedly been shown to remove about 30% of the bacteria out of the water column, along with food particles that corals like. Frankly, from everything I've read, I find it amazing that people still get tons of SPS growth on a highly skimmed tank, so there must be something they don't do wrong. I can't say I understand it completely and I can understand that there are various reasons why you want to continue running the skimmer. So I'm not telling you to remove it, but I would rethink it in the long run. SM's continuous feeding system is perfect for SPS corals because they really want a constant source of food. I think the most successful SPS tanks use such a system, but they go through a lot of food because of the skimmer running, or they turn the skimmer off during feeding and cycle the feeder on and off several ties a day.

All that said, I'm not an SPS expert by any means. I have a few in a mixed system and everything does pretty well. Not huge growth, but very healthy levels.

I would look into the lighting issue first.

[Vannpytt]

2 different tanks,
1 running 12x39w T5HO only with 300 L water (1m*1m*30cm deep)
1 running 8x39w T5HO with 800 L (2m*60cm*55cm)

Scrubber is 80cm wide 25cm deep lit by 3x 39w T5HO on each side with reflector. Running around 5,5k LPH after head loss (the flow is making a solid wall, and as you can see from the videos, there is nothing wrong with the growth.

SPS simply don't grow. I have a M. Capricornis who grows a few cm each month in my friends tank (and he runs a massive Bubbleking skimmer, no feeding of corals, and decent fishload (even angels)). Mine has grown maybee 1 cm in half a year. Started to loose it's color prior to adding iodine. I'll add even more iron and iodine after measuring the levels. All in all, there is a factor limiting growth, and I'm confident it's in the water, either as missing or excessive. What "it" is I do not know.

[Aeros]

What is your fish stock specifically.

I find in my system a close relationship between fish and coral health. I believe it has to do with fish waste being coral food; especially tangs.

Additionally, aside from corals, fish, inverts, what other livestock do you have, i.e. sponge, tube worms etc.? I feel these are a general barometer of overall tank health and is why I ask.

We'll def get to the bottom of this one 8)

[jnad]

Hello!

sorry to see you have some problems with algae.

When i look at the pictures of your tank it reminds me of Dinoflaggelates, or possible Cyano.

Have you checked that the "algae" you have not is Dinoflaggelates?? Dinoflaggelates is very hard to get rid of and some spieses is more or less poisones.

I did have a fight with dinoflaggelates for a couple of years ago, i do think i also had problems with sps corals fading away in that period.

Jnad

[SantaMonica]

My SPS won't grow much, and there is no good coloration or poly extention (due to one of my angels)

I'm going to say the coral problems are from a lack of food.

I used to have good PE during night, but now it's simply just gone.

And this is certainly due to lack of food.

I have some brown algae type on rocks, some green on my rocks, and film on my glass every day, even when I feed so little and run my skimmer.

... and this is from a weak scrubber.

The fact that you have algae on your rocks, and daily on your glass (and you are not feeding liquid coral food), means there is no doubt that your scrubber is very weak. Further, since N and P measure zero, this points to too much algae in the display (probably with very strong lighting). And as you can see, the skimmer does nothing to remove what you need to remove: N and P. If there were no N and P in the water, you would not have algae on your glass or rocks. So, the scrubber in your display is stronger that the scrubber you built, regardless of how much screen growth you are getting. My analogy is two 300 pound wrestlers: One is your scrubber, the other is the scrubber in the tank; both are very large, but they are locked up and barely moving. You want yours to be stronger, so that all 600 pounds starts moving in the proper direction.

So, since your display has very strong LED light, and it's getting no food because of the skimmer (and because you are not feeding), they corals are getting more light than they can process. Light only produces carbohydrates in the corals; light does not provide any nitrogen at all. All nitrogen, 100% needed for any growth or tissue maintanence at all, MUST come from food. And the only food you are getting now is fish waste, which is far too big in particles size, not enough in quantity, too infrequent, and supplied at the wrong time (daytime) when the corals need it at night. And what is supplied is removed by the skimmer. Lack of food caused PE to stop.

Solution: Remove skimmer. Increase scrubber strength any way you can. Start feeding a finely blended coral food continuously (especially at night). After you get the corals to stop dying and start growing, you can focus on removing display algae.

Also, reducing your display lighting temporarily may help.

[Vannpytt]

Right, I'll stop the white light (2/3rd of the LEDs), start feeding: http://www.theaquariumsolution.com/products-type/foods. The reccomended dosage is bidaily 2x SPS and 1x LPS. I'll feed this during the night in addition to the amino and trace from fauna marine during the day.

How long should it take to correct the problem, in other words, how long to prove your theory?

The skimmer is also off now.

That said, there is not much more light in my tank than a 400w HQI sps tank, so how would you build a scrubber for that? (Which is most highend SPS tanks)

Saying my scrubber is very weak, is probably not very correct. It's weak compared to my tank light. (An analogy back at you, those 300 pound wrestlers are still fucking strong even if they are fighting a stagnated battle)