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Thread: SPS growth and scrubbing

  1. #11
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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    Can you dim the LEDs instead of shutting them down completely? Or at least reduce the photoperiod?

    It might help to know the exact setup of your DT light. How many of each type of lamp, and what you're driving them at, what photoperiod you run, both for LEDs and other lights (on the DT only). That would provide us another piece to the puzzle. But I'm thinking it's a combination of lighting and skimming. I agree that the growth on your scrubber look great, comparable to some of my best growth weeks.

  2. #12
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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    The strength of a scrubber is determined by how much it has to filter. It might be strong for a small tank, but it's weak for your tank. If it's growing good and green and filling up each week, but it's not doing the filtering it needs, then it's not strong enough.

    Adding the coral food will probably darken the screen a bit, and might also require even more glass cleaning (since the liquid nutrients hit the glass before they get to the scrubber), but it will definitely help the corals, which is the first thing that needs to be done. Your monte caps should start showing white edges again in a few weeks.

    You can't over-feed corals. They can easily eat a whole bottle of coral food each day. The thing that does limit how much you feed the coral is the buildup of nutrients.

  3. #13
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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    Quote Originally Posted by 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)
    Just a few comments here on this post. Converting everything over from metric so I can work it in my head, your tanks are 80 and 210 gallons, so 290 total. Your scrubber is about 310 sq in. Your light on the scrubber is 6 x 39w = 234, so your lighting could be underpowered a bit. I assume you are using reflectors on the lamps? From looking back through your build thread, I couldn't necessarily see them. Also it looks like trying to squeeze another lamp on each side might not be possible. Perhaps if you used lightly narrower reflectors, but then you lose a little efficiency, so what's the difference, right? Hmmm.

    About the tank lighting, I do think this is your problem. You are running 8 x 39W T5HO AND 480W of LEDs. This is almost 800W of light. What may not look like much more light to you may look completely different to the corals. The only way to tell is by using a PAR meter, which will at least get you closer to knowing what your light intensity is really at. I'm guessing that the T5HOs and LEDs are not on the same tank? I'm kind of confused. Also looking for info on your LEDs, what current are you running them at?

  4. #14

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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    I feel ya on this issue. While I have a lot of respect for the primary posters on this board, I will disagree with them on your problem. There are many areas that could be giving you grief in your tanks, water for the PWC's, old RO filters, bad media in the calcium reactor, overdosing of chemicals... lots of variables. Your scrubber however is, in my opinion, not the issue here. Light intensity could be an issue as well...but...

    Several years ago I had very similar symptoms in my 75 and I mean almost dead on. Not able to keep things alive, receding LPS, melting softies, and stagnant sps. I was running a skimmer with a refugium and dosing iodine and randys 2 part. Tank algae was off the hook and the only thing doing well was HA and calerpa in the display.

    I quit dosing all chemicals, ALL CHEMICALS, turned off the skimmer, and just let things go. No water changes, no additions, no additives, just tap water top-off. My thinking on this is that there is something out of balance in the water parameters that we arent aware of being there. I am no expert on water or chemistry, but I got results in 2 months and by month 3 I was seeing growth in all things.

    My advice is to cease all additives (calcium reactor as well) and feed the fish sparingly for 60 days, turn off the skimmer. Go low tech for 60 days. Things will get worse but they will also get better once the living system has a chance to right itself.
    75RR / 20g sump / DIY Scrubber / 3 x 150DE MH & single T5 actinic

  5. #15
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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    Yes, the assumption was that there was no other major problem. But additional nutrition (coral food) can only help the corals fight whatever the problem might be; and a skimmer can only hurt by removing that same food.

    It is suspect that the LPS are dying too; they have more ability to absorb DOC for food (by virtue of their soft tissues) than SPS do. So LPS and softies usually have nutrition problems at different times than SPS do. The fact that all are having trouble does make a case for some other problem.

    But the basics are still in place: Nutrition is low (skimmer + no feeding), and nutrients are high (algae on glass and rocks). So feeding and stronger scrubbing are still needed. This won't remove a poison, but it will help the corals fight better. If a poison is suspected, GAC might be a good idea.

  6. #16

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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    Floyd:
    Tank 1: Light 480w Led and 8x39w - 200 gallon water volume - Scrubber 2x3*39w T5 on a w80cm*d25cm screen - 5,5k lph
    Almost 1 year old water, Do small and regular water changes. Just only a month ago started the calc reactor. Was bad before that also.

    Tank 2: Light 12*39w - 30 gallon water volume - Scrubber 2*55w PC on a w25cm*d40cm screen - 1k lph
    New water, blended with old from my main system (1/4th) 2-3 live rock and sand bottom. 2 Part dosing. 2 wrasse, 1 lawn blenny, 1 blue tang

    LEDs are generic, no special brand. They are divided into 12 "zones" with 285w 1w chips at 80%. Rest very deep blue.

    There has been growth, only very very little. The measurable parameters are in acceptable values. I'm going to take a water sample down to the local biochemistry lab at the university and pay someone in vodka to do a full spectrum analysis. Hopefully there is something which stands out.

    You are all very right. I've considered toxins, and thus also ran GAC for an extended period. Between water changes and aggressive GAC for over a month there would be little to no toxins left in the system.

    Unbalance in water chemistry is a very possible problem - What would cause it, and how can it be corrected if say, something is missing that won't reappear into the system if I stop everything and let it run? The Iodine was depleted. I confirmed with several tests that measures both Iodide and Iodate. There has, like I said, also been a massive growth period a 1,5 months ago, but it was short lived 8; I could see growth on a daily basis after water change with tap water. Do have in mind, that tap water in Norway is far cleaner than you think of tap water. Into my RO/DI I get around 30ppm.

    This makes me think something is missing
    Silicates - ?
    Iron is being dosed
    Iodine was missing, trying to correct it.
    Nitrogen - not measurable
    Phosphor - not measurable
    CA/KH/MG within range
    SG 1.025
    pH 8.3 steady as a rock
    Pumps etc kept clean.

    For now, I turned down the white LED's and are going to let the calcium reactor running with low CO2 input. The skimmer is off, and there is no GAC or GFO, filter floss or anything else. I feed daily the recommended dose of those two foods I listed above.

    Reason why I'm asking in this forum is not because I think the scrubber is causing it necessarily , but because I run a scrubber system, it would not be sound advice comming from skimmer people.

  7. #17
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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    Unbalance in water chemistry is a very possible problem - What would cause it, and how can it be corrected if say, something is missing that won't reappear into the system if I stop everything and let it run?
    If you have enough algae in your system, the chemistry is self-correcting. The ocean and lakes are 90 percent algae (except bacteria). The 10 percent of all other life feed from this algae, directly or in-directly. Thus, everything that goes into the food chain starts with what algae produces. That's why it's call a primary producer. So the algae decides what chemical will be in the water, and at what levels. An exception would be the non-biological chemicals that are not produced by algae: cal, alk, mag, and maybe str. But since those are easy to handle, they are not an issue.

    Even poisons are known to be removed by algae. The high levels of DOC from the algae sequester the poisions, or consumes them (if the algae are heterotrophic). And all heavy metals are consumed by algae. Even chloramines that are put into tap water are broken apart by the ascorbic acid in the DOC; the ammonia is then eaten by the algae, and the chlorine evaporates.

    This all assumes, of course, that you are not adding poisons/metals faster than the algae can absorb them. Thus, if you don't add anything but food, eventually you should end up with about the same traces as the ocean.

    The Iodine was depleted. I confirmed with several tests that measures both Iodide and Iodate.
    From my understanding you will never be able to see a reading in SW for either. They are depleted too fast.

    I could see growth on a daily basis after water change with tap water.
    There is a chance that this kicked-up waste particles and bacteria into the water column, which provided a short burst of food.

    Silicates - ?
    If you are feeding, you have silicates.

    Overall, I still say that the main problem was too little nutrition for the amount of light you had. If so, then your changes should show results in a few weeks.

  8. #18

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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    I concur, it seems logical, and it's in line with my suspicions. I think the major impact will come from increasing filtration from lowering DT lights, and increasing feeding to help them recover, yet, I fear that many colonies are lost. Once they start loosing tissue, it's basically a lost battle, but we will see. There are some colonies that has not shown polyps in a long time, and I guess these will be dying in a matter of days, or maybe a week. What confuses me though is that some have had polyps out the entire time, although lost the deep coloration and been severely bleached.

    This will provide good documentation for the scrubber filtration, and I think I have more than enough lights. Back to one of my questions; -let's say I wanted to upgrade my lights into 4x Ecoxotic LED pendants, or 2x 400w HQI in addition to the T5. What would I need to do with the scrubber power? All in all, I think the increased feeding, if that is the problem, will do more good than more lights, but the next few weeks will tell.

    Thanks for your input. I'll post pictures of the harvest come Tuesday, and also the progress in the DT.

  9. #19
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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    I have no info on display lighting. But as long as your phosphate stays unreadable, you can start feeding as much as possible. Matter of fact if you want to just play hospital with your display, then don't clean the glass, and just feed more liquid food until the P starts to show up. You can probably feed 8 ounces of your coral food a day this way. It would be expensive though, and that's why I blend my own.

    In my experiments of coral wipeouts, I've had some tiny ports of the corals re-born once the food was back and the poisons were gone.

  10. #20

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    Re: SPS growth and scrubbing

    I understand you have no information on light, but it does seem that since my DT is a stronger "scrubber" than my actual scrubber, would it not be making matters worse if I had even more light for SPS growth, or is it not needed to grow.

    I spoke to a biologist a while ago, and he said skimmers produced more bacteria due to oxygen or something. Not sure what he meant, but do cast some light on the fact that people with large skimmers and very high power light produce beautiful tanks with large SPS/LPS colonies in pastel colors?

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