Lighting questions

Joker

Viking Corals
BRS Member
Ok so some of my easy to keep/lower light sps have been slowly dying. I could figure it out for the life of me as my levels have been stable for a long time now( 5 months +) and nothing has gotten into my tank. I will post levels at the end of this. When ever I add a new sps coral it does good for a few weeks then all of a sudden I see white tips. I think ok great its growing I'm happy. But then algae grows on those spots and that shows it's just skeleton. The only sps that have been growing like wild fire and happy as can be is my WD and strawberry shortcake, which we all know love high intensity lighting. I found out a while back that I was using my light all wrong and only had 1hr of peak light (I'm stupid lol). At peak intensity I had it at max 70% for some channels. This is my first time using leds in all my years of reef keeping. Once I learned what I was doing wrong I started uping my peak times very slowly for each hour. I would go up 5% in each channel that could go up. I would wait 2 weeks and up it again. Now I'm at yesterday where I seen someone's post on another forum about burning there sps and the pics they had looked just like my affected sps. Now I'm thinking to myself I'm on the right path of upping the amount of peak time but is my intensity to strong now? I want to lower it to be around 50-60% and I dont know if I have to slowly reduce it or can I just drop it down to those levels? I currently only have about 6hrs of peak time on my reefbreeders. This is what I have my channels set too
Ch 1. 5%
Ch 2. 5%
Ch 3. 70%
Ch 4. 25%
Ch 5. 70%
Ch 6. 70%

These are my current water levels
Sg 1.026
Alk 9.1
Cal 450
Mag 1365
N03 5ppm
P04 0.07
 
Your lighting percentage doesn’t mean jack crap. It’s par that you should be measuring.


This is the reading I got.

20201120_222649.jpg
 
Birdsnest where in the red circle. All have almost died.
Walt Disney and strawberry shortcake is in the yellow. Doing amazing polyps way out and growing fast
Unknown yellow/green acro in the green. Polyps out but some tips look white and some algae growing.

20201120_223050.jpg
 
It’s a guessing game at this point. Birdsnest are actually not that easy and can be tricky. I’ve had Pompeii bird nest colony slowly died out after grown into a colony from an inch frag.
 
what has been the swing of alk for the last month? i know birds nest is a good sign of all swings. I have had a whole colony die after a 3/4 dkh swing. but as stated above really is a guessing game. think of what you have done or changed in the last month. how quickly did things die STN or RTN. This is a crazy hobby we have all chosen to love lol!
 
what has been the swing of alk for the last month? i know birds nest is a good sign of all swings. I have had a whole colony die after a 3/4 dkh swing. but as stated above really is a guessing game. think of what you have done or changed in the last month. how quickly did things die STN or RTN. This is a crazy hobby we have all chosen to love lol!

There has been no swings at all. My alk hasnt moved. That's why I'm thinking it's my light and it's to strong. I test every week and I get tr he same results. I use hanna and salifert test kits
 
Do you test your alk at the same time every week or do you vary it? I wouldn't think lighting would be an issue with those PAR numbers. I would suggest testing your alk several times during the day to see how much it swings. Say in the am before the lights go on, a few more times when the lights are on at different times (low lights, medium light and high light) then again when the lights are nearly off and then if possible a few hours after the lights go out just to see how much of a swing you get daily.

If you test the same time of day everytime you won't get a true accurate daily swing IMO...
 
Do you test your alk at the same time every week or do you vary it? I wouldn't think lighting would be an issue with those PAR numbers. I would suggest testing your alk several times during the day to see how much it swings. Say in the am before the lights go on, a few more times when the lights are on at different times (low lights, medium light and high light) then again when the lights are nearly off and then if possible a few hours after the lights go out just to see how much of a swing you get daily.

If you test the same time of day everytime you won't get a true accurate daily swing IMO...

So I normally test at 2pm. So I test at 2 pm and just tested(5:20pm) and they both came back at 9.3. My doser doses at 6am I have tested like 2 weeks ago at 8am and it was 9.3. So I dont think there is a swing. If there is it's to small for me to see on a test.

20201121_172109.jpg
 
What are your nutrient levels. 9.3 is a high kh level if nutrients are really low. It could explain the burnt tips.
 
Maybe adding bacteria will help check out this thread on r2r.
 
Upcoming Events

April 21, 2024
Paul B
Club Meeting

Back
Top