Help me figure out my sps issue ..

[sapseven]

Okay so .. my sps look crappy.. some are showing some sign of stn too, most like pale or pale/brown.

Before i get into any more details let me just give you my specs.

18 gallon cadlights tank

sg 1.026
ph 8.0
alk 8.3-6 ( i dose manually )
cal - Stays around 420-440
nitrates 0 (api)
phos 0 (api)
MG ??? never tested it
never tested other trace elements.

Lighting I JUST got a Ocean Revive Artic t247 Previously used a kessil a150 10k with a trulumen 453 strip for supplement.

Filtration .. started using a biocube protein skimmer a few days ago ( skimming surprisingly well for what it is ). I was using purigen,chemipure and phosguard before. I was told that i stripped too much nutrients from the water so i tossed all of them. I did however add a half a cup of GAC into a mesh bag and tossed it in there. I have two fish, sixline wrasse and a tailspot blenny and i feed my dendros daily and the fish get their food that way. my blenny picks algae too. i have a few stomatellas hermits 1 emerald crab and 1 turbo snails. i also feed reef roids daily and add 1 ml of whole milk daily (hugo's method).

I honestly don't know what to do anymore to get my sps to color up better ... i tried dosing potassium iodide to see if it would help a bit. I only add 3 drops daily even though the directions say to add 8 drops to a 25g so i know i'm not overdosing on this stuff in anyway, its not lugols.

So the question is where am i going wrong here? I pretty much did everything by the book. Even with my new lighting i am gradually ramping up the intensity by 1% incriments ( nice having a digital control ). I noticed a few guys on here have nitrates 20+ and have some amazing color and im wondering if thats something i need to do to accomplish getting some color back. I was thinking of getting some zeo produts like pohls or coral vit. But they are kind of expensive and i feel like i can achieve this without blue bottles.

Anyone wanna chime in and maybe give me a diff. route to try ?

 

[sapseven]

The ONLY improvements that i saw so far.. is a peice of Red Monti cap going from greyish pale to pinkish/orangish with polyp extension and a tiny bit of encrusting, and my super paled out purple stylo getting slightly darker.. and slightly a bit of purple in the polyps.

 

[brooklynfc]

leave everything as is is if all your parameters are good then it just might be a acclimation issue. since i saw you added a new light looks like they might just be getting use to it. w
what kind of lighting did you have before

 

[sapseven]

leave everything as is is if all your parameters are good then it just might be a acclimation issue. since i saw you added a new light looks like they might just be getting use to it. w
what kind of lighting did you have before

i specified this in my first post .. i had a kessil. My colors have been bad even with the kessil.

 

[duke62]

Your issue is the text kits you use and the parameters you don't test for. You sound like you have small water volume so your tank has little room for error. Get new test kits and keep everything as stable as you can.

 

[sapseven]

Your issue is the text kits you use and the parameters you don't test for. You sound like you have small water volume so your tank has little room for error. Get new test kits and keep everything as stable as you can.

They are brand new ..and how much more stable can i get ? i do weekly WC's also. everything is consistent

 

[duke62]

It doesn't matter how new they are. API are very inaccurate and only way I would use them is setting up a new tank to test for ammonia. Small tanks parameters swing ALOT and if you don't have a ATO it will swing even more. SPS like it so nothing changes in the tAnk. Only swing that is tolerable is small temp swings. I have a 180 with a calcium reactor and I check my alk everyday and some days I need to adjust to keep it stable so just adding the same level of alk cal and mag could be swinging your parameters

 

[sapseven]

It doesn't matter how new they are. API are very inaccurate and only way I would use them is setting up a new tank to test for ammonia. Small tanks parameters swing ALOT and if you don't have a ATO it will swing even more. SPS like it so nothing changes in the tAnk. Only swing that is tolerable is small temp swings. I have a 180 with a calcium reactor and I check my alk everyday and some days I need to adjust to keep it stable so just adding the same level of alk cal and mag could be swinging your parameters

Please tell me, what makes you assume that i don't check daily or have an ato ?

 

[brooklynfc]

if perameters tested ok i can only to lower light levels to close to zero until things start opening up then start raising slowly.

 

[sapseven]

if perameters tested ok i can only to lower light levels to close to zero until things start opening up then start raising slowly.

Thats exactly how i started running them.. 15% blue 5% white

 

[duke62]

You didn't mention it in your post. API will not give you a accurate measure of no3, po4 or alk. So the testing your doing isn't helping. Get some good test kits or ask someone to test with good test kits, get salifert kits and test your alk everyday and see how things go

 

[sapseven]

You didn't mention it in your post. API will not give you a accurate measure of no3, po4 or alk. So the testing your doing isn't helping. Get some good test kits or ask someone to test with good test kits, get salifert kits and test your alk everyday and see how things go

i test alk with salifert, as stated my alk is always stable.