GQLMAO'S SPS Tank Zoa Update November 2015

December 28, 2013

There was couple of things that really ticked me off with the Radions. Due to how my tank is scaped, a good portion of the corals weren't getting enough light, more specifically the side opposite to the light. Since the Radion is kind of like a spot light, the blue digitata and tenius in the back wasn't getting much light at all. Intensity was another issue, a lot of the corals in the center were either happy, or going pale from excessive lighting, where the outer ones were going brown. Lastly, I feel like the Radion spectrum was visually incompletely since I didn't have the pro I wasn't able to get the additional led colors to tweak. Don't get me wrong, if I had a softy tank or a LPS tank I would definitely go leds. All the problems I mentioned, can be solved with a second unit, however I personally made the decision to jump back to T-5s.

Lots of people are going back to T5s lately. I hope you get the results you are looking for. What issues in particular did you have with the radion?

January 6, 2014

Just a small update:

After having the T-5s for a week, I have to say they are BRIGHT, they put out an extreme amount of PAR. I have the lights running for 6 hours a day initially and I have noticed 3 SPS begin to completely lighten up and begin to show signs of bleaching. I had to cut down the lighting, channel one runs 2 bulbs for 6 hours and channel two runs 6 bulbs for 2.5 hours. The lightening on the affected of the SPS has stopped, I am ramping up the time by 20 minutes a week, hopefully this will help give a smooth transition.

On the plus side, I love having a flood of light everywhere, there are very little shaded areas and the colors of the T-5s bring out the blues and reds better than the 20k configuration I had on the Radions. A really big bonus is that I am starting to see signs of color changes on a lot of my browned out SPS, I have to give it more time to be sure. Overall it is a great change from what I had, I don't really miss the shimmer affect since I always had a headache looking into the tank. Photography is a lot better with the T-5s, I will get some pictures in a few weeks or so.

The bulb configuration that I have is:

Blue Plus

Coral Plus

Blue Plus

Purple Plus

Blue Plus

January 10, 2014

Had some time for some quick pics! The corals are still getting used to the lighting, I am starting to see color changes in a couple SPS pieces. The surprising part is I don't even have the light running more than 3 hours!! It's been rough trying to get the corals use to the T5s, they are so powerful.

This one is actually neon yellow:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/TanAcro_zpsbda43d98.jpg.html'>

Hairy Green Acro:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/HairyGreenAcro_zps13752c91.jpg.html'>

Pinkish Milli:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/PinkishMilli_zps010ab3a1.jpg.html'>

Blue Tenius:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/BlueAcro_zps0b70321d.jpg.html'>

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/BlueAcro2_zps45a522a4.jpg.html'>

January 12, 2014

Devil Palys:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/DevilPaly_zps87328869.jpg.html'>

Dragon Eyes:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/DragonEyes_zps905f305f.jpg.html'>

January 13, 2014

Nice macro photography skills

January 13, 2014

Thanks man! I still have a long ways to go. I have lots of zoas that are in a position where its hard to get some decent shots of, hopefully when I have more time and when everything grows out I can learn some more photography.

Nice macro photography skills

January 14, 2014

Thanks man! I still have a long ways to go. I have lots of zoas that are in a position where its hard to get some decent shots of, hopefully when I have more time and when everything grows out I can learn some more photography.

How do you deal with white balance? I can't seem to figure out how to make my pics less blue.

January 14, 2014

I take a shot of something white in the tank with the lights on full blast. Then I go into the camera setting and select custom white balance with the picture I took as the reference. This will bring everything into a 10k spectrum. Then I go into my WB color settings and dial back in some blue. When I use photoshop, my white balance is dragged all the way to yellow when I am editing the converted raw file. Its a pain when the tank is so blue.

How do you deal with white balance? I can't seem to figure out how to make my pics less blue.

January 14, 2014

I've always found that a quick way to balance out the blues is to set the white balance to daylight or cloudy. Works if you don't want to mess around with editing, just shoot and upload.

January 14, 2014

I take a shot of something white in the tank with the lights on full blast. Then I go into the camera setting and select custom white balance with the picture I took as the reference. This will bring everything into a 10k spectrum. Then I go into my WB color settings and dial back in some blue. When I use photoshop, my white balance is dragged all the way to yellow when I am editing the converted raw file. Its a pain when the tank is so blue.

Thanks. I'm going to try to find a white waterproof card I can stick in the tank for reference during photography.

I've always found that a quick way to balance out the blues is to set the white balance to daylight or cloudy. Works if you don't want to mess around with editing, just shoot and upload.

I'll give this a shot too. I spend way too much time on editing and the colors still come out horrendous.

January 16, 2014

Just a small update:

I have been noticing a decline in my montipora and birdsnest for some reason. After reading online I had a hunch it was a potassium deficiency. My current vodka dosing is .5ml per day split into two doses, 3 hours prior to feeding and right after feeding. I suspect the additional carbon source is generating more bacteria, therefore slowly up taking the potassium. I guess over the course of 3 months it took its toll and by using a salt low in potassium and I started noticing these affects more and more after 4-5x 10 percent water changes. I decided to give potassium a shot, after dosing and switching to a salt with higher trace elements, the colors have come back significantly.

I have noticed that the majority of my SPS were darkening to the point where it was brown... I have stopped using KZ vitalizer, pohl's xtra, SPS amino acids, LPS amino acids and sponge power all together. The only thing I use is coral snow to allow for water clarity and to possibly bond to small organic waste that the skimmer otherwise isn't able to pull out. I have stopped the KZ for approx. 4 days and the results are considerably better, the dark tissue began to lighten and I can start to see the actually colors again. I suspect that there wasn't any need of the AAs at this time in my tank, I do feed heavily once a day. Once the corals lighten up more, I will begin dosing KZ in small moderate amounts to see if I can tweak everything to how I wanted.

I am able to ramp my lights up to around 5 hours for the 6 bulb channel and 9 hours for the 2 bulb channel at 100 percent, my SPS seem to be getting really use to it and I am seeing significant color changes on the blues, and purples,. Greens are good. Reds and pinks will need more work... I suspect it was too much KZ giving my corals unneeded nutrients causing excessive amounts of zooxanthellae to hide the actual colors. I should see better results in a couple weeks time!

Just wanted to post some tank specs and situations since I have noticed that this thread was more of a photo dump. Any input is appreciated!

January 22, 2014

Just wondering how is your tank doing? I've also noticed my corals become deeper and richer color. I am not sure if it's due to KZ dosing but I will be really interested to know how your corals behave after you stop dosing KZ.

January 23, 2014

Hey, I have stopped dosing for almost 2 weeks now. The first impressions is that KZ does darken the tissue of SPS, My conclusion is that the extra nutrients cause extra and unneeded zooxanthellae growth. My corals have gotten a lot lighter than before, I lost a lot of the brown in the tissues of the certain SPS. The other SPS that were colorful to begin with, I have noticed gotten slightly lighter but at the same time more vivid due to having less brown. Its only been 2 weeks, and I can only say this out of speculation, I have noticed that reds and pinks are very sensitive to nutrients even small amounts, it is the one color group I struggle with keeping the colors. Even small amounts of zooxanthallae can wash out the colors... However from the last of dosing KZ, I have noticed the red and pinks slowly coming back, it may take months but I think it will eventually happen.

One thing to note is that the polyp extension on certain pieces are not that great during the day after stopping KZ, however at night time they are just as long and great so I am not worried there. Also to clean up the water some more I have upped the vodka dosage to 1.25ml now, this is to help bring my phosphates to below .03ppm, I have also added another phosphate reactor to help with this effort. Currently my phosphates are around .03-.04ppm, we will see how far this will help with the colors. I guess there are a lot of factors I am tinkering with right now, stopping KZ, increasing vodka, increasing GFO use. These can all contribute to lighter coloration, with that said the later 2 was only started a few days ago after I noticed a drop in brown pigments from stopping KZ.

The last thing I wanted to note is the growth, alk consumption has been rather increasing steadily in the last 2 weeks. I am sitting at 2x 10 percent water change with H20 Ocean (10.5 DKH) weekly, 24ml of BRS alk daily, approx 1 gallon of kalk water daily (2 teaspoons per 5 gallons). My alk is sitting at 7.3-7.7 roughly, I can't comment too much on KZ's affect on growth since I am still having to increase my alk dosages weekly around 4ml.

I don't plan to dose KZ any time soon, I am waiting for the colors to pale out and loose the majority of the zooxanthallae, then the real game starts, tweaking colors with fauna marin. I am just doing it very slowly since I don't want to shock anything.

A lot has happened with the tank in the couple of days... My zoas were hating life in the tank, I suspect it is my water and lights. I reused my old tank and transferred all the zoas and rics over, it is a very basic system just a pump, powerhead, heater, gfo and carbon. I reused my old radion for the lighting. So far all the zoas have opened and are doing great, I need to give them time to recover. My main tank is officially pure SPS with the exception of some pink mushrooms on the live rock from the previous setup. This means I can ramp my main lights up to 8 hours a day at full intensity, another factor to see if I can get more colors out of the corals.

I hope this helps!

Just wondering how is your tank doing? I've also noticed my corals become deeper and richer color. I am not sure if it's due to KZ dosing but I will be really interested to kno

w how your corals behave after you stop dosing KZ.

January 26, 2014

Well, since I moved everything to my old little cube, things are looking better. I would say certain zoas will need atleast a week or two before they get back to their original size and color. Overall I am happy that I did it,

On to some pictures, the tank is lit by only Royal Blue Leds. Yes you read correctly, only RB Leds I have seen it work before at my LFS and I am giving it a shot as well. Color balanced is pretty much maxed out, any more yellow would create excessive noise.

Green Ric:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/greenRic_zps61b0d584.jpg.html'>

Blue Ric:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/blueRics_zpse50496be.jpg.html'>

Multi Color Ric:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/orangeric_zps5a216ed8.jpg.html'>

Bella Blue:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/bellablues_zps981069bd.jpg.html'>

Rastas:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/Rastas_zpsc48c76b2.jpg.html'>

Fruit Loops:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/FruitLoops_zps91d8631a.jpg.html'>

La Lakers:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/LaLakers_zpsa379e5db.jpg.html'>

Orange Oxides:

http://s298.photobucket.com/user/gqlmao/media/Reef%20Tank/OrangeOxides_zpsb48d1abb.jpg.html'>

January 26, 2014

Hey, I have stopped dosing for almost 2 weeks now. The first impressions is that KZ does darken the tissue of SPS, My conclusion is that the extra nutrients cause extra and unneeded zooxanthellae growth. My corals have gotten a lot lighter than before, I lost a lot of the brown in the tissues of the certain SPS. The other SPS that were colorful to begin with, I have noticed gotten slightly lighter but at the same time more vivid due to having less brown. Its only been 2 weeks, and I can only say this out of speculation, I have noticed that reds and pinks are very sensitive to nutrients even small amounts, it is the one color group I struggle with keeping the colors. Even small amounts of zooxanthallae can wash out the colors... However from the last of dosing KZ, I have noticed the red and pinks slowly coming back, it may take months but I think it will eventually happen.

One thing to note is that the polyp extension on certain pieces are not that great during the day after stopping KZ, however at night time they are just as long and great so I am not worried there. Also to clean up the water some more I have upped the vodka dosage to 1.25ml now, this is to help bring my phosphates to below .03ppm, I have also added another phosphate reactor to help with this effort. Currently my phosphates are around .03-.04ppm, we will see how far this will help with the colors. I guess there are a lot of factors I am tinkering with right now, stopping KZ, increasing vodka, increasing GFO use. These can all contribute to lighter coloration, with that said the later 2 was only started a few days ago after I noticed a drop in brown pigments from stopping KZ.

The last thing I wanted to note is the growth, alk consumption has been rather increasing steadily in the last 2 weeks. I am sitting at 2x 10 percent water change with H20 Ocean (10.5 DKH) weekly, 24ml of BRS alk daily, approx 1 gallon of kalk water daily (2 teaspoons per 5 gallons). My alk is sitting at 7.3-7.7 roughly, I can't comment too much on KZ's affect on growth since I am still having to increase my alk dosages weekly around 4ml.

I don't plan to dose KZ any time soon, I am waiting for the colors to pale out and loose the majority of the zooxanthallae, then the real game starts, tweaking colors with fauna marin. I am just doing it very slowly since I don't want to shock anything.

A lot has happened with the tank in the couple of days... My zoas were hating life in the tank, I suspect it is my water and lights. I reused my old tank and transferred all the zoas and rics over, it is a very basic system just a pump, powerhead, heater, gfo and carbon. I reused my old radion for the lighting. So far all the zoas have opened and are doing great, I need to give them time to recover. My main tank is officially pure SPS with the exception of some pink mushrooms on the live rock from the previous setup. This means I can ramp my main lights up to 8 hours a day at full intensity, another factor to see if I can get more colors out of the corals.

I hope this helps!

Thanks so much for the information! I just stopped dosing KZ since last week, so far, I have not noticed any change to the corals. I will also keep you posted to see how they react.

January 27, 2014

Awesome, let me know how it works out!

Thanks so much for the information! I just stopped dosing KZ since last week, so far, I have not noticed any change to the corals. I will also keep you posted to see how they react.

January 30, 2014

Update:

I think I have reached where I wanted to be, after 3 weeks of increased vodka dosing and the lack of KZ additives. A couple of signs telling me the system is ready and have the nutrients low enough: My phosphates read 0.00 on the Hanna phosphate check, I am sure its a little higher then this since I do feed a lot. SPS are starting to pale out after gaining bright colors earlier, algae barely grows only after 6-7 days do I notice a small film in the glass. This leads me to believe the tank is officially ready for additives, I will be dosing KZ vitalizer, xtra and some AA for nutrients, my tank is pretty stripped as it is and the corals are telling me so. Alk and calcium and magnesium consumption has been steadily rising to the point where I was concerned that there was precipitation but my sump is as clean as can be with no indication that is happening. I am dosing 40ml of BRS alk, 36 ml of Cal, 20 ml of mag, 1 gallon of top off water with 1 teaspoon of kalk, potassium, iron and iodide as needed. I am having a growth sprout in coraline algae, all over the floors this is my culprit for the large amounts of mag dosing.

So far my parameters are as follows:

Alk: 7.2-7.5 DKH barely maintaining this with the current dosing regime Salifert

Calcium: 430ppm Salifert

Mag:1290 ppm Salifert
Potassium:410ppm Salifert

Nitrates:0 only using API

Phosphates: 0.00 Hanna

So this is the road I have been waiting for... I am going to try out the fauna marin balling trace and color elements along with supplementing the KZ to bring back out the colors. Hopefully it goes smoothly, I may or may not have to resort to B balance but I will see how the coral tissues and colors turn out with the trace element and AA new regime. I think in a couple of months I will see the results if any.

As a bonus treat to myself, I have the following SPS pieces coming in a week or two

RR Pink Matrix

RR Wolverine

RR Blue Peacock

RR Red Diablo

RR Red Bull

RR Pink Floyd

RR Subzero

Cali tort

February 17, 2014

It's been a while since I did an update on here... Things are going well, the SPS tank is slowly taking shape, colors are coming back and I am feeding very heavily and added 2 more fish to help get the nutrients back up. As for the little tank, the zoas are doing great. Mostly everything has recovered and the size and colors are coming back. I think I am finally done collecting zoas... I am going to sit on them and frag them to make some money back. Hopefully they will pay for themselves in a year or two. I will have a FTS of it once my Acans come in.

The current zoa list that I have is as follows:

Vivid Rainbows

Sunny D's

Emeralds on Fire

LA lakers

Orange Oxides

Fruit Loops

LOTR Paly

Mordor Paly

Green Magicians

Jumbo Hornets

God of Wars