Replacing light on very basic nano all in one system- Will it help coral?

[Laurenscube]

Hi Guys,

 

Below i have written my tank specs. I basically want to get a lovely looking neon tank, and i know coral colours depend on lighting, dosing, etc etc.

 

I am doing my current routine below but due to my tank being so basic i assume i will have to upgrade my tanks lights ???

 

Lights - LIGHTS- 0.2 w LED Stripes bright white x2 xa artic blue LED 0.2 w

 

I read some tank specs and there wattage is 70!! So cant believe my little guys are 0.2w ???

 

Any help will be great as at the mo cant afford a brand new setup but would like to get something back with all my dosing and care im doing to the tank!

 

I have a 48litre/12 gallon nano cube. All in one system by interpet (River reef)

IN THE BACK-Eheim nano skimmer 350 (added), Fluval Carbon bag, Fluval clear max Phosphate control bag , Biochemicial cubes to store good bacteria (came with the tank) Large foam pad, Filter floss pad. Pump which came with the tank which is not great for water flow...

DISPLAY TANK- x1 Nano hydor powerhead

ROCK & SAND- Real Rock, Carib sea pink Live sand,

LIGHTS- 0.2 w LED Stripes bright white x2 xa artic blue LED 0.2 w

CORALS-Xiena, toadstool leather, Africian tree, ricordia

FISH- Tomato clown, Blue/Green Chromis,

INTERVERT - Cleaner shrimp, bumble bee snails, hermit crabs, a lovely selection of bristle worms !

 

MAINTENANCE- 25 % water change weekly. Aquarium system Reef salts-Normally a water change on Sunday nights

DOSING- Currently dosing with Red sea Foundation elements for Calcium, Magnesium, Alkalinity

Only just started testing Potassium, Iodine and Iron with the Red sea test kits.

FEEDING- I use marine cuisine frozen food and Hikari dry food

 

CURRENT PARAMETERS-

(2days after water change )

Temp- 28'c

Salinity- 1.025

PH- 8.2

Ammonia-0

Nitrite-0

Nitrate-0

Calcium-450

Alkanity-3.1/8.7

Magnesium- 1090

Potassium- 320

Iodine- 0.09

Iron- 0.15

 

PROBLEMS- My magnesium levels always seem to be really low ! I have been logging all parameters weekly so i can see what my levels are doing (CA, MG, DKH). I dont really want to do a water change twice weekly so have been topping up my supplements. However always seems to be low on magnesium! I dont understand why i sem to be buying bottles of magnesium and having to dose 80-100ml weekly. I am just trying to determine if i dose a little bit of ach weekly this can stop the swings in magnesium-ANY ADVICE WILL BE GREAT!

-Another problem my coral seem to be light pink brown, (please see photo)hence the reason why i will be starting with the red sea colour care program.. Below I have put a link of one of my favourite tanks from nanoreef.com that I aspire to http://www.nano-reef.com/featured/_/2012/gena-r60. Hoping i can get some helpful advice here to help me succeed with my tank!

[BulkRate]

At a minimum for colors to "pop" you should be running with a 2:1 ratio of blue to white. That's ignoring a whole gamut of recommendations/lighting subform threads/& knock-down-drag-'em-out lighting geek holy wars "politely suggesting" a wider/full spectrum setup, better CRI (on white emitters) or selecting accurately binned wavelengths, etc. Many all-in-one's (including yours) ignore all of that and stick you with something rated for a fish-only setup at best.

 

Don't get too hung up on wattage as a measure of a light's suitability (especially on LEDs), but yeah I'd say that those strips are not up to the task. You're in luck in that your tank looks a heckuvalot like a BioCube - many decent online vendors (including several Nano-reef sponsors) offer retrofitting kits that will likely fit & can get you where you want to be.

 

As for magnesium levels? A good first step would be to check your new change water after mixing to see if maybe the levels are off right out of the box/bag. I have a heavily macroalgae-based setup in my nano and maintaining a stable/adequate magnesium level has always been an issue... but it became nearly impossible when I switched to a salt mix that consistently mixed low (1100ppm) despite the "batch" analysis that claimed it to be fine.

 

I would address the lighting issues before embarking on a dosing campaign with any vendor's "color-up" sauce. With a setup like yours with a heavy white light component and low intensity you're going to grow brown & dingy corals or at least they'll look that way no matter how pigmented they are.

 

And as an unsolicited suggestion - you also seem to have "a buncha rocks" rockscaping syndrome going on. You could probably remove 1/2 of them and have more room for corals/fish/misc, especially if you seed a mesh bag of some form of biomedia 2-3 weeks in advance in one of the back chambers.

[evilc66]

What you read wasn't 70W. What it actually reads is that you have two Double Bright modules that have two strips with 7 LEDs each at 0.2W per LED, and a single strip of 7 blue LEDs at 0.2W each. That gives you a total of 35 LEDs, and a total wattage of 7W.

 

With that, yes, your lighting is a little on the weak side. An upgrade would be a welcome addition to that tank.

 

You mention though that you are looking for fluorescence from your corals, but most of the corals that you have aren't really that bright in color to begin with. I'm not even sure if african/kenya tree will actually fluoresce (never had it before). Leathers can be fairly bland, but there are a few variations that can have pretty bright green coloration. You mention you have ricordea, but looking at your picture, I'm not convinced that is what you actually have (if the ricordea is in the bottom right of the tank). Can you take a better picture of them?

[Clown79]

Most soft corals don't fluoresce because most aren't very colourful. There are rics that do and some leathers like green polyp toadstool but it really depends on the lighting(more blue less white)

 

That being said the reason your corals look brownish is because the lighting is too low. If you upgrade the lighting you will get better colouration of the corals.

 

Kenyas don't fluresce but should be a pinkish tone, xenia love light and should be a light pink colour, each toadstool is different.

As Evil suggested, those don't look like rics but a bigger picture would be needed to 100% tell.