Biocube stock light vs sps

[Qball77]

Is there anyone out there that is having success with sps corals using stock biocube 16 lighting? I’ve lost 2 birdsnest and an acro. Just won’t stay past 3 weeks. I know sps is difficult to begin with but I do have 2 healthy monti’s and a happy pavona. Just looking for any tips or success stories. Parameters are not an issue. 

[seabass]

With an average PAR level of  only 38 (and a peak of 61), I can understand why you might be having problems with SPS which have higher lighting requirements.

[colinadam]

I have the following: 

 

ORA Green Polyp Birdsnest

Bubblegum Digi

Orange Digi

Orange Monti Cap 

Red Milli 

2 Encrusting Monti's

 

Polyp extension is great on them all. Color kind of sucks on 1 of the encrusting Montis and the Milli. 

 

Everything is pretty high in the tank with good flow. 

I would try a Monti if I were you, Digi's are very hardy, IMO. 

 

 

[Jackal227]

2 hours ago, colinadam said:

I have the following: 

 

ORA Green Polyp Birdsnest

Bubblegum Digi

Orange Digi

Orange Monti Cap 

Red Milli 

2 Encrusting Monti's

 

Polyp extension is great on them all. Color kind of sucks on 1 of the encrusting Montis and the Milli. 

 

Everything is pretty high in the tank with good flow. 

I would try a Monti if I were you, Digi's are very hardy, IMO. 

 

 

I agree with this.  I keep my SPS in the top third of the tank and they do fine with the lighting.  I believe that there are other lights that may give you better colors and faster growth but it's certainly not a requirement if  they are kept near the top of the tank. 

 

I've had good success with Montipora's (currently have a Capriconis, Stellata, and Digitata).  I've also seen good growth out of the Birdsnests I've had. 

 

However, Acro's have been a struggle for me.  I currently have a Bonsai that is around 4 months old that I haven't killed yet but it is the first coral to show signs of stress when either my salinity or alkalinity swing even a small amount.  They are very sensitive. 

[mcarroll]

23 hours ago, Qball77 said:

I know sps is difficult to begin with but I do have 2 healthy monti’s and a happy pavona. Just looking for any tips or success stories. Parameters are not an issue.

Birdsnests and acro's are on the more-sensitive side of stony corals, so it could be nothing more than that they need more stability than your tank was/is providing.

 

That said, what are your parameters?

 

May not be the case here, but most of the time when folks blindly claim their parameters are perfect/not a problem, there's an assumption in there messing up the works.

 

Also how old is the tank and how have you been running it?  Anything interesting happen since you started it up?

[Qball77]

S.g.=1.026 cal=460 alk=9 nitrite/am=0 phos=.25 nitrate=5 mag=1320 ph=8. These parameters have been the same for the past 3 months. The tank is 5 months old. The only thing I changed recently is that I started a refugium in my second chamber about a month ago because I couldn’t get my nitrates below 30. Since the refugium my nitrates are around 5. I run my Fuge light for 10 hours,opposite my main lights. I do 20% water changes about every 10 days. I also used nutri-sea water for the first 3 months and changed to reef crystals with distilled water last month for cost effectiveness. I did notice that my mag was slowly decreasing so I started adding aquavitro ions and my mag has been steady for 6 weeks

[mcarroll]

On 6/11/2019 at 10:39 PM, Qball77 said:

phos=.25 nitrate=5

On 6/11/2019 at 10:39 PM, Qball77 said:

I started a refugium in my second chamber about a month ago because I couldn’t get my nitrates below 30.

On 6/11/2019 at 10:39 PM, Qball77 said:

Since the refugium my nitrates are around 5.

So don't think of this as stable for 3 months.  

 

Think of this as a baby tank that has yet to stabilize or mature in a meaningful way.  It's having somewhat normal nutrient swings as the tank still goes through changes.  I like to think that the tank doesn't really start maturing until big changes are done and most changes generally stop happening to it.

 

With that in mind, if you dropped 25 points of nitrate then phosphates and other nutrient levels should have been similarly impacted.

 

Nitrates that get used for growth, get used up along with proportional parts of phosphates and other nutrients.  And nitrates that get exported with water changes should also have a matching drop in other nutrient levels.  Denitrification is really the only thing (other than testing error) that would only lower nitrates, and I'd have doubts that your tank would process that much so quickly.

 

All that said just to wonder if you saw a similar drop in phosphates to the drop you saw in nitrate?  (What test kit are you using?)

 

IMO this (and the extra water changes) are enough to explain the birdsnest's condition....and perhaps the issues with other stony corals in the past.

 

Can you post a full tank shot?

 

Do you have any supplemental flow in the tank?