lighting schedule

[sadie]

I have a BioCube 16 LED.  I was wondering how this lighting schedule looks.  I know that it's a personal preference as to WHEN the lights go on, but I'm more interested in that each light is on long enough, or to make sure it's not TOO long.

 

#! ON 8;00 AM

   OFF 8;00 PM

#2 ON 8;00 AM

    OFF 1;00 AM

#3 ON 7;00 AM

    OFF 11;00 PM

 

I have no idea whats going on in my tank, I have looked at almost everything and the only thing I can think that's left is the lighting schedule.

[Jackal227]

1 hour ago, sadie said:

I have a BioCube 16 LED.  I was wondering how this lighting schedule looks.  I know that it's a personal preference as to WHEN the lights go on, but I'm more interested in that each light is on long enough, or to make sure it's not TOO long.

 

#! ON 8;00 AM

   OFF 8;00 PM

#2 ON 8;00 AM

    OFF 1;00 AM

#3 ON 7;00 AM

    OFF 11;00 PM

 

I have no idea whats going on in my tank, I have looked at almost everything and the only thing I can think that's left is the lighting schedule.

What issue are you trying to solve?  As far as the lights go here's a breakdown of the 3 channels: 

 

Channel 1 is your main lights so it looks like you are running for 12 hours.  I've always ran my main Channel for 8 hours.

 

Channel 2 is your sunrise and sunset.  Since it is currently set at 8am you won't see the sunrise.  If you changed it to 7:30am for instance it would start transitioning from the moonlights at 7:30am and slowly ramp up until it maxes out at full brightness at 8am.  For the sunset it's the same and you won't see it because the moonlights are already off.  If you set it at 8pm then it would start ramping the lights down at 8pm and transition into the moonlights completely by 8:30pm.

 

Channel 3 is your moonlights and look correct. 

[sadie]

basically my coral slowly shrink.  For some it takes a long time and others soon after I get them.  I don't think I have a single coral that is a year old.  It's frustrating.  I think I fix the problem, get some coral and nope- they shrink away.  I just had my green RFA pop off the spot it's been on since April.  It's kinda floating around my tank.  My other RFA I got at the same time, is getting smaller.  I was thinking maybe one of my lights might not be on long enough to give them the food they need.  

[Jackal227]

9 hours ago, sadie said:

basically my coral slowly shrink.  For some it takes a long time and others soon after I get them.  I don't think I have a single coral that is a year old.  It's frustrating.  I think I fix the problem, get some coral and nope- they shrink away.  I just had my green RFA pop off the spot it's been on since April.  It's kinda floating around my tank.  My other RFA I got at the same time, is getting smaller.  I was thinking maybe one of my lights might not be on long enough to give them the food they need.  

I understand the frustration of losing corals.  I've certainly lost my fair share as well.  When looking back I can usually attribute my losses to changes in water quality. 

 

I would take a look at parameters as well.  What ones are you testing for?  How big and often are you doing water changes? 

 

Looking through your recent tank journal posts it looks like you may be using phosban? This is a strong product that I once tried which I believe contributed to my tank crash in my biocube.  After it, I stopped running any chemical media other than carbon and it seemed my issues started going away as well.  I've had the best success with keeping up with simple weekly water changes.

 

It also appears that the Coraline algae on the back wall is turning white (which is a sign that it's dieing) leads me to believe that something with the water is off. 

 

The RFAs can move around so they would likely move higher up if there wasn't enough light for them.  The one I've had tend to stay in the lower light areas in my experience though.  One would even hang in a cave most of the time and move out into the light around every 3-4 days then right back into the cave. 

 

 

[sadie]

I did put some Phosban in, but only for a day or two.  When I saw my Phosphates go up to .30 or .40 when my target was .10 I kinda freaked.  But then people said it wouldn't hurt anything so I took it out.

 

I was doing weekly WC of 2 gal, but then I got dinos so I stopped for a LONG time.  I just got rid of them so I am doing WC less frequent, not wanting to bring back the dinos.  I am doing a 2 gal every 2 weeks and will probably start doing it weekly next month.  I use Red Sea, a blue bucket for salt.

 

My water parameters  stay about the same.  If I look back a few months, maybe the numbers are a bit higher or lower, but I was told it wasn't enough of a change for it to bother anything.  I thought the problem was my KH went a point higher- that's when people told me it was probably that my Phosphates and Nitrates were at 0.

 

I feed a mix of foods to my fish daily, skipping a day 1x a week.  I use flake food, New Life Spectrum small pellets, Omega One with garlic small pellets.  I also feed frozen mysis shrimp every now and then.  I feed PhytoPlex and ZppPlanktos for my coral 2-3 x a week.  I also use Reef roids every now and then.

 

The only thing I have in my tower is Filter Floss.  I was using t layers and changing it about 3x a week.  I now use one activated carbon filter floss changed weekly and one reg filter floss changed about 3x a week.

 

Here are my latest #s  I use Salfert test kits all in date and a Hanna Checker for my PHos.

Phos- .51

Nitrates 5

Salinity- last 2 numbers are 25

KH 10.2

Mag 1290

Cal-490

[Jackal227]

11 hours ago, sadie said:

I did put some Phosban in, but only for a day or two.  When I saw my Phosphates go up to .30 or .40 when my target was .10 I kinda freaked.  But then people said it wouldn't hurt anything so I took it out.

 

I was doing weekly WC of 2 gal, but then I got dinos so I stopped for a LONG time.  I just got rid of them so I am doing WC less frequent, not wanting to bring back the dinos.  I am doing a 2 gal every 2 weeks and will probably start doing it weekly next month.  I use Red Sea, a blue bucket for salt.

 

My water parameters  stay about the same.  If I look back a few months, maybe the numbers are a bit higher or lower, but I was told it wasn't enough of a change for it to bother anything.  I thought the problem was my KH went a point higher- that's when people told me it was probably that my Phosphates and Nitrates were at 0.

 

I feed a mix of foods to my fish daily, skipping a day 1x a week.  I use flake food, New Life Spectrum small pellets, Omega One with garlic small pellets.  I also feed frozen mysis shrimp every now and then.  I feed PhytoPlex and ZppPlanktos for my coral 2-3 x a week.  I also use Reef roids every now and then.

 

The only thing I have in my tower is Filter Floss.  I was using t layers and changing it about 3x a week.  I now use one activated carbon filter floss changed weekly and one reg filter floss changed about 3x a week.

 

Here are my latest #s  I use Salfert test kits all in date and a Hanna Checker for my PHos.

Phos- .51

Nitrates 5

Salinity- last 2 numbers are 25

KH 10.2

Mag 1290

Cal-490

Everything sounds good.   The only thing that stands out to me is the alk at 10.  From Google it looks like the red sea bucket should mix around 8.  Do you dose anything?  Have you calibrated your refractometer recently? 

[sadie]

46 minutes ago, Jackal227 said:

Everything sounds good.   The only thing that stands out to me is the alk at 10.  From Google it looks like the red sea bucket should mix around 8.  Do you dose anything?  Have you calibrated your refractometer recently? 

I don't dose anything. I looked back in my log and I started using the Red Sea on 10/24/19.  My KH then was around 8.9.  It was in April of 2020 it went up to 9,9 and by Nov 2020 it was up to 10.  I do check my refractometer every time I use it.  I stopped using the fluid because it kept going bad and giving me poor readings.  Now I use RO water and calibrate it to 0, I check it every time, but don't always need to calibrate it.

 

I don't know what it is, but I hate seeing my coral die.  I told my husband this will be my last time.  If I can't figure this out, I'm not getting any more coral.  My green RFA did die today.😪  I love my tank.  I have my 3 fish, an emerald crab, a cool zebra crab and variety of snails and other little hermits.  I can live with that.  But I might be done with coral.  Which makes me sad, but I don't want them to die.

[Jackal227]

It's odd that the alk is increasing over time without dosing which is what made me question the salinity.

 

I would consider an ICP test to see if anything odd shows up given that everything else is testing fine. 

 

Hopefully someone else will chime in with some ideas. 

[sadie]

what is an ICP test?

[Jackal227]

 

28 minutes ago, sadie said:

what is an ICP test?

It's a mail in water test that gives a large variety of testing results:

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.marinedepot.com/2018/10/mail-in-and-icp-oes-aquarium-water-testing-which-service-is-right-for-you.html/amp

 

[Cannedfish]

Have you tried doing a massive water change to try to reset the system? Since your corals are dying anyways, it kinda seems low risk. Why not try a 60%+ water change. Your tank isn't that big, and it wouldn't be that much work. I'm no expert, but when things start looking off in my tank, that's what I do. Just make sure the salinity and temps are close. 

[sadie]

36 minutes ago, Cannedfish said:

Have you tried doing a massive water change to try to reset the system? Since your corals are dying anyways, it kinda seems low risk. Why not try a 60%+ water change. Your tank isn't that big, and it wouldn't be that much work. I'm no expert, but when things start looking off in my tank, that's what I do. Just make sure the salinity and temps are close. 

I hadn't thought of this, but I just got rid of dinos.  It took me MONTHS to get rid of.  I think if I did a WC that big, so soon after getting rid of the dinos, they'd come back. 🥵  But, I don't know. maybe it would be worth trying. 

 

Either way, I am going to get the ICP test, maybe that will find something.  A year after I started my first tank (20 yrs ago) It was amazing, I was doing the annual maintenance and one of my chiller fans fell in my tank and I didn't know it.  My tank crashed.  The metal around the base of the fan poisened the water. I lost my sun coral (the one in my avitar) my frog spawn, all my LPS.  It was so sad.  Maybe there is something else going on I can't test for.

 

Can anyone else chime in about doing a huge WC so soon after getting rid of dinos?  Would it be worth the risk?

[Cannedfish]

I've had dinos (tying to get rid of them crashed my last tank), and I still have dinos. If nutrients get too out of balance or too low, I still see a film of them wanting to form. I have found that a UV filter (I have the IM UV bulb in my rear chamber), as well as, keeping up nutrients, and to an extent carbon dosing, has kept them in check. Also if they do start to come back a quick dose of H202 at night has also helped beat them back (as well as constantly changing the filter floss). In my limited experience, once you have dinos, you always have dinos. If you are concerned that a WC is going to lower your nutrients too low, just do a heavy feeding afterwards. For example, I am having trouble dialing in my new doser, and as a result changed over 150% of my tank's water last week, all without issue. 

[sadie]

25 minutes ago, Cannedfish said:

I've had dinos (tying to get rid of them crashed my last tank), and I still have dinos. If nutrients get too out of balance or too low, I still see a film of them wanting to form. I have found that a UV filter (I have the IM UV bulb in my rear chamber), as well as, keeping up nutrients, and to an extent carbon dosing, has kept them in check. Also if they do start to come back a quick dose of H202 at night has also helped beat them back (as well as constantly changing the filter floss). In my limited experience, once you have dinos, you always have dinos. If you are concerned that a WC is going to lower your nutrients too low, just do a heavy feeding afterwards. For example, I am having trouble dialing in my new doser, and as a result changed over 150% of my tank's water last week, all without issue. 

I actully think every tank has dinos, it just stays at bay until something happens or it decides to explode for what ever reason.  But I could be wrong.  hmmm it's crazy that after 20 yrs I feel like a newbie.  I never had any problems in my last tanks except for GHA, which was my own fault for neglecting my tank when life got crazy.

 

But, now I probably have some wiggle room.  I didn't realize the reason a WC would bring back the dinos is because it would LOWER my nutrients.  I was shooting for .10 with my phosphates, but I actually have .50  I would probably be safe with doing a 4 gal WC and see what happens.  I think when I filled my tank, it took 8 or 10 gal to fill it.  So 4 gal would almost be 50%.  

 

thanks

[sadie]

I ordered the ICP test.  I thought when I filled my 16 gal, I used 8 or 10 gals.  But, I was doing a 4 gal WC and thought most of my coral would be out of the water, and the top of my rock wasn't even out of the water.  So, I guess I used 8-10 gal ON TOP OF what ever I had from my old tank.  Which makes sense because I wouldn't have done a 100% WC.

 

So the weird thing is, my KH went UP.  I did a 2 gal WC on 12/31.  On 1/3/21 my KH was 10.2.  Today (after the 4 gal WC) my KH was 10.5

 

I tested the newly made water and the KH was 8.  So what would make my KH go up?  Here are the #s from this morning

 

KH-10.5                     Phos-.25

Mag- 1260                Trates- 5

Cal-490