How do people get such vibrant tanks?

[Aparker2005]

Maybe I'm not checking things as often as I should, not dosing, and mostly only relying on weekly water changes and cleaning of 3 hob filters, but I am just in awe of people's tanks that have started way later than we have, and their corals are huge, growing, and full of color.

We started this reefing journey in 2020, and we've only had a few corals still with us from then. Mostly zoasb, a Duncan colony, and a jedi mindtrick Monti. We've lost countless amounts of corals. Some are still with us, but aren't growing. It feels like the colors are mostly just, dull to stay the least as well.

Is the secret in dosing? Our 20 gallon tank is setup the same way as our 125, but our corals there are spreading and growing like crazy.

I think partly, the 125 having more fish, as well as more food demanding fish like butterflies, causes me to feed more and deal with phosphate and nitrate. The 20g gets fed a little once a day, only having a royal dotty back and 2 clowns in it.

We have good lights on both tanks (Current USA R24s), Seachem Tidal filters (rinsed out weekly), and do around 25% water changes weekly with Reef crystals salt.

Yet still, I just feel extremely under achieved. When just the blue lights are on, the tanks look amazing, but just not much growth in our 125. Any pointers? Am I just needing more time, or maybe measure and dose things I may be lacking? Tanks below.

 

[Lavey29]

What are the complete parameters for the 20? I can see where a nano can be difficult to establish a healthy biome to grow corals.

 

[Aparker2005]

What are the complete parameters for the 20? I can see where a nano can be difficult to establish a healthy biome to grow corals.

I haven't checked them lately. The nano is the tank that's doing so well, so I've just continued to do what I do on it. Everything in it is out competing the 125

 

[Pistondog]

Maybe I'm not checking things as often as I should, not dosing, and mostly only relying on weekly water changes and cleaning of 3 hob filters, but I am just in awe of people's tanks that have started way later than we have, and their corals are huge, growing, and full of color.

We started this reefing journey in 2020, and we've only had a few corals still with us from then. Mostly zoasb, a Duncan colony, and a jedi mindtrick Monti. We've lost countless amounts of corals. Some are still with us, but aren't growing. It feels like the colors are mostly just, dull to stay the least as well.

Is the secret in dosing? Our 20 gallon tank is setup the same way as our 125, but our corals there are spreading and growing like crazy.

I think partly, the 125 having more fish, as well as more food demanding fish like butterflies, causes me to feed more and deal with phosphate and nitrate. The 20g gets fed a little once a day, only having a royal dotty back and 2 clowns in it.

We have good lights on both tanks (Current USA R24s), Seachem Tidal filters (rinsed out weekly), and do around 25% water changes weekly with Reef crystals salt.

Yet still, I just feel extremely under achieved. When just the blue lights are on, the tanks look amazing, but just not much growth in our 125. Any pointers? Am I just needing more time, or maybe measure and dose things I may be lacking? Tanks below.

Theres nothing wrong with your tank.
Choose colorful corals, whats the yellow in the top right?
Time will help, big corals are bigger patches of color.
Maybe dose some carbon to increase bacteria to help corals.

 

[Aparker2005]

Theres nothing wrong with your tank.
Choose colorful corals, whats the yellow in the top right?
Time will help, big corals are bigger patches of color.
Maybe dose some carbon to increase bacteria to help corals.

That I think you're referring to is a 24k gold lepto. We absolutely love it, and it's spreading like crazy

 

[piranhaman00]

The blue lights look bad, under whites I think it looks great probably underpowered lights

 

[Aparker2005]

The blue lights look bad, under whites I think it looks great probably underpowered lights

They're 4 52w of the newer R24s, and 2 of the 95w. I actually lowered the intensity as I was bleaching some corals with these.

 

[Stomatopods17]

A hunch; 125g is probably having less nutrients than the smaller tank.

Corals do need some nutrients to grow (nitrates shouldn't truely be 0 PPM), so its likely in a large system there's more water volume/competition for it. While in a smaller system nutrients can spike briefly which is basically feeding a lesser amount/smaller coral.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I haven't checked them lately. The nano is the tank that's doing so well, so I've just continued to do what I do on it. Everything in it is out competing the 125

And I think therein lies the problem.

You said you haven't checked params lately.
Stability is the key, and the only way you determine how stable your system has become is by testing.

Do weekly or twice weekly testing of Alk, Nitrate and Phosphate and see how close they are to target parameters.
Aim for Nitrate 10, Phosphate 0.1, and a stable Alk with less than 0.5dkh variation.
Keep the salinity stable at 1.026sg

 

[Aparker2005]

A hunch; 125g is probably having less nutrients than the smaller tank.

Corals do need some nutrients to grow (nitrates shouldn't truely be 0 PPM), so its likely in a large system there's more water volume/competition for it.

I've actually been fighting high nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates got up to the 80s when I added the butterflies, got them down to around 20-40, and I can't seem to get phosphates below 1.0ppm

 

[Stomatopods17]

I've actually been fighting high nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates got up to the 80s when I added the butterflies, got them down to around 20-40, and I can't seem to get phosphates below 1.0ppm

What's your filtration bychance?

Do you use a refugium or reactors? Wet-dry for biological bacteria? Have you checked if your calcium levels have depleted for skeleton growth?

80 nitrates with nothing growing (any algae blooms?) sounds strange. Lighting can be a factor, even if its the same light on both tanks with the same settings, the height placement/spread is likely very different

 

[Tamberav]

water changes work well on small tanks to replenish alk/ca/mg, etc. They do not work well on large tanks since you would have to change a huge amount.

I would test your alk/ca/mg and so on and see where you are at on the 125 and rule that out since you said growth is slow.

 

[Aparker2005]

What's your filtration bychance?

Do you use a refugium or reactors? Wet-dry for biological bacteria? Have you checked if your calcium levels have depleted for skeleton growth?

80 nitrates with nothing growing (any any algae blooms?) sounds strange.

3 seachem tidal filters. We converted our planted discus tank to this saltwater tank. Live rock and wave makers.

We've only had normal glass algae and some hair algae, but nothing major

 

[Aparker2005]

These were my last measurements on the 125 using api a month ago. I know, bad upkeep on testingn, but work and a toddler take most of our time

Salinity: 1.025
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 40-80
Ph - 7.4
Calcium: 380
Kh: 8 - 143.2
Phos : 1-2 - 2.5
Alk - 173

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

Diatom the tank and you will be amazed.

 

[Stomatopods17]

These were my last measurements on the 125 using api a month ago. I know, bad upkeep on testingn, but work and a toddler take most of our time

Salinity: 1.025
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 40-80
Ph - 7.4
Calcium: 380
Kh: 8 - 143.2
Phos : 1-2 - 2.5
Alk - 173

That Ph is really low, if thats not a typo lol.

Personally I don't think the HoBs cut it much on filtrating a large tank like that. I have trouble believing the water turnover for the whole volume is going through enough.

Ideally you'd want the water volume turnover gallonsx10 per hour as a rule of thumb, but since they're 3 isolated filters they're only turning over part of the volume each.

 

[Tamberav]

These were my last measurements on the 125 using api a month ago. I know, bad upkeep on testingn, but work and a toddler take most of our time

Salinity: 1.025
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 40-80
Ph - 7.4
Calcium: 380
Kh: 8 - 143.2
Phos : 1-2 - 2.5
Alk - 173

need to test again now

 

[Aparker2005]

That Ph is really low, if thats not a typo lol.

Personally I don't think the HoBs cut it much on filtrating a large tank like that. I have trouble believing the water turnover for the whole volume is going through enough.

Yeah we didn't want to try and drill this tank, so we just went with the 3 large seachem tidals.

Running the stock filter pad, ceramic rings, matrix, and Chemipure Blue in each

 

[All_talk]

I think both tanks look good, don't get to hung up on some of the tank pictures you see, many of them are photoshopped for higher than natural color saturation.

The point about stability is good, I have see much better growth and color since making an effort to keep things stable. But don't get crazy about super low nutrients, lots of higher N & P tanks look great. Your numbers overall could use some tweaking, but the good news is you don't want to change them fast, just get them moving in the right direction.

Your filtration could be upgraded, but I suspect you can get pretty far on what you have. Biological filtration is what's most important and the surface area in the tank is always the largest part of that. Water changes as a key to your routine is fine, there is an idea that all of the filtration we use in our systems is just there to reduce water changes. And don't be afraid of an over the top siphon type overflow, they work great (I've been running one for 13 years). Just get one with the "U" tubes, not the type that needs a pump to keep the air sucked out.

It seems you know where you can make improvements, its just about keeping forward motion. And most of us know how hard that can be with a real life.

 

[flashsmith]

UV will do wonders for water clarity. Scrape your glass every other day as well. But UV will give you the clarity.