Is it the reef tank or reefer which really matures ?

[Glowurm]

OK, but even after almost 4 months half of my coral are just kind of just hanging on day by day not really changing. I really don't know what I could do different. There's one thing I could get a par meter and check the par. I don't know how big of a difference that would make. I've been told so many different things about par. Keep it lower keep it higher. I just keep it kind of medium low for example at about 30% full power of what the LED can do. It's an integrated LED that came with the red sea tank. I think I'm just pretty much I've gotten to the point more recently that I'm just not tinkering. I'm just gonna let it be and as far as the LED goes I'm probably gonna keep it on medium mellow for now. Maybe raise it just a little bit, but that's all.
I have noticed, since I lowered my LED from really bright down to medium low I'm having much less dino and cyano issues. Those things are really, not a problem anymore. I'm afraid if I blast LEd I'll get more dinos etc

also, somebody on one of these forums posted a thread, how much more success they had when they lowered their LED

Why wouldn't you want to know what your PAR is in your tank? I hired one, i've now built a map of my tank (PAR was roughly as expected) and have a good idea of coral placement going forward in terms of high light / high flow etc.

Anything else is just ticking in the wind IMO, expecting a coral to thrive irrespective of the conditions your keeping it in. I've not changed the light setting in my tank since day one, and thanks to the PAR reading i've no reason to do so since i know the lighting provided is enough for the corals I have.

I'm new to this hobby, but decided fairly on that i needed a plan, a plan for the equipment i would buy, when i would buy it, the fish i would keep and the coral varieties i would buy (admittedly the last one isnt robust, so much to consider and learn). Part of that plan will be to hire a PAR meter again in 18 months time once the tanks grown out.

 

[Ballyhoo]

i get it about the par. i wished i could find the post where the guy was saying when he lowered the par very low all went well. my concern with high par is in a new tank It promotes cyano and Dino growth. But I will get a meter eventually it's on the to do list until then I'm just gonna gently push my lighting to make it more strong slowly, not over night.
all great posts.
I will say at the local coral shop, they have the flow running like a high river current and each tank; howevr each tank has different levels of par from kind of dim to very bright.
i'm curious if anybody on these threads would be able to say that they grow coral pretty well with low par Or with low lighting?

 

[VintageReefer]

i get it about the par. i wished i could find the post where the guy was saying when he lowered the par very low all went well.

Irrelevant. Does he have the same light? The same size tank? Supplemental lights? Same mounting distance off the water? Same coral?

He could have had 500 par on his rock surface and lowered to 300 and noticed improvement. As he would

You could have 150 on your rock surface and be lowering to 50


*edit - I am not saying you are wrong for lowering the leds intensity. It can be good or bad I can’t say without par numbers. I am just saying, you can’t always blindly follow others. What works for them might be different for you. Unless you have identical setups and corals

 

[NanoNana]

Irrelevant. Does he have the same light? The same size tank? Supplemental lights? Same mounting distance off the water? Same coral?

He could have had 500 par on his rock surface and lowered to 300 and noticed improvement. As he would

You could have 150 on your rock surface and be lowering to 50


*edit - I am not saying you are wrong for lowering the leds intensity. It can be good or bad I can’t say without par numbers. I am just saying, you can’t always blindly follow others. What works for them might be different for you. Unless you have identical setups and corals

This right here. I followed others light schedules and settings for a couple months. I tried to figure things out mathematically to account for different tank depth etc. I never had algae. Corals were alive but puny. I bought a meter. I was soooooo far off with my settings. I changed settings and in two days after reaching target par coral started growing. Like literally in front of my eyes. In a week I had new zoa polyps sprouting on every frag, I had a fat happy hammer, mushrooms that don’t even like light were growing so much I had to move them around in 3 weeks. It’s ah mazing what corals do when you don’t starve them.

 

[NanoNana]

i get it about the par. i wished i could find the post where the guy was saying when he lowered the par very low all went well. my concern with high par is in a new tank It promotes cyano and Dino growth. But I will get a meter eventually it's on the to do list until then I'm just gonna gently push my lighting to make it more strong slowly, not over night.
all great posts.
I will say at the local coral shop, they have the flow running like a high river current and each tank; howevr each tank has different levels of par from kind of dim to very bright.
i'm curious if anybody on these threads would be able to say that they grow coral pretty well with low par Or with low lighting?

Me. I run a predominantly low/moderate par tank. My par maxes out at about 175 in my hottest spot in my tank. I have some spots 0 some at about 50, a lot at 80-100. BUT, I have zoas high at the top at 150 ish and they grow into areas down to 80, the rest is hammers at about 100, frogspawn same, cyphastrea in those 60 par areas, mushrooms in lower par, rock flower nem in low par, Duncans at 70-80, Goni, bernardpora and alvepora in about 140-160. GSP on the back of the tank hitting about 160. I run chalices hotter that some people at 100-110. But I would no more put acropora in my tank than throw a channel cat in there.
Read what I wrote and note the spread. 0-175. If I didn’t know where my par was 80-100 and stuck my hammer in a spot that is 175, it would hate me. If my alvepora was in 60 par, it would die. And I promise you, while obviously the closer to the top you get the higher the par, your sand bed and lower area of your scape is a guessing game. Mine ranges from 50-110 in a foot print 2/3 the size of your tank.
Your light spread, water depth, screen lid or no lid, how much surface agitation, debris in water (plankton, pods, algae etc) all makes a difference. My conch slid an acan frag about four inches and it started retracting because of the layout of my tank. If you want to keep your par so low you stymie algae, then just do a mushroom and plating coral tank.

Par that is too low to grow algae is too low to grow most coral. They require the same energy to proliferate. Literally everyone with a successful tank is telling you the same thing. Your stretched out zoas are telling you the same thing.

I started my 24 gallon tank the first of March. I do not have the issues you have. I have an AIO with just filter floss and ceramic rings as my filtration. My tank SHOULD be at least as difficult to run if not MORE difficult than yours. The major difference is how we accept advice. You have seemed 4377 bent on reinventing the wheel. 50 ppl will tell you the same thing and you’re gonna go well there was this one person that said something that may not even apply to my situation but I’m going to do that instead of what works for everyone else because…idk.
You’ve done this from day one. You push back on everything. You won’t manually work on your algae because you swear it makes corals suffer. It doesn’t. Scrub it off and SIPHON it out at the same time. Pull the two living corals you have, put them in a 1 gallon pico with a cheap current nano light, pull your rock and scrub it. Do a loooong black out on your DT. Your fish won’t care. Run a $70 GKM UV while in black out to kill dinos in the water column. Work on fixing nutrient export during blackout. OR, run it low light as a fowlr until your biome matures past the uglies. If I didn’t have growing corals, I’d replace my rock with Tampa Bay live rock and just start over to help get rid of the dinos and the bryopsis and the GHA. YOU could actually do that pretty easily at this point because you have no coral to speak of.

 

[Ballyhoo]

This right here. I followed others light schedules and settings for a couple months. I tried to figure things out mathematically to account for different tank depth etc. I never had algae. Corals were alive but puny. I bought a meter. I was soooooo far off with my settings. I changed settings and in two days after reaching target par coral started growing. Like literally in front of my eyes. In a week I had new zoa polyps sprouting on every frag, I had a fat happy hammer, mushrooms that don’t even like light were growing so much I had to move them around in 3 weeks. It’s ah mazing what corals do when you don’t starve them.

this is very interesting to hear, can you comment a little bit further in detail like what your par level was before and then what you changed it to? What kind of LEDs do you have and what are the percentage power settings? I know it would be not identical too what i have etc but I would just be really interested in knowing about the numbers because this is a very strong case for getting par meter but also details would be interesting.
and I wanna let everyone know I'm not pushing back against anybody. I realize I need to get a par meter and I'm kind of literally in the dark until I get one. It's interesting to hear though that how much of a difference getting par meter and understanding the lighting in each tank has influenced the growth. So this is a very interesting and helpful thread for me to understand importance of lighting.

edit,
also, I think I got bad information from a local coral shop worker who is extremely amiable friendly and talkative and loves the hobby, but he had told me that these corals literally don't need a lot of light, like in real life situations they get cloudy for long periods of time, etc. etc. so I think he influenced me also.

 

[VintageReefer]

@Ballyhoo not sure what your budget is like but you can buy the apogee sq420 for 250 and have a par meter 95% as accurate as the $500+ models.

USB Smart Quantum SQ-420X PAR Sensor

PAR (photosynthetic active radiation) is the easiest way to measure the available light for corals consume and use for photosynthesis. With LED lights giving more and more control to the consumer the best thing is a PAR meter that is affordable and simple to use. With PAR readings you can...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

I’ve read threads where people compared them side by side and got identical numbers.

FYI - the sq420 is the one I own and trust. It has a long usb and you plug it in a laptop, download the free software, enable a check box for “immersion mode” so it knows to factor for underwater readings, and it will give a live readout in the software showing you the par wherever the sensor is.

A wand makes it so much easier to take readings. The apogee wand is like 50-75$ and a ripoff. All you need to make your own is

1) an adapter for 10$

Apogee Light Par Meter Holder Mount | eBay

Paste the below link -->. We do this to have a quality product that stands up against the harsh conditions of Saltwater and UV Lighting. Our magnets are coated to resist salt water, then sealed again with our own custom PETG casing for even more protection.

www.ebay.com

2) fiberglass rod - 3$ at lowes - 48” just cut to a comfortable length

48-in Orange Reflective Rod https://www.lowes.com/pd/Hillman-48-in-Orange-Reflective-Rod/3025196

 

[Ballyhoo]

actually, to be honest, my softies have been doing pretty decently lately. But all SPS died. my softies are doing fine right now maybe because I've been slowly increasing the light.
can't get the toadstool to sprout maybe it needs more light.
not sure why SPS bleach out etc but the polyp one is actually getting bigger. I forget what you call. It looks like a brain kind of. Torch didn't make it though

 

[VintageReefer]

Your sps require high lighting (250+ par) and high flow. the other corals low to medium.

Keeping a mixed reef is the most difficult because the different corals have different needs and it’s hard to make zones, especially in a smaller cube tank.
Sps also needs stability and a mature system. Tanks in early stages going through algae, Bryopsis, diatoms, etc are just going to tick off sps. When they are ticked off they die rapidly.

Would suggest as a beginner with a newer tank you pick a coral category and stick with it, and make your setup designed for it. Once you have corals growing with good health and color, you can look into adding different types and if the system will support them

 

[NanoNana]

this is very interesting to hear, can you comment a little bit further in detail like what your par level was before and then what you changed it to? What kind of LEDs do you have and what are the percentage power settings? I know it would be not identical too what i have etc but I would just be really interested in knowing about the numbers because this is a very strong case for getting par meter but also details would be interesting.
and I wanna let everyone know I'm not pushing back against anybody. I realize I need to get a par meter and I'm kind of literally in the dark until I get one. It's interesting to hear though that how much of a difference getting par meter and understanding the lighting in each tank has influenced the growth. So this is a very interesting and helpful thread for me to understand importance of lighting.

edit,
also, I think I got bad information from a local coral shop worker who is extremely amiable friendly and talkative and loves the hobby, but he had told me that these corals literally don't need a lot of light, like in real life situations they get cloudy for long periods of time, etc. etc. so I think he influenced me also.

My settings won’t help you as I run a light that would be too small for your tank. TBH it’s small for mine and I’m hoping this weekend I have time to double check my par readings so I can duplicate them with new lighting. When I tested my par after trying to use other ppls settings, I found that the top of my tank was getting 60 par. This would explain why I never have the uglies and why my zoanthids looked like goniopora their stalks were so long. The particular lid on have kills my par. I’ve tested with two meters and on showed an 80 par decrease, the other showed a 75 par decrease.

At the time, I had only my gorgonian zoas and my hammer and had killed a montipora that came in a beginner frag pack (weird but whatever). Zoas were hanging in there and poor little hammer was fighting for life in 40 par……. I was like OMG. I’m stupid. I probably ramped the lights up more quickly than I should have but my coral did not even care. As soon as the zoas hit 100 par I could see them relaxing. I did ramp more slowly from there. I got an alvepora that was hiding and a Goni that was laying tight like a short polyp and shouldn’t have been so I backed off 5%. They got happy and nothing else protested and I’ve stayed there with the lights. Once you make the changes and get it right and see the effects, you realize the coral was talking to you the whole time. And it’s like you start to recognize how they sort of communicate and for me at least, it really brought them to life. Obviously I knew coral was alive but it’s easy to treat them more like plants. We have “gardens” of certain corals. For me the experience put them more on the level of the fish and inverts and it was a rather enjoyable epiphany. Now I can look at my hammers and know that my grandson moved a power head. I can look at my gorgonian and know it’s asking for more food and I now know it does that when it’s close to a moult.
My wish for you is that you’ll just give yourself time to be more interactive and less reactive with your tank and the inhabitants. They all really do have their own language and I’ve learned to understand it to a degree from listening to ppl here and doing one small thing at a time and watching how the corals or fish or algae reacted.
I agree with @Vintage reefer that you pick a type of coral and when that is doing well, move on to another. Zoas can be stunning and it’s exciting to wake up to new polyps. They are easy, tolerant corals and telegraph their mood very well. There is also a whole section of this forum dedicated to them.