Good afternoon,
I have been waiting for my Triton-ICP results to get in before I asked for some help on better SPS results.
Problem: I have had less than mediocre results with my attempts at SPS. I have thriving simple ones (2 types of birdsnest, Purple Stylo, Bonsai), but I have lost quite a few SPS (2 PC Rainbow, Strawberry Shortcake, Hawkins Enchinata...to name a few). Terrible luck with montis (2 currently "alive", grinch and asd phoenix). The current SPS that I am working on are Blue Flame Acro (encrusted, wooly polyp extention, but brown with lime/green tips, 3 months in), Superman Millepora (just started to encrust, but basically brown with week old blue encrusting - a good sign, 3 months in), 2 ??Red Planet?? (1 recent and reacting well and encrusting, 1 old with little growth but good polyp extention). I am not necessarily looking for suggestions per type of SPS, but jut general suggustions given below info. Ill include a photo of the Blue Flame since it's growing, but not coloring up and is representative of my problem.
My tank: is not so new anymore (10 months). 90 gallon with 25 gallon sump (skimmer/fuge (chaeto)/return). I have 2 Radion G2 XR30 Pros and I run basically the AB+ program. I recently jacked up the flow to have Maxspect 150, 1 small Tunze and 1 beast of a Tunze 6105 which I control an Apex with pretty good, chaotic flow. I use Scripps and I dose Kalkwasser (1950 ml a day and Magnesium (was dosing 25 ml/day...see below) via dosing pump. Initially I was using vinegar in my Kalkwasser, but I stopped that about 3 weeks ago. I do 30 % water changes every 3 weeks. ICP test was done at the end of the 3 weeks. My tank has about 40 % of it's rocks from man made rock using osyter shells, aragonite and portland white cement.
Algae: I don't think I have an algae problem. Had hair algae for a week intially, overcoming a cyano bloom due probably do the large amounts of vinegar I was dosing with the kalk. I have to clean my glass every 2 to 3 days to keep it super clear. I green algae on my rock, but it's not growing and I always assumed was just "normal". I have received frags from beautiful systems that have more algae than that.
Parameters as per ICP when applicable
** Salt - 1.0245 (scripps)
** Alk - 8.3 (fairly stable...a few drops to 7.5, but rarely above 8.3)
** Calcium - 440 as per ICP (425 on my salifert on same day)
** Magnesium - 1799 (off the charts) I know I had been reading the test wrong...but not that far off. Will fix that.
** Phosphate - .04 on ICP (same on Hanna)
** Nitrate - 2 ppm (today was 5 ppm)
** pH 7.75 to 8.1
ICP results that were off/bad
** TIN - odd, but it was in the ICP yellow, warning level. My fan is rusty, so that may be the source.
** Potassium - 384/ml ICP says that it is slighly low. Ive tested it and says 380 usually.
** Iodine - 10 ug/l - ICP says that it is low
** Bromine - 52 g/ml - ICP said it was slightly low.
It may be hard to do SPS with Radion G2. I'd rather not invest in T5/LED hybrid, but that is probably the next step.
For those of you that are SPS experts, anything stand out? Any other simple/small adjustments I might want to try?