10g Nano not looking great...advice?

bbestvin

New member
Hey all,
Just recently joined the Reef Central community...happy to be here. I have a dilemma I'm hoping someone will be able to help with. I've had a 10 gallon nano reef setup for a little over a year and in the last 2-3 months, it hasn't been doing great. I'll start by listing parameters and then any other pertinent information I can think of.

Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 78
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0-5
Calcium: 440
Phosphates: 0.5
KH: 200

Corals: Galaxea colony, pink monti, blasto, green mushrooms, frogspawn, sunny d polyps, open brain, kenya tree

Tank: Standard 10 gallon tank

Lighting: Mars Aqua 165w box mounted 12 inches above surface of water

Flow: Koralia 425 (x2)

Sump: 10 gallon sump, protein skimmer, filter sock, refugium (with live rock, chaeto)

Symptoms: About six months ago, mostly everything in the tank was looking good. I did have a scare with re-charged Purigen that resulted in losing maybe 2 heads of galaxea (not terrible). At some point I turned the lights down to the minimum...I can't remember why. Currently I have the lighting at the minimum, but am trying to creep it up bit by bit. I was running equal amounts of blues and full spectrum. I was running my sump light 24/7 but noticed that although the chaeto was growing super fast, I was also getting a lot of algae on the glass of my display tank. Sump light is now running opposite tank lights (tank lights are on from 2pm til 10pm).

My open brain coral is pretty much gone. I think this was due to flatworms eating away at it (more on that). My Kenya Tree opens slightly, but nowhere near full. Frogspawn is opening but isn't puffy and fully opened. Monti seems to be ok but is light in color. Galaxea is ok, but not fully open and no sweeper tentacles ever extend. Sunny D polyps are open, but have shrunk considerably. They are miniature at this point. I have some other zoas that are also miniature.

I have noticed some odd things growing in my overflow box that I periodically clean out. One was light in color, the size of a kidney bean, and had white "fur" on one end of it. I'm pretty sure I got some hitchhikers in the live rock rubble I put into my refugium. I had a bristle worm (big) that I took out with a pair of pliars. Yuck. I noticed pink/orange spots on my open brain that I later noticed was moving. That's how I found what I thought to be flatworms.

Other information, I didn't have any fish in the tank for a long long time. I recently (1 week) added a domino damsel, who is doing very well. While I didn't have any fish in the tank, I barely fed the tank at all, which I believe also contributed to where I am now. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
Phosphate seems a little high. You want it to be around 0.03. By alk 200, I am assuming you mean 200ppm. 200ppm is approximately 11dkh, which is a little high also.
 
Here are some pictures of what I'm referring to. The Kenya Tree isn't shriveled up, but is far from fully open. The frogspawn...the same...and the Sunny D's are mini now! I also included a picture of what my glass looks like almost every day. I have a sump that I run a light in roughly 12 hours a day...the stuff that shows up on the glass is stringy, kind of clear, and requires a good scrub to remove. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
 

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I think its the side effects of the purigen recharge gone wrong especially since you have to use bleach. I myself have recharged it once, didn't feel right about it, trashed it before I even put it back into the tank.

Just keep up with water changes and run carbon and new purigen to get rid of any left over toxins or bleach.

Corals don't look too bad from the pics you posted.
 
Any advice on the stringy type algae I'm seeing on the glass almost daily? I'm used to slime-like algae in patches, rather than individual pieces on the glass. I now have Chemipure and Purigen running in the sump, but it's only been going for about 24 hours, so I'm giving it a bit more time to kick in :)
 
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