Brand new tank with dead slow growing Sps ! No

[lsingh]

Hey guys.
I seated up this tank 2 months ago and tank is been running as ULNS since beginning with a zeovit method( 1st time zeo user )

Specs as follows

Display 55gln with total 45gln of water volume including sump .
Ati 8 bulb hybrid t5 fixture with bulbs combination as follow
B+
B+
C+
P+
LEDs
B+
C+
A+
B+

Using an oversized skimmer from previous breakdown alpha 170 and it does sucks out a lot of brown nasty stuff as I clean my skimmer every 3 days or so.

2x tunze 6095 on a controller for flow plus Sicce 2.5 as return .

I do have some alage possibly cyano since last month on the sand bed and some in rocks .

Salinity 35ppt
Ph 7.9 to 8.1
Alk 7.5 dkh
Cal 420
Mag 1350
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Temp 76 constant all the time

I have a lots if Sps frags and feeding my tank every day at night with the mix of oyester feast , ROE eggs , phyto plankton and plush other zeovit additives on daily basis including coral vitalizer 3/week and Amino acid 3/week .

Sps are doing fine some what struggling color and probably growing dead slow nearly noticeable . Very gud PE through the day and times of feeding . I do see tips growing here and there but not from the base not even a bit .

Tank only had 2 small fishes ( mandarine goby and scooter blend ) that I don't feed they basically get fed themselves and the fishes are fat and healthy .

Lights are run on 10 hours schedule . 6 hours on 8 bulb full power and rest 4 hours alternating 4 and 4 bulbs .

I rarely clean algae on my glass maybe once very week or 10 days because it's hardly noticeable . Got some clean up crew last week 15 dwarf hermits and they are extremely tinny and some small turbos but they don't seems to be much help either on algae . I only have 17 lbs of rock as a low profile aqua scape. Don't know what possibly I can do braises feeding more as my tank water is ultra clean . I started dosing Potassium last week it's been 7 days .

Some iPhone pics as of this morning.

Pics were taken under aquablue color preprogrammed LEDs so it's pretty much under whites . Also to give u an idea I haven't clean glass in about 5 days and it looks pretty clear . Ati are hung about 6 inches from water

 

[Kurkis493]

You have an underlying nutrient issue with the system which is what is probably causing you problems.

Even if your test kits tell you NO3 and PO4 is undetectable in the system the algae you have growing on the rocks / plugs say otherwise.

I have been running my zeovit system since May and I have a fair amount of small colonies as well as frags in my system and I am only dosing: Zeobak, Zeostart, Sponge Power, Biomate. Over the last 3 weeks I have started to see the common green slime algae growing on my rocks and while some corals look great others have started to lose PE and color. Growth in my system right now is almost at a stand still.

As of three days ago I started to dose Coral Snow nightly and Biomate everyother day, up from 2x a week and expect I can get these nutrients under control over the next couple of weeks so the system can move forward.

You have what looks to be some frags in a new system and there is really noway you should be at a point where you need to dose all the nutrients you currently are and it is most likely causing more harm than good.

To have ULNS and the need to really start dosing the extra additives your system needs to be mature enough (the continued addition of corals and growth of existing corals) to the point that Zeovit is removing nutrients before your coral _colonies_ are getting what they need. Then they start to pale from starvation and you then need to supplement the system with nutrient additives.

While Zeovit is an effective means of nutrient control, the nutrients you are adding to the system every night are not instantly going away after your corals are done taking what they need. Really, the corals probably do not need any of the nutrients right now so the algae is getting what it needs and then you have this excess of nutrients lingering in the system until the Zeovit system is able to remove them. This is causing things to become stressed out.

Feeding more will only give you more problems - I would stop feeding the tank all together (aside from your fish of course) and you should start to see the algae subside after a couple of weeks. I would then continue a strict dosing schedule (that doesn't add nutrients) and let the water become stable. You should see things turn around then and as you continue to add coral and your existing frags grow you'll reach a point where you will need to dose the system. Most people have told me that around the 1 year mark is when things turn the corner and your tank starts to really take off interms of growth which will then bring to you to the point of having to start supplementing nutrients.

Its like drinking Gatorade. When you push your body to the limts with exercise then you drink Gatorade to help replace what it is you are losing. When you aren't exercising, then your body doesn't require what Gatorade provides and then drinking Gatorade can start to become counter productive. Your tank isn't sweating yet.

 

[Benar]

Brand new tank with dead slow growing Sps ! No

The algae you have I believe is bacterial, and not true algae. Potentially an offshoot of cyano, possibly lyngbya. Regarding what Kurkis is saying about an underlying nutrient issue... Well in fact this stuff can really get hold in ULNS systems. There may be a slight imbalance of the redfield ratio, but I thought that topic died a while back (hopefully.) The fact you go 7-10 days between cleaning (I use this test now in stead of my Hanna.)
I had this or something very similar BB, ULNS.. I cracked and used API's algaefix after a few people noticing it working against their 'mystery clear/brown stringy 'algae'' .. Do I advise these kind of products? Hmm I thought I never would have and this was the first time I ever chucked an unusual chemical in the tank, well, other than Lanthanum Chloride and Blue Bottles earlier on. Did it work? Indeed it did.

 

[lsingh]

Thanks for the advice guys .
I have accomplished 0 algae free tank now . Cut down the feeding here's the recent iPhone shot

Frags have started to encrust also ...!!!!

 

[PaleHorse]

I'm happy for you!!! I'm sure everything will be okay. What are some of the frags you have?? They look nice.