Circulation, feeding, and algae advice

Styliztic0753

New member
Hey guys,

New to the forum and hobby for that matter :wavehand:. This tank has been set up for a little over 8 months now, it's a 27 gal (30" x 12" x 18") w/ a Aqua C Remora HOB skimmer, Aquaclear 70, 2x Colbalt MJ600's, Phosban 150 reactor with GFO, and 2x Current USA Marine Orbit LED strips. As far as lighting goes everything seems happy and is growing, even the SPS and GBTA. 2x clowns, a six line wrasse, a watchman goby, a cardinal, blue leg hermits, snails, and a cleaner shrimp. I'm at capacity if not a little over. Nothing more but corals now and the regular additions to the CUC. I feed ROD's food and new life spectrum pellets once each daily and oyster feast once a week. Parameters are all good, zero nitrites, nitrates, ammonia, and calcium stay above 350 due to the kalk in the ATO. I also only use RODI for salt and top off. I do weekly water changes of 5 gals. I assume the GFO keeps the phosphates in check but don't have an accurate tester.

The reason I'm writing in though is I have a lot of (not really dead spots) but low flow areas were detritus likes to settle and lots of algae is starting to grow on the rocks. I'm also getting some small spots of cyano and bubble algae :headwalls:. From the photo you can hopefully see that I have to two Colbalt MJ600's on the back glass on each end pointed forward towards the middle. This creates some good turbulent flow in the middle of the tank but leaves the sides with low flow. Also it doesn't help that my 30-35lbs of live rock is positioned close to the back of the tank, and near the walls blocking a majority of the flow, but it's a small tank what can I do not much space.

I want to upgrade to some Koralia nanos or perhaps something else to increase flow but also don't want to have a sandstorm. I was thinking or replacing the two colbalts so with two Koralia nanos (240 gph). What do you think as far as options for powerheads, placement, amount of flow and direction? I don't want to upset anything or blow anything away but I need more flow to aid in this algae problem.

Would also like to know if you think I'm over feeding or doing anything else problematic that stands out.

Forgive the photo if any of the corals looked stress or shrunken it's because the lights have been off for a few hours, and I turned them on just to take the photo.

Looking for some good advice! But let the bashing begin.

Thanks guys!
 

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How long do you run your lights for? You should get a good phosphate test kit I use Red Sea. If you have algae growing you probably have excess nutrients in your water. PO4 or NO3. When I first started I used API test kits and when I started keeping SPS I bought better kits and results were much different.
 
10 hour daylight with 4 moonlight. To long? I use the API tests kits which I know don't have the best resolution.

I'm thinking of backing off on feeding to once every other days to help reduce nutrients. Good or bad idea?
 
i agree with feeding every other days for a while. as for powerheads, jebao's wps are not expensive and they work really well. there're plenty of modes to play around. cut down the daylight to 8 hrs and see if it's affecting corals. i would also change out old gfo.
 
What are your nitrates & phosphates? Koralia nanos don't move much water. Look at getting powerheads rated for around 500 gph. I like Tunze powerheads, they have a nice strong wide flow, used to use Koralias, they didn't do much. Jabeos would also be a good choice.

I do like your rock scape. That large rock on the left side of your tank might need to be adjusted to get better flow around the tank.
 
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