fairly new tank issues

[slowpony]

In april I setup a tank using the equipment listed below along with current water parameters.

Everything did well up until about 2 months ago. At that point corals started to not want to open very much. From there what appears to be red slime has gotten to where I can clean it all off and by the end of the day returns and most coarals are dead. I am trying to figure out how to fix this issue along with how the lighting should be configured. 10 gallon water changes are done weekly or biweekly (it varies) using brightwell aquatics salt although yesterday I purchased/decided to switch to red sea coral pro due to buckets of brightwell aquatics becoming slim locally.

Red sea reefer 450
Eshopps s-200 skimmer
Octopus dc-5500 return pump
Octopus heater & controller (believe its a 250w)
2 kessil a360 lights with controller
~50lbs of well established live rock
~10lbs of caribsea life rock
~1-1.5" caribsea aragonite

Fish:
Pair of small snowflake clowns (~1.5")
Pink spot goby (~3")
Yellow tang (~4")
Blue hippo tang (~2")
Marine beta (~5")


Water Parameters are as followed:

Ammonia-0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 0-1
PH- 8.2
Alkalinity- 6
Phosphate- .04
Specific gravity- 1.021
Temp- consistent 77-78

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Welcome to Reef Central!

First off in your parameters your SG is low, for corals should be 1.025-1.026 and you need to get test kits for Mg, Ca and Alk those three are the most important in keeping corals.

The red slime is called Cyano which is a bacteria not an algae and you can treat this many ways but since it's helping in killing your corals you can get a product called ChemiClean and it will rid your tank of Cyano and it's reef safe for all of your inhabitants and works in 48 hrs.

 

[DavidGraves]

Yeah need alk, cal, and mag tests. If alk is 6 that is low. The red sea salt will help bring it up if you don't have buffer.

What is your lighting schedule? Intensity?

 

[slowpony]

I will pick up those tests tomorrow along with possibly a new heater. This one has seemed to work great and always keep the tank at 77-78 no issue. Checked earlier and it was sitting at 74 with what feels like no heat output from the heater holding it with my hand for a good bit in the water. Any suggestions for a heater?

As far as the light schedule goes they run from 9-5 if I remember correctly starts off at 20% color 20% intensity, peaks at 50% on color and intensity, and then fades back down. Hopefully that helps. I am not really familiar with the controller my fiancé sticks to taking care of that end of things.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

If you're going glass Ehiem Jager has a great reputation. I recently bought a box full of misc tank items and it had 5 heaters in it. One of them is a Finnex 300w glass heater and it's very well made. I just put it in my tank today but have been running my Ehiem Jager 150w. What I like about the Finnex is that it has an LED readout for the temp and from what I can tell so far it's dead on accurate. It's nice to be able to look in the sump and there is the LED glowing my temp. I also have a digital thermometer in my DT so I can compare them.

Here is a link to the Finnex and the cheapest price I found with a quick Google search. The Ehiem Jager's are sold pretty much everywhere. Check them both out. Oh and Finnex does make a titanium heater with LED and an easy to adjust controller if you prefer to go that route.

http://www.aquacave.com/finnex-hps-...e=1&fep=2106&gclid=CNH6qtWh-MoCFUI6gQod4jMP7g