flow or nitrates?

[availablename]

would not enough flow cause sps corals to shut down and die? i can only keep sps for about a week or two, before they start to loose the flesh off their skeleton. its like rotting and falling off. i also have nitrates around 80 ppm.
29 gal., 250w 14k hqi mh, cal at 450, alk at 11dkh, mag at 1500ppm
temp 79/80, salinity 1.026
i dose cal and alk everyday to help keep them stable. i use brs bulk calcium and soda ash.
i know the nitrates are extremely high for sps but every time i make salt water, it always have between .5 and 1.0ppm ammonia which my bio filter turns into nitrates. so even doing wc, i always have nitrates.
i use ro/di filter with 0 tds. no ammonia in water until it sets for a day or two???
so, would it be not enough flow or the high nitrates causing the shut down reaction?

 

[jbarr2000]

You need to figure out what's going on with your water. You're dosing your tank with ammonia every time you do a water change creating a mini cycle. 80ppm nitrates is way too high, you likely have nitrites too.

 

[Grant W]

That nitrate level is way too high. You need to sort that out. You should also lower your Alk to around 8 or 9, not wrong but nat sea water is usually around 7 or 8 I believe, so at that level I've found it to be a little rough on sps corals. SPS are tough but they need water quality that is stable and close to natural especially in a smaller tank where things effect the corals more quickly. Take care of those and this tank should take off nicely.

 

[GhostCon1]

You're dosing your tank with ammonia every time you do a water change creating a mini cycle.

What? Where have you read this?

 

[TheDean]

What? Where have you read this?

The OP states when he makes change water it has about .5 to 1.0 ppm ammonia...

 

[jbarr2000]

What? Where have you read this?

Yeah...I read it in the original post....welcome to the thread.

 

[jimbo1]

how many months has the tank been running? also what salt are you using?

 

[Medicoles]

You say your making saltwater and it sits for a day before you get an ammonia spike. How are you storing your water? You shouldn't get any ammonia from fresh saltwater unless your container is seriously contaminated. Also when you store it is there any flow in the container? If not SW can stagnate very quickly

 

[allsps40]

You did not say what you have to provide flow in your tank. Your nitrates are deadly at 80ppm, that can kill even fish. How long has your tank been running, how many fish do you have, how much do you feed, do you have a DSB? You need to get the nitrates down. Start by doing a few medium sized water changes over a few days. Test nitrates a few hours after a water change to see if it goes down at all.