I don't carbon dose or use biopellets. I do run carbon and gfo. Sometimes, if I don't catch my DI resin crapping out, I'll get some relatively high phosphates in the .12 range in my DT from auto topping off with high phosphate water. If I change the DI resin and GFO to reduce phosphates, it seems like sometimes the coral don't like it (I don't know whether its the rapid swing or the absolute amount). I'm relatively new to reef tanks and on the fence about how 'nutrient poor' I should be trying to run my system.
My system, in general is a standard 180 gallon (upgraded from a 90 which was set up for a little over a year). The 180 has been up for a couple of months. I have three Radion Pros over the tank and a 40 breeder for a sump with an old Reef Octopus xs200 in the first chamber, a refugium with chaeto in the second and an Eheim 1262 return pump, carbon and gfo reactors running in the third chamber. I also use BRS dosing pumps to incrementally dose calcium and alkalinity over the day. Finally, I have two MP 40s providing flow in the DT set for 90% reefcrest during the day.
My bioload used to be reasonably light for the size of the tank but, with the addition of 6 anthias (3 Bartletts and 3 Lyretails about a month ago) bioload and feeding has picked up recently. I generally feeding frozen (a mix of Rod's and cyclopeeze) 2x/day. Three or four days a week I'll also put in a small fresh littleneck clam for my copperband butterflyfish. Other tank inhabitants include a foxface, a yellow clown goby, a fairy wrasse, a flasher wrasse, and a pair of percula clowns, a mandarin and a goby/shrimp pair that I rarely see.
The tank is mixed in terms of coral with a growing emphasis on sps and acros in particular. I'm generally happy with how everything is doing with a couple of exceptions: 1) polyp extension isn't great, at least during the day; and 2) my ORA 'plum crazy' acro has stayed more brown than purple for several months despite being placed relatively high in the tank.
Matt
