looking for feedback on my setup from pros

[candamo]

I have been working on bringing up the water quality in our tank for the last couple of months. I've been vacuuming the CC bed the last 2 water changes (I'm currently changing 10-12g every week) and I've been consistently slowly getting much better numbers.

I would love to hear some feedback on my setup, what recommendations I can get from the pros. Also, I have 3 candy cane corals (attached pics) that look all shriveled up and won't open up. Other corals in the tank are doing great and not sure what could be causing this problem (candy canes been there for almost 2 months month, and I haven't seen any fish picking at them).

Temp: 77-78
PH: 8.1
nitrate: 20-40 ppm
nitrite: 0 ppm
phosphate: 0-0.25
calcium: 440 ppm
KH: 14
Salinity: 1.024
Ammonia: 0 ppm

-tank: 55g established for more than 5 years, 10g sump tank with bio balls, eshopps psk-100 in-sump protein skimmer runs 247, 3 maxi jets 1200 2 at opposite ends, 1 in the opposite side of the filter in a timer active 30 mins on 30 mins off.

-livestock: 1 yellow tang, 2 clown fish, 1 dotty back, 1 damsel, 1 coral beauty, crushed coral bed and live rock, 10 red legged hermits, 6 blue legged hermits, 3 Mexican turbos, 4 peppermint shrimp

 

[greech]

Alk is high but I think the candy canes are getting too much light.

 

[Art13]

The only thing i'm noticing from what you listed are the Nitrates are a little high, would also help to bring down the phosphates, and I believe the KH is high, i think 8-10 or 8-12 is the range you should be looking for. I can't tell by the first photo of the candy canes but the other two look like they are opened just fine.

 

[Mark9]

In before the tang police!

 

[RossTheReefer]

What kind of lights do you have? I'm guessing that's the issue with your candy canes.

For the water quality issue...I would suggest that you increase the size of your sump to at least 20 gallons. Then I would put a partition in the middle with the top of the partition 1/2" under the water level. Have the gravity flow from the tank dump into one side, filled with chaetomorph algea, and pump back into the main tank from the other side, filled with bioballs or live rock rubble.

I have found that macroalgea beats the heck out of any fancy technology in getting water cleaned. After I added a refugium with macro to my set up the protein skimmer I had became useless, the water was so clean I didn't need it.

 

[ca1ore]

Although Candy Cane coral is likely getting too much light, you are running fairly high nutrient levels on your tank - appears to be quite a bit of cyano in the photos. Not sure why you are using bio-balls in the sump, but I got rid of mine years ago. Not needed for biological filtration, so they may be contributing to your high nitrate level. Setting up a macro fuge can be very beneficial, but I'd personally not just dump a bunch of rock in there without chaeto and some light. Also try running GFO.

 

[terrypercula]

Salinity is a tiny bit low but that isn't a huge issue, what worries me is your nitrate and Alk. If you're dosing ALK you're dosing too much and if you're not dosing then your salt is mixing alk way to high(which I'd doubt). As far as Nitrates crushed coral bottoms tend to leach phosphates and nitrates after a little bit of time.

 

[candamo]

I have 2 65watt 460nm actnic 21.75'' compact fluorescent lights and 2 ft65w daylight bulbs. We wanted to get the new coral frags to get established and grow a bit faster so white light runs 10am-6pm and blue 9am-9pm. I do get a light green algae growing that needs to be scrapped every 3 days or so. Also, I'm feeding daily 1/2 cube of Fish & Reef #1, 1/2 cube of Fish & Reef #2, 1/2 cube Frozen Emerald Entree, and a cupful of Dr. G's SPS Max. I was dosing a capful of Ocean's blend PH/Alkalinity Part 2, but after reading comments just now, stopped as it today.

Wow I have a lot of reading to do after all the very helpful posts. Not sure if all the comments would be address organically as water changes progress or if there is something ASAP that it's needed? Thanks!