so many questions at the moment...
I cant wrap my head around the flow in my tank. I move my hydor pumps some where and some of my corals look great and then one or two isn't happy.
- How much flow do you have? The hydors are known for providing their flow in a very straight line, which means if they are pointed straight at your corals it will be too much for the corals directly in front, but not enough for the corals on either side of the flow stream. The best way to counteract this is point the hydors directly at each other, or direct one towards the surface, or glass, etc. to get the flow that you want. Your corals won't react immediately -- you need to let them adjust to the new flow before deciding you need another change.
lighting... what lighting schedule works best. What percentages do I need for each color.
- This is fully dependent on what lights you have. It is impossible to say what percentage you need without actually seeing the tank, but to give you an idea, I am running my AI Prime HD over my 10g Nuvo at about 30% at peak right now and slowly ramping them up over a few months to 40%. The color is typically more white during the day, and more blues in the morning and at night. Again, corals won't react immediately, so make a small adjustment and let it go for a couple weeks before making any more changes. My lights continuously ramp up or down to/from a peak brightness at 2:00PM. My overall light schedule is around 14 hours, with probably about 8 hours being "day light", with a very slow ramp in the morning and at night to mimic dawn/dusk.
would a skimmer be beneficial if I cant seem to keep my nitrates down?
- Always, but the more important thing is to find the source of your nitrates. Are you overfeeding? Is your tank overstocked? Are you not doing enough water changes? A skimmer will definitely help, but is rarely needed in these nano tanks due to small bioloads and the fact that we can easily replace 30-40% during water changes.
I've taken out all mechanical filtration, I'm thinking about putting some type of macro algae in the back. is this a good idea?
- What kind of mechanical filtration did you have? And what are you running now? The most popular option for filtration is to run an InTank media basket, with Chemi-Pure Elite and Purigen with filter floss on top to block all the detritus from entering your sump. This is what I am running and am having great success. You likely won't be able to grow enough macro algae in the back of the Nuvo to make much of a difference. You typically need like a softball sized ball of chaeto to make any impact on your water parameters, and we simply don't have enough room unless you run a separate fuge, which kind of eliminates the point of the AIO.
how often does chemi pure and purigen need to be swapped out.
- Chemi-Pure (Elite) should be replaced about once every month or 2, depending on bioload and water parameters. Purigen about every 2-3 months, again depending on bioload and water parameters. Chemi-Pure Elite needs to be completely replaced, whereas purigen can be cleaned and reused over and over again.
lastly should I run gfo in my media reactor instead of carbon?
- If you are having algae issues, then yes you should make the transition to GFO. If you are not having algae issues, then I would continue running carbon. However, keep in mind that Chemi-Pure Elite is literally just a combination of GFO and Carbon, so if you are running any Chemi-Pure Elite in your system you are already taking care of those 2.