I've had my 75g system up and running for 6 months now +/-.
Early on I overestimated the amount of food my reef needed and severely over fed the system with brightwell's phyto (5mL daily), new life spectrum pellets (side note: i noticed that every time i feed the pellets i start having algae issues; fed 3x daily), and brightwell's zooplankton (5mL daily).
At that time my filtration was composed of GAC, live rock, two mangrove plants and a Skimz SM121 protein skimmer.
2 months into setup I stopped feeding NLS food, and switched to a 2 stage feeding schedule. (forgot the brand name of the fish food, will update when I get home)
3 months into the setup, I decided to install a phosban 150 reactor with biopellets.
About a month later, nitrates began to test consistently at 0. However as I have not been able to get a reliable, accurate test kit for phosphate, so, I have not been able to measure it. I have kept note of algae growth this whole time though. I had a few issues with hair algae popping up on the edges of my rock scape, and some cyano growth on the sand bed (no more than an inch deep). Algae growth on glass only appeared on fish feedings of 3x daily. Once reduced to 2x daily feedings the growth slowed to the point that I only had to clean the aquariums walls once a week or a little longer.
To combat the hair algae/ cyano, every time I do a water change (15-20%, once every 1-2 weeks), I siphon out as much of the cyano / hair algae that I can.
Growth in my SPS has pretty much been non existent this entire time. I have had some acro's have some base growth but not enough to tell that the size of the colony has increased.
More recently, even though I've been removing as much algae as possible, the hair algae continues to grow, mostly on rock work, which is leading me to believe that my rocks may be leaching phosphate.
I don't want to have to remove my rock work, so since 3 days ago, since replacing my GAC, I also added 75% of the recommended amount for Sorb-4 to help remove phosphate.
Question is, am I moving too fast on filtration changes / upgrades? I had originally thought that biopellets would have been enough to keep phosphate at appropriate levels.
Good news is that one of the LFS's in Kuwait recently got a shipment of Elos test kits. So on my way home from work I'll swing by and pick up one of the High Res Elos Phosphate test kits and report back with my system reading.
Early on I overestimated the amount of food my reef needed and severely over fed the system with brightwell's phyto (5mL daily), new life spectrum pellets (side note: i noticed that every time i feed the pellets i start having algae issues; fed 3x daily), and brightwell's zooplankton (5mL daily).
At that time my filtration was composed of GAC, live rock, two mangrove plants and a Skimz SM121 protein skimmer.
2 months into setup I stopped feeding NLS food, and switched to a 2 stage feeding schedule. (forgot the brand name of the fish food, will update when I get home)
3 months into the setup, I decided to install a phosban 150 reactor with biopellets.
About a month later, nitrates began to test consistently at 0. However as I have not been able to get a reliable, accurate test kit for phosphate, so, I have not been able to measure it. I have kept note of algae growth this whole time though. I had a few issues with hair algae popping up on the edges of my rock scape, and some cyano growth on the sand bed (no more than an inch deep). Algae growth on glass only appeared on fish feedings of 3x daily. Once reduced to 2x daily feedings the growth slowed to the point that I only had to clean the aquariums walls once a week or a little longer.
To combat the hair algae/ cyano, every time I do a water change (15-20%, once every 1-2 weeks), I siphon out as much of the cyano / hair algae that I can.
Growth in my SPS has pretty much been non existent this entire time. I have had some acro's have some base growth but not enough to tell that the size of the colony has increased.
More recently, even though I've been removing as much algae as possible, the hair algae continues to grow, mostly on rock work, which is leading me to believe that my rocks may be leaching phosphate.
I don't want to have to remove my rock work, so since 3 days ago, since replacing my GAC, I also added 75% of the recommended amount for Sorb-4 to help remove phosphate.
Question is, am I moving too fast on filtration changes / upgrades? I had originally thought that biopellets would have been enough to keep phosphate at appropriate levels.
Good news is that one of the LFS's in Kuwait recently got a shipment of Elos test kits. So on my way home from work I'll swing by and pick up one of the High Res Elos Phosphate test kits and report back with my system reading.
