sps not growing

[diemaker]

Hi Guys thought I would post here I've had a hard time with my sps growing and keeping colour. the tank is just about 13 months old and is a reds 650s max with upgrade reef octopus skimmer and I removed all the stock filter media only run a filter sock that is switched out every 4-5 days and double washed in bleach.

I started the tank with 150 lb's of dead marco rock, new sand and and r/o di water. I do daily water change of 2.5 gallons (auto) IO reef cystals. I'm dosing NO_POX as I found my p03 and n03 were high I also add a large bag of chemi-pure a few months back.
also running activate carbon in a reactor

I feed a mixture of pellets and brine shrimp twice as day
dose coral snow 3x a week and dose red sea reef energy 4x a week
dose 2 part BRS through doser

one thing that I did notice is there doesn't seem to be much life in my tank on the rock work or around the sand bed and hardly any coraline algae grows but I do have a few rocks that went in with corals that is covered in coraline algae and the tank maintains it.

I also thought it could be an issue with the led's but I've seen and read a number of my tank with the same led kits and they look great. So i'm at a bit of a loss here

my tank paramaters are as follows

salinity 1.026
temp 78-79
ph 8.4
cal 425
dkh 8.9
mag 1300
phos .025
nit 0

 

[Stevenliu9]

Not sure if I missed this but what kind of lighting do you use? And while the sps isn't growing how are others doing?

 

[diemaker]

i'm using steve's led's sps kit 16KThe rest of the lps and zoas are fine and have great colour I have also lost some sps to rtn in the last few weeks

 

[diemaker]

Bump

 

[Pife]

Stability is key. High nutrients aren't good either.

 

[TheDeepSandBed]

Stability is key. High nutrients aren't good either.

I've read a lot on the SPS forums about running high nutrients to improve color of corals.

Question to OP, can I ask why you dose so much stuff? If you do so many water changes how could you need to supplement so much?

Also, why do you bleach your filter socks? I feel like residual bleach might be getting back into the tank. I rinse my filter socks like once a month and have never had phosphate or nitrate problems even with a heavy feeding regiment.

 

[acrohead500ppm]

how much carbon are you running?? could be stripping iodine/ trace elements at a faster rate then your daily W/C can replenish???

How are you prepping your automatic W/C water? tested ? why the daily change?

Personally, I would stop that daily small W/C, and stick with a 10% weekly/ every other week. Something tells me that this daily auto water change maybe the root of the problem here.

 

[rfgonzo]

You might want to consider bumping up NO3 to detectable levels instead of zero.

 

[Pokahpolice]

How are you prepping your automatic W/C water? tested ? why the daily change?

Personally, I would stop that daily small W/C, and stick with a 10% weekly/ every other week. Something tells me that this daily auto water change maybe the root of the problem here.

Disagree. Daily water changes or continuous are well documented. They are slightly less effective at exporting but the benefits of steady water conditions make up for the loss.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

 

[diemaker]

how much carbon are you running?? could be stripping iodine/ trace elements at a faster rate then your daily W/C can replenish???

How are you prepping your automatic W/C water? tested ? why the daily change?

Personally, I would stop that daily small W/C, and stick with a 10% weekly/ every other week. Something tells me that this daily auto water change maybe the root of the problem here.

I'm running 11/2 cups of carbon changed monthly. I also only started the daily water change two weeks ago I'm using IO rc

 

[diemaker]

You might want to consider bumping up NO3 to detectable levels instead of zero.

I'm going to reduce to nopox till I get a NO3 of 1 I'm also removing the chemipure

 

[acrohead500ppm]

Disagree. Daily water changes or continuous are well documented. They are slightly less effective at exporting but the benefits of steady water conditions make up for the loss.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

Oh snap, I didn't know red sea made such big aquariums these days!

I thought the op had a 65 gallon tank, had no idea 650 stood for liters. You're right, 2.5 gallons daily in 170 gallons isn't going to upset much. In 65 gal would be a different story.

 

[diemaker]

Well one thing I never thought to look for was the dreaded red bugs and after a ton of research I thought of it and sure enough these little buggers are the problem im dosing my tank tonight and will see what happens