With water how clean is too clean?

[hypnoj]

I have an 1.5 yo 80 gallon tank that I recently converted over to full sps from anemone's only. I have BRS biopellets running in BRS reactor, 200 micron filter socks on 24/7 (changed weekly now; down from every 3 days), TLF canister full of ROX carbon and GFO running, bubble magus skimmer, a large portion of the sump dedicated to chaeto (prolly 5 gallon bucket worth of chaeto), with sponge filter to keep chaeto out of my return pump. My nitrates are undetectable. I have a hanna checker for PO4, but haven't checked in a while because I don't have any algae at all. I clean the glass every 5 days or so.
When you look at my tank water through the glass it looks like my fish are floating in mid air. The water is extremely clean. Have I gone too far? I have no PE except at night time. Everything seems to be growing ok. Other parameters are solid (2 part on doser's, temp never swings more then 1 degree etc). I just am bothered about not having any PE.
Please give me your thoughts.

 

[dunk373]

i have corals with pe day and night some only at night and some only during the day I also think i went too far with clean water. I have the same as you but with a scrubber. and i don't try to stop temp swings. all corals are different I personally think if your lights are providing enough food during the day the polyps won't come out much but during the night they extent them to feed 24/7

 

[elegance coral]

If your chaeto is growing, the water is not to clean for SPS.

 

[jcw]

If your chaeto is growing, the water is not to clean for SPS.

This is what I thought. But I think a lot of sps keepers still use chaeto. TMZ and copps have chaeto in their systems.

Mine grew like crazy. Then I restarted GFO. It stopped and died off a little. Now after a couple months, it's going again. I don't know.

 

[hypnoj]

Good point EC. So how do I get PE during the day without making my water any dirtier. I really enjoy having clean water. Any time I try to dose stuff that makes them come out I end up having to clean my glass more often and if done enough I start to get algae. Do I just starting feeding my corals and bump up my gfo? Any advice is appreciated.

 

[arthur08]

I would def feed more sps love nitrates I always had a problem with nitrates before when I wasnt into sps, nitrates would stay at 40ppm , now that I been collecting sps for 3 months a have over 40 small colonies n some frags n my nitrates stay 0-5 ppm I have around 20 fish ,y tanks is a 120 btw need the fish 3 times a day n corals 4 times a week all my sps have great pe

 

[hypnoj]

I would def feed more sps love nitrates I always had a problem with nitrates before when I wasnt into sps, nitrates would stay at 40ppm , now that I been collecting sps for 3 months a have over 40 small colonies n some frags n my nitrates stay 0-5 ppm I have around 20 fish ,y tanks is a 120 btw need the fish 3 times a day n corals 4 times a week all my sps have great pe

How do you keep your phosphates and algae down? Do you just use more gfo? I have no problems keeping my nitrates down with the biopellets; I could feed a lot more and never worry about nitrates, it's the PO4 that causes me issues when feeding. Are there any good corals foods that give off no PO4?

 

[skuller]

If you put a light on the glass of the aquarium at night, with your lights completely off, you will the see your water is not as clean as you think it is...well, the water might be clean but there is a lot of things flowing and swimming on it..

Also, you can't see Phosphates nor Nitrates..

 

[hypnoj]

If you put a light on the glass of the aquarium at night, with your lights completely off, you will the see your water is not as clean as you think it is...well, the water might be clean but there is a lot of things flowing and swimming on it..

Also, you can't see Phosphates nor Nitrates..

Ya, I have lots of pods zooming around at night time.