Euphyllia not Thriving

[Psychedelic Fins]

4 month old tank with:

Alk: 8.4 dkH
Calc: 440
Mag: 1320
Nitrate: 4-8
Phospate: 0-.01
Salinity: 1.026

Hanna Checker on the Alk, Refractometer on salinity. Red Sea test kit for the rest. Parameters have been very stable.

Lighting is a 6-bulb T5 fiixture with 3 blues, 2 purples, and one actinic. I have cut the lighting way back to be mainly the blues with the purples on only 2 hours per day. Have tried the euphyllia in several places and they are currently on the bottom of the tank in low/medium flow. Colors look good, but very little extension, especially in the bubble coral. Hammer and Frogspawn are okay at best, again great color, but not nearly as extended as they were in LFS.

My maintenance routine is to change filter socks 2+ times per week and run skimmer 24 hours.

I am open to any/all suggestions but my research is leaning me towards raising my phosphate and nitrate. I am thinking of any/all of the following.

• cut back or stop skimming for a bit
• remove filter socks or swap out less often
• start feeding phytoplankton daily to the tank
• I already feed benepellets 2x per week. I could add more feedings.
• I have six fish in my 180 gallon tank (yellow tang, kole tang, melanaurus wrasse, lawnmower blenny, and two gladiator clowns). I feed one frozen cube daily and add 1/8 sheet of LRS premium seaweed daily. I could add fish or feed more, but the fish are happy and healthy as is and my main interest is the corals.

I hate that the corals are struggling and want them to flourish. Any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Jekyl]

Everything looks fine. Corals didn't start thriving in my tank until it matured more.

 

[PeterC99]

Had the same problem in my 90 gallon. To raise PO4 and NO3, I feed 2 cubes of frozen both morning and night. Corals are popping and growing. The downside is that the fish are getting bigger quicker too!

 

[Hydrored]

Bump up the phosphates and the LPS will do better

 

[InvaderJim]

I would suggest just dosing some trisodium phosphate if you're looking to get phosphates up. It's inexpensive and the bottle will last you almost forever. I also started to add a small amount of reef roids to my reef frenzy when I feed the tank.