Help me! What am I doing wrong!?!

cpate · Apr 23, 2020

My tank has me stressed out and frustrated for the last 2 months. I need someone to tell me what I’m doing wrong so I can right the ship. Tank was started in October 2019 with a 2 month cycle and I transferred all my coral from my 30 gal in January. Things were fine until the beginning of March when I started to see some of my coral not doing so well and have had several coral die off since while some seem to be doing ok but just not great. I’m also having GHA poping up everywhere ‍‍

I had an ATI icp done and got the results back a week and a half ago and I did have aluminum, tin and Antimony show up in the test..I can post the results if you guys want.

Tank details-

120 SCA

Eshopps sump

Reefbreeder V2 running around peak 45% for 9 hours (slowly bumping them up over time)

Skims skimmer

2 reefbreeder RPM pumps at max

Jebao return (switching to a new Sicce syncra this weekend)

24w green killing machine UV sterilizer

Brightwell brick (currently removing but slowly)

2 finnex 300w heaters

DIY algae scrubber (running for 2 weeks)

poly-filter pad to hopefully remove some of the metal from the tank

120 pounds of life rock (40 lbs which I got from a local reefer)

Tropic Eden sand

Test results-
Alk- 7.8
Cal- 450
Mag- 1400
Nitrate- 10
Do have a phosphate test kit but my ICP test had me at .01

I direct feed my coral twice a week with reef Roids and dose aminos everyday and the fish get fed once with food that I prepared.

Sorry so long but I wanted to put everything out their to help you help me figure this out.

Thanks to anyone willing to help!

P-Dub · Apr 23, 2020

What is your total system volume? I would think for that tank size your flow in the display is woefully inadequate with the RPM's. I have two RPMs, two large Jebao PP25's, Two Maxi-Jet 1200's and one IceCap 3k. Flow is an important factor in your display. The corals need it for proper respiration and dispersion of waste.

cpate · Apr 23, 2020

P-Dub said:
What is your total system volume? I would think for that tank size your flow in the display is woefully inadequate with the RPM's. I have two RPMs, two large Jebao PP25's, Two Maxi-Jet 1200's and one IceCap 3k. Flow is an important factor in your display. The corals need it for proper respiration and dispersion of waste.

My guess for total volume would be 100-110gal- dimensions are 48x24x24