I'm Stumped, time for outside help.

[Dss84]

So my tank that I upgraded from a 20 long to a 56 gal aquarium with a 20 gal sump just turned 1 at the start of this year. I am currently running a mag 9.5 return pump, an inline Hydor skimmer that is rated for a 125 gal aquarium. My lights are 3 150 watt pendant MH and I have a powerhead that does about 300 gph. all together I have about 1000 gph circulating in my DT. And only 6 small fish in the tank.
Nitrates: 1
Nitrites: 0
Phos: 0
Cal: 430
Alk: 9.5 Occasionally fluctuates to 8.8
Mag: 1300

I have a few small sps growing but are mostly brown with no good color. Everything else in the tank is doing fine but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get better color or growth out of my acros. Most frags die and only a few have stayed alive but are just hanging in there. Do I need to add more flow, I keep my sand bed dust free by cleaning it out everytime i do a water change. and the tank is algae free. Any advise will be greatly appreciated as I am at my wits end trying to get sps to grow. Thanks for any advise and look forward to any suggestions
.

 

[Dss84]

This pic is a little older, the date on my camera is wrong this pic is 2 weeks old and the sps you see in the pic are all gone now, only a few new ones have lasted a week and a half since this photo.

 

[Dss84]

I forgot My Salinity is also at 1.024 should it be higher?

 

[Carter o51]

Could be a couple of things in my experience. Is it possible you have pests like acro eating flatworms? Also I would look at your lights. I've never ran metal halides, but browned out SPS could indicate insufficient light. The rest of your parameters seem fine, and I would not suspect a low nutrient problem, which would manifest as dull or slightly bleached out corals instead of brown. How are the LPS doing if you have any?

 

[Dss84]

Everything else in my tank is great, zoas, lps, softies, even a couple little chalice are doing great. My tank is 30 inches wide by 24 tall by 18 deep. I have three separate 150 watt MH over the tank all on their own ballasts. I put those over my tank due to some crappy custom LEDs I bought that only grew algae and killed coral. I have never seen any bugs on my acros and I dip everything before it goes in. I'm wondering if its a flow issue, not enough maybe. Any input is welcome I am running out of solutions to try.

 

[Carter o51]

Might be a flow issue. Many will tell you that flow is often more important than light in terms of SPS care. It brings nutrients and all that sort to the coral and flushes waste away. If it was a problem with too much light you'd have a problem with LPS too so we can probably rule that out. Your salinity is fine at 1.024, though most people try to keep it at 1.025. Personally I would not advise disturbing your sand during every water change unless your sand bed is really shallow. Anyways, what sort of flow is on the tank?

 

[Dss84]

My sand bed is maybe an inch thick, I don't like a ton of sand. Had problems in the past with that. With the mag 9.5 as a return that splits into 2 heads once in the tank with lock line and one power head I think I am at about 1000 gph circulation in the tank itself. I have more power heads but have been afraid to disturb what I have going on, but again I really want some acros, stags and millis.

 

[Carter o51]

Hmm weird. Phosphates are zero? Are you running GFO or bio pellets or anything

 

[Dss84]

No bio or gfo, only carbon and 0 phos. I keep a pretty clean setup, no build up in my sump outside my refugium and i never over feed. I have chateo growing in the refug with live rock and a deeper sand bed that i never disturb, Its weird right? I have been racking my brain and cant figure it out. It has literally gotten to the point I have thought about selling the whole thing and starting back at step 1.

 

[DSP]

Check really good for red bugs,many reefers don't even realize they have them sometimes. I noticed a few of my sps lost a little color recently and could not figure out why so one night I was just staring at my red dragon and noticed 2 red bugs on it, So I treated with interceptor and wiped them out lol

 

[CountrySideCoral]

Your parameters look good, your light might be a little too intense depending how far off the water line the bulbs are. What is your light cycle? Personally I think your flow is a little low also as I have a 65gal with two 1400gph koralias plus a mag 7 return with one loc-line piece. Heck my 30gal frag tank has a mag 7 dialed down with a 1050gph koralia pulsing 10 second at a time. I keep LPS, SPS, and softies with no issue.

 

[Carter o51]

I feel like it must be light related. Correct me if I'm wrong, but would flow that is on the low side kill sps that quickly? Just doesn't feel like that could be responsible for everything dying

 

[Dss84]

I know, I wish someone with MH experience would comment, I'm fairly new to using them. Before it was t5 and then crappy leds that killed alot. Just a string of bad luck so far. But thanks for your two cents it was not poorly spent. Thanks

 

[Dss84]

Cou try side coral, I have a blue led stunner that comes on at 11am then first mh on at 1pm, thats on the right side. Then secomd comes on at 3pm, its on the right. 3rd is on from 4:30 to 8:30, its in the center. Then left off at 10pm and right off at 12 am. They come on so late because I work nights otherwise I would never see it. Also my lights are 8 1/2 inches over the water line. Any suggestions to improve it? And you think I should increase my flow?

 

[Jimbo662]

I had the same issue. Almost everything in the tank was growing and healthy...sps was the only issue. I really think my lighting was too dim. I'm working on a new tank with differnt lighting to see if I can be more successful with them.

 

[Dss84]

I have thought about adding t5s to my hood as well to increase the spectrum a bit

 

[powderhound]

3 x 150 watt bulbs seems like a lot of light for a tank your size. What kind of reflectors are you using? do you have a pic of the light setup? can you put the same coral up high and one down low to see if one colors up.

 

[Dss84]

So this are my lights, they are aqua medic mh. Right now all of them are on.

 

[Gauge]

What are you using to measure your phosphates? If an API kit then they really only read down to 0.25 or 0, which isn't really accurate for SPS. Brown SPS is either too high nutrients or not enough light. I have a biocube with only a refugium and it reads 0 phosphates per API but if I use my hanna meter it I actually around 0.17.

 

[Dss84]

It is an api kit but I've never had phos problems in the past, I used to use another kit before it ran out and was always 0 so I never thought to much about it using the api kit.