Is my water to clean?

[GoReefin]

Hi all, my tanks are 2 fluval13.5g evo's with a 20g sump all connected. I am changing 5g of water weekly and have noticed my water parameters are as followed

Salinity 1.025
Ca 400
KH 8
P04 0
Nitrates 0

Live stock includes
1 true percula clownfish
1 banggai cardinal fish
1 tanaka's pygmy wrasse

4 hermit crabs
1 conch
1 tigertail sea cucumber
1 emerald crab in the sump
And an army of around 200 stomatella snails.

Sump has cheato and red pompom macro algae.

I am finding that hair algae is growing in one of my display tanks but not prolifically.

I have recently started growing coraline algae.

I am concerned that my water is to clean for raising anemones, LPS and softies. I have no sps corals.

Should I increase my bio load, feed more often, decrease water changes? I am concerned if I decrease water changes my calcium and alk will go down.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read this lengthy post.

 

[Spare time]

You can keep 0's but will need to feed the corals daily with something like reef energy. Otherwise you can tune your refugium down and let nitrate and phosphate go up.


As for alk and cqalcium, you should not rely on water changes for those. Big alk swings from water changes stress corals out (if you let it drop too far below the salt's alk level) and dosing alk and calcium is very easy.

 

[Reef.]

If you have algae then you don’t have zero nitrates and PO4, test will be reading zero as the algae is feeding on the nitrates and PO4 so it looks like zero.

 

[GoReefin]

You can keep 0's but will need to feed the corals daily with something like reef energy. Otherwise you can tune your refugium down and let nitrate and phosphate go up.


As for alk and cqalcium, you should not rely on water changes for those. Big alk swings from water changes stress corals out (if you let it drop too far below the salt's alk level) and dosing alk and calcium is very easy.

I currently have my refugium light on 24 hours a day. Should I tune it back to 12 hours?

I will look into reef energy. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[GoReefin]

If you have algae then you don’t have zero nitrates and PO4, test will be reading zero as the algae is feeding on the nitrates and PO4 so it looks like zero.

Ahh I didn't think of this. So do you think I should leave well enough alone?

 

[splitting_lanes]

I currently have my refugium light on 24 hours a day. Should I tune it back to 12 hours?

I will look into reef energy. Thanks for the suggestions!

Yeah, turn it down, I run mine 11 hours when the display tank light is off.

Helps to keep ph stabile

 

[Reef.]

Ahh I didn't think of this. So do you think I should leave well enough alone?

try and manually remove the algae, depending how bad it is will determine what other steps you need to take but it doesn’t sound too bad, removing it could do the trick but most likely you may still need to take other steps, such as reduce lights, add biological media and maybe use a gfo etc etc

 

[Spare time]

I currently have my refugium light on 24 hours a day. Should I tune it back to 12 hours?

I will look into reef energy. Thanks for the suggestions!

You can try 12. I have my light off for six hours

Btw how old are the tanks? A tuft of algae is not a big deal and is normal in tanks and in the wild.

 

[GoReefin]

You can try 12. I have my light off for six hours

Btw how old are the tanks? A tuft of algae is not a big deal and is normal in tanks and in the wild.

Set up around 4ish months. I know super young for anemones. Sadly I Didn't know until I started reading through posts here.

 

[DE FISH]

Id say yes too clean I’ve always ran into cYano/Dino problems when po4 and nitrate bottom out aim for 0.03 po4 not zero and 2.5 - 5 nitrates

 

[GoReefin]

You can try 12. I have my light off for six hours

Btw how old are the tanks? A tuft of algae is not a big deal and is normal in tanks and in the wild.

Sounds like a good plan I'll do 12 hours when the tank lights are off and see how things go

 

[blasterman]

New corals, even softies aren't going to be thrilled about being dropped in a new tank with 0 nutrients. You're begging for a dino outbreak or stagnant corals. I would aim for having some trace nitrate, about 5 or so that's stable but not having excessive algae. That's kind of the stable point to move forward, IMO, and shows the tank is maturing. I would cut fuge light time and see if that kick up nitrate bit. You fiddle with phosphate once you got nitrate in the ballpark.

Water changes for now are fine for keeping up some basic corals.

 

[GoReefin]

New corals, even softies aren't going to be thrilled about being dropped in a new tank with 0 nutrients. You're begging for a dino outbreak or stagnant corals. I would aim for having some trace nitrate, about 5 or so that's stable but not having excessive algae. That's kind of the stable point to move forward, IMO, and shows the tank is maturing. I would cut fuge light time and see if that kick up nitrate bit. You fiddle with phosphate once you got nitrate in the ballpark.

Water changes for now are fine for keeping up some basic corals.

Thanks for the input! I will cut them to 12 hours and go from there. Hopeful I can get some nitrates going.

Corals have been great no problems. My hammer has already split a head and my softies are growing nicely. My anemones are another matter. Had wild caught green die on me and one from live aquaria keeps moving around every 3 days or so. while all my others are just fine.

Pics from today.