Minimum Cost, Maximum Enjoyment Reefer 250 Build

[DIFish]

Here are some pictures along with 72 Hour Ammonia Readings. Fish have been in the tank for about 50 Hours. Red dots on the graph are 20% Water changes, and the first red dot is also about 10 min before fish went in. My water quality seems to be improving and even my firework cloves opened back up after closing for a few days. I am dealing with some uglies and am working to get a cleanup crew going. After that I plan on more corals, and 5-6 more fish in a month or so once I am confident everything is going well.
All fish have accepted at least some food and seem to be adjusting well. The hawkfish behavior is still erratic so I am hoping he calms down this week.

 

[DIFish]

Small update-
It has been almost 3 weeks since water hit the tank. All fish are doing well, NH4 has dropped to 15ppb. Free ammonia is 0, PH is stabilizing. All corals have opened up and look great and the fish seem happy and lively. Trying to find a place to order a clean up crew from. Finding a Tuxedo urchin hand tiger conch from the same vendor is proving difficult. I am picking up about a dozen more coral frags next week, and will be introducing the next set of 6 fish sometime next month if things go well. My tank actually looks cleaner now than it did before. Not sure exactly why that is but happy with the results so far!

 

[DIFish]

Got a couple more frags to fill out my Zoa garden and picked up a golden hammer. I got them from a local reefer and they looked much better in his tank so I am rethinking my lighting. Probably going to switch out a few bulbs and add an actinic led strip. Fish are all healthy but one of the Coris Wrasses vanished a few days back while doing a water change and I have not seen him since…. Everyone else is looking good and I will post a longer update once my new lighting and dosing equipment arrive with my CuC. Planning on having a few sps in here in October so I need to get parameters stable asap.

 

[Neuratox]

Those are some pretty fantastic zoas! They'll grow out quickly. Consider isolating them, especially starting off with clusters of that size... they'll grow FAST.
In regards to your lighting - this is where I lost a lot of money and its not because I went with the most expensive, rather, I selected some of the least expensive LED lighting that I could find. Because of that I had to buy lighting twice. Consider getting/borrowing/renting a PAR meter. I can't tell you how many corals I lost because they were in the wrong light. I haven't lost a single coral since getting a PAR meter and was shocked to see the readings in a few areas that I was certain were good spots. Additionally, you're probably losing some light due to the glass that you have as a lid. I have no idea what the quality of that glass is, but it will refract at least some light. Is there a reason you're using it vs the screen lids? Glass would certainly cut down on evaporation, but depending on your local temperature you may want that evaporation. Furthermore, this reduces the amount of airflow across the surface of your tank and therefore a reduction in diffusion.
Cheers and best of luck!

 

[DIFish]

Those are some pretty fantastic zoas! They'll grow out quickly. Consider isolating them, especially starting off with clusters of that size... they'll grow FAST.
In regards to your lighting - this is where I lost a lot of money and its not because I went with the most expensive, rather, I selected some of the least expensive LED lighting that I could find. Because of that I had to buy lighting twice. Consider getting/borrowing/renting a PAR meter. I can't tell you how many corals I lost because they were in the wrong light. I haven't lost a single coral since getting a PAR meter and was shocked to see the readings in a few areas that I was certain were good spots. Additionally, you're probably losing some light due to the glass that you have as a lid. I have no idea what the quality of that glass is, but it will refract at least some light. Is there a reason you're using it vs the screen lids? Glass would certainly cut down on evaporation, but depending on your local temperature you may want that evaporation. Furthermore, this reduces the amount of airflow across the surface of your tank and therefore a reduction in diffusion.
Cheers and best of luck!

Thanks I am very happy with them. I plan on giving each frag about 2-3inches of room to grow out before colliding with another. Won’t look like much of a garden now, but maybe in 6 months. I actually do have a par monitor through my Seneye unit. BRS tested them to be within 1% of $$$ par testers but others have found that they can be off by up to 5-10% which is still fine with me. I will post the picture of my par levels in a bit. I can confirm that I am losing about 20par from my lid, and am running it to help with condensation. I will admit I am worried about excess heat as my heater has not turned on hardly ever and it is not even hot outside. Next summer might be an issue keeping it under 82F. O2 levels are monitored through my Seneye but I don’t trust it fully. May end up switching to a clear view lid soon.

 

[DIFish]

These are my current levels but I have an Actinic Led bar on order as a supplement and am changing out the T5 Aqublue special for Coral Plus. I am estimating another 30-40 par on bottom and 70-80 on top but won’t know until I get it set up. I plan on softies and LPS at the shelf level and under with SPS zone in the top right.

 

[DIFish]

1 Month Update
It has been exactly one month since I added water and started cycling this tank. Things have been interesting so far as this is my first adventure into saltwater, but I still feel like I am on track to hit my original goals. A few goal updates before I share my progress-
Originally I wanted "Minimal" maintenance, but I was not really sure what that means. I am now shooting for 1 ~5 gallon bucket water change per month to clean the sand bed, and only refilling dosing pumps once a month. I want the only weekly maintenance to be changing filter socks, cleaning the glass, and adding water to the ATO. I want my dosers to take care of the rest, and will hopefully only perform weekly testing here on out.
In addition to less maintenance, I wanted corals to fill up approximately 50% of my rock work. I have found out that I like corals even more than the fish, and now want about 75% of my viewable space filled with at least 25 different frags/variations. This is going to be tough as my budget is running thin, but these things look awesome under actinic lighting and I need more!

Now for the update
Fish- I introduced 7 fish at once to this tank about 2 weeks in. Of those 7, 6 are doing awesome and are happy and healthy. 1 Yellow Coris Wrasse disappeared into the sand bed during maintenance after about a week and has not been seen since. I am presuming he is alive somewhere in there, and will update if I ever find him. But for now I will only be considering these 6 fish moving forward as I was planning on selling or giving away the duplicate wrasse anyways. I plan to add another group of 6 sometime in October, bringing me to 12 total and finalizing my stocking list.

Corals- I started cycling this tank with a handful of corals, and am now am up to 13 frags. From what I can tell they are all doing well. I plan on adding a few cheap SPS this week, and if they do fine I will add another 10-20 frags and finalize my coral list. After that it will be a waiting game as they fill out my tank.

Inverts- I added a small clean up crew that included a Tuxedo Urchin, Strawberry Conch, Pods, Nassarius Snails, and Ceriths. I went small and have under 15 snails in the tank for now. I plan on expanding when I have had a chance to see how clean the tank is with their help. The urchin is pretty neat, but my favorite so far has been the Conch. I did not realize they could jump. Surprised me pretty good when I was cleaning the sand bed.

Water Parameters- I have been struggling to maintain Nitrate levels above 5ppm. I have been intentionally overfeeding to keep this up but am not sure if this is feasible long term. Ideally I am shooting for 10ppm Nitrate and have a doser on standby for Vodka (Carbon) dosing once I have too much nutrients. I also had some temerature issues during the day so I bought 2 pc fans for the sump which helped about -2F. My diatoms are clearning up, and I am currently dealing with algea and tying to avoid cyno. I am setting up 3 dosers to do my work for me, one for Kalkwasser that will help with the basics and PH every night, once will dose All for reef to add adittional levels that my Kalkwasser cannot, and another for Carbon dosing once I need it (most likely once I have all 12 fish). I am also in the process of raising my Alkalinity to 9.5 as it bottomed out around 6.5 before I started dosing myself.

Budget- I had originally set a budget of $3000 for this entire build, and man how the little things add up. There is still a chance that I get to 2 years without going over, but if anything breaks or goes wrong (it probably will) I will go over. Here is where I currently stand for those following along. If you see equipment not listed here or have questions about the individual equipment just ask!
$1785 for everything that came earlier.
$160 for more corals
$100 for CuC and pods
$440 for Fish
$60 for 2 head doser and 2L containers
$65 for LED Actinic Light( this thing puts out 300 PAR!! )
$20 Misc odds and ends, 5 gallon water container

$2,630 Total spent so far... ouch. Going to be tough to get 20 more coral and 6 more fish for less than $400

 

[DIFish]

Sunday pickup-
Got my first SPS off of a local member for free. Apparently the local stores have stopped taking the German blue digis because they are so prevalent in the area and easy to keep. Am not sure if I can even call this a frag! These guys will really help fill out my tank.

 

[DIFish]

Larger update coming soon. For now Dosing setup is completed and all frags purchased. Time to sit back and watch these things grow. Excited to see how the Acropora fairs long term. Also, hats for my tuxedo urchin absolutely are a budgeted item.

 

[DIFish]

Update
Some good some bad, but making quick progress. Added 19 frags for the WWC sale bringing me up to just over 30 frags. I now have 4 SPS including my first Acro, and a good mix of softies/LPS. Hoping these start growing out and fill up my tank in the next 6 months but only time will tell. Picked up a 4 pump Doser and started dosing about 700ML Saturated Kalkwasser per day to keep up with my current rates. As soon as these new corals start growing I have All for reef ready in another container to dose. Aiming for about 9.5DkH. Have not lost a coral yet but I have definitely upset a few as my tank swings back and forth.
I was battling pretty bad GHA but then my nitrates bottomed out and it disappeared almost overnight. Dosing Ammino Acids while I wait for more fish to come in and naturally raise my nitrate levels. Tank is actually looking pretty clean right now, and my lean cleaning crew are making quick work of everything that remains. Unfortunately, I had my first fish death. My yellow coris wrasse began swimming strangely one day and progressivly got worse. I reached out on the forums here and it looks like he had UNWD and it is not curable. All other fish are doing fine, although my starry Blenny and Hawkfish have been fighting for space. I have 7 more fish on order that will be here in a few weeks. After that I think my initial stocking phase will be complete and it will be time to watch and wait for everything to grow out. So far besides the unavoidable fish death things have been going well. I plan on sending a water sample in around 6 months for a biome analysis to see how I fair and to see if I am missing anything by running my tank this way. Still waiting for something bad to happen though as so far it has been pretty relaxed compared to the horror stories of a first year tank I have read about. A few pics of the progress.

 

[DIFish]

Small Update
Had to stop dosing All for reef and microbac 7. Found out I was lightly carbon dosing my system with these and further draining my nutrients. Will continue dosing these in a few months once I can get my nitrate and phosphate above 0.
I am now dosing 1ppm ammonia per day, Ammino acids, and Neophos and still having a hard time keeping detectable levels. Next step is to remove the cup from my skimmer but I am hoping I can dose enough to avoid it. Have another 7 fish arriving in a week or two and am hoping once they are added I can stop dosing ammonia and put my skimmer cup back on. I was very prepared to reduce nutrients, but it seems like somehow I don’t have enough. I have not and do not plan on doing any water changes for a few months. Corals are doing well, but my zoas have been occasionally closing up which I expect is due to low nutrients in the system. On the bright side GHA and diatoms are gone, but I am worried about cyano.

Side note, anyone have a guide they can share on what to look for in visual coral health? I am having a hard time judging how healthy my corals are by looking at them and other observations that come with experience. I have not lost any yet but am always wondering if I am missing obvious signs of stress and deterioration. I have been looking up every little thing I notice but if there is a handy guide somewhere I would be very interested!

 

[Subsea]

Hey everyone! I started this build late last week and thought I would post as I will be working on it for a while. First time keeping saltwater fish so hopefully this build is as much of an adventure for you as it is for me. A little background on the build; I have always wanted a picturesque reef tank but have never had the time or funds. After countless hours of research and a few last minute decisions, I have decided to move forward and attempt to build the tank I want while keeping a relativity tight lid on time and money commitment. I will be making it a point to keep track of all dollars spent, my decision process, as well as tracking my full experience as a first timer in the hobby(for myself mostly). I have outlined my initial budget, goals, and plans below. I will update as often as I can and hopefully in year be happy with the results. Any insights or questions are appreciated!

Budget:
When looking at reef tanks similar to what I want, many builds were in the $10,000 range before year two, which is simply not an option for me. My plans are to leverage the used market, DIY, and make smart corner cutting choices to deliver an ideal reefing experience with less funds and time committed. I am setting a goal to spend less than $3000 total over the 1st 2 years in the hobby. Not including water and electricity. I am sure a 55gallon reef build can be had for less, but this amount should allow me to have a tank I can be proud of for years to come.

Goals+Timeline:
My main goal is to have a flourishing and fully stocked tank by the 1 year mark, with significantly grown in corals and a light maintenance schedule. To me this means full capacity on fish (10+), more than half the rocks filled with coral, and spending less than 4 hours a week maintaining the tank. I would also like the build to actually look good, and be free of as many cords, noises, smells, and problems. Idealistic? Maybe, but I am not a particularly patient person and if buying a fully done reef build and having somebody drop it in my living room was a cheap option, I would do it immediately. I don't think this will be easy, but I do think it is possible.

First picture of the tank below so that I can look back and have a nice visual on my progress. More to come on the tank and initial setup.

Kudoes to your vision. I read your first post and will be following your journey. Be careful. It’s addicting.
Laissez les bonne temps roulee,
Patrick

PS: You are on my radar because of your ammonia post. I suggest that you leave the cup off of your skimmer or even dare turn your protein skimmer off.

Be aware that gas exchange in a reef tank is of utmost importance. Foam fractionators have been around for more than 100 years in municipal waste water treatment and they perform excellent gas exchange as well as nutrient export. In a reef tank, that nutrient export is mostly living microbes that are circulating in bulk water. I consider that to be live zooplankton as a part of the microbial loop which feeds hungry mouths. Instead of removing organics from multiple nutrient pathways, I allow them to feed hungry mouths. I have been Reefing for 50 years and been skimmerless for 40 of those years. To provide robust gas exchange, keep surface circulation high and if a sump is available use a surface skimmer to remove scum. Also, as water drains to sump, allow water to cascade & splash to maximize gas exchange and/or use air stones in sump. Consider operating skimmer with skimmate returning to sump.

 

[LeftyReefer]

sorry, I'm late to this.... can you post a bit about what you used to clean up the tank when your first got it?
curious what your method was for cleaning the tank up so nice.

thanks!

 

[DIFish]

Kudoes to your vision. I read your first post and will be following your journey. Be careful. It’s addicting.
Laissez les bonne temps roulee,
Patrick

PS: You are on my radar because of your ammonia post. I suggest that you leave the cup off of your skimmer or even dare turn your protein skimmer off.

Be aware that gas exchange in a reef tank is of utmost importance. Foam fractionators have been around for more than 100 years in municipal waste water treatment and they perform excellent gas exchange as well as nutrient export. In a reef tank, that nutrient export is mostly living microbes that are circulating in bulk water. I consider that to be live zooplankton as a part of the microbial loop which feeds hungry mouths. Instead of removing organics from multiple nutrient pathways, I allow them to feed hungry mouths. I have been Reefing for 50 years and been skimmerless for 40 of those years. To provide robust gas exchange, keep surface circulation high and if a sump is available use a surface skimmer to remove scum. Also, as water drains to sump, allow water to cascade & splash to maximize gas exchange and/or use air stones in sump. Consider operating skimmer with skimmate returning to sump.

I turned the skimmer all the way down so that the cup is not collecting. My gas exchange I imagine is a bit on the low side. I have a cover on the top of my tank, sump in a cabinet, and intentionally have my drain as silent as possible. The skimmer is my main source of air and I have the line ran to behind my cabinet for more fresh room air. I also have 2 pc fans in the sump cabinet for cooling but both are drawing from the room. My surface circulation is very high with my gyre running about an inch below water level, but not a lot of breaking water. I am worried about O2 and CO2 levels so I have been watching for the signs but so far it has been okay, will probably end up switching to a mesh cover in the near future to help this exchange. I definitely am removing to much waste with the current bio load though as I am trying to fix through dosing ammonia.

 

[DIFish]

sorry, I'm late to this.... can you post a bit about what you used to clean up the tank when your first got it?
curious what your method was for cleaning the tank up so nice.

thanks!

I put half vinegar half water in a spray bottle and soaked the tank for about 1hr, then scubbed hard with a rag spraying as I went. Repeated this a few times. Then rinsed the tank with tap and made a solution of citric acid and followed a similar process. For remaining buildup mostly on the rim I used a flat razor blade and carefully removed the remainder. I did not get 100% but everything that was left was at the water line and hard to see. A ton of elbow grease and I don’t think there is an easy way to do this, the pictures show the progress but not 5+ hours of scrubbing everything down. After it was clean I attempted to use cerium oxide to polish the glass and remove some small scratches……barely worked and I found out you would really need to be commuted and spend 6+ hours with the proper tools to really remove the small scratches. Gave up about an hour in with the originally pics in my cleaning post. Citrix acid and vinegar both work with enough time.

Edit- The reason I chose the tank on Craigslist in the first place was due to talking to the last owner and he only had it set up for a few months+the pictures just looked dirty so I was hoping it was easy and it mostly was. Would be a different story with a severely beat up tank with lots of corraline growth. I think the tank looked worse than it was which is the reason it was affordable and easy enough to clean.

 

[Subsea]

1 Month Update
It has been exactly one month since I added water and started cycling this tank. Things have been interesting so far as this is my first adventure into saltwater, but I still feel like I am on track to hit my original goals. A few goal updates before I share my progress-
Originally I wanted "Minimal" maintenance, but I was not really sure what that means. I am now shooting for 1 ~5 gallon bucket water change per month to clean the sand bed, and only refilling dosing pumps once a month. I want the only weekly maintenance to be changing filter socks, cleaning the glass, and adding water to the ATO. I want my dosers to take care of the rest, and will hopefully only perform weekly testing here on out.
In addition to less maintenance, I wanted corals to fill up approximately 50% of my rock work. I have found out that I like corals even more than the fish, and now want about 75% of my viewable space filled with at least 25 different frags/variations. This is going to be tough as my budget is running thin, but these things look awesome under actinic lighting and I need more!

Now for the update
Fish- I introduced 7 fish at once to this tank about 2 weeks in. Of those 7, 6 are doing awesome and are happy and healthy. 1 Yellow Coris Wrasse disappeared into the sand bed during maintenance after about a week and has not been seen since. I am presuming he is alive somewhere in there, and will update if I ever find him. But for now I will only be considering these 6 fish moving forward as I was planning on selling or giving away the duplicate wrasse anyways. I plan to add another group of 6 sometime in October, bringing me to 12 total and finalizing my stocking list.

Corals- I started cycling this tank with a handful of corals, and am now am up to 13 frags. From what I can tell they are all doing well. I plan on adding a few cheap SPS this week, and if they do fine I will add another 10-20 frags and finalize my coral list. After that it will be a waiting game as they fill out my tank.

Inverts- I added a small clean up crew that included a Tuxedo Urchin, Strawberry Conch, Pods, Nassarius Snails, and Ceriths. I went small and have under 15 snails in the tank for now. I plan on expanding when I have had a chance to see how clean the tank is with their help. The urchin is pretty neat, but my favorite so far has been the Conch. I did not realize they could jump. Surprised me pretty good when I was cleaning the sand bed.

Water Parameters- I have been struggling to maintain Nitrate levels above 5ppm. I have been intentionally overfeeding to keep this up but am not sure if this is feasible long term. Ideally I am shooting for 10ppm Nitrate and have a doser on standby for Vodka (Carbon) dosing once I have too much nutrients. I also had some temerature issues during the day so I bought 2 pc fans for the sump which helped about -2F. My diatoms are clearning up, and I am currently dealing with algea and tying to avoid cyno. I am setting up 3 dosers to do my work for me, one for Kalkwasser that will help with the basics and PH every night, once will dose All for reef to add adittional levels that my Kalkwasser cannot, and another for Carbon dosing once I need it (most likely once I have all 12 fish). I am also in the process of raising my Alkalinity to 9.5 as it bottomed out around 6.5 before I started dosing myself.

Budget- I had originally set a budget of $3000 for this entire build, and man how the little things add up. There is still a chance that I get to 2 years without going over, but if anything breaks or goes wrong (it probably will) I will go over. Here is where I currently stand for those following along. If you see equipment not listed here or have questions about the individual equipment just ask!
$1785 for everything that came earlier.
$160 for more corals
$100 for CuC and pods
$440 for Fish
$60 for 2 head doser and 2L containers
$65 for LED Actinic Light( this thing puts out 300 PAR!! )
$20 Misc odds and ends, 5 gallon water container

$2,630 Total spent so far... ouch. Going to be tough to get 20 more coral and 6 more fish for less than $400

Considering this is your first marine tank, what is your previous experience with aquatic ecosystem. Your methodology is quite detailed.

Because I only Read your original post, I may have missed those details. I have a few general thoughts.

When you started adding SPS, due to their demands for alkalinity management, you brought your cost up.

Yes, at times, I use ammonia dosing to feed supplementally. When I dose, I have added as much as 10ml per 25G of tank water. With a 25 year mature tank, I don’t see the ammonia. I see evidence of direct feeding by both corals and anemones.

 

[DIFish]

Considering this is your first marine tank, what is your previous experience with aquatic ecosystem. Your methodology is quite detailed.

Because I only Read your original post, I may have missed those details. I have a few general thoughts.

When you started adding SPS, due to their demands for alkalinity management, you brought your cost up.

Yes, at times, I use ammonia dosing to feed supplementally. When I dose, I have added as much as 10ml per 25G of tank water. With a 25 year mature tank, I don’t see the ammonia. I see evidence of direct feeding by both corals and anemones.

Yes I am new to saltwater but have always wanted one just never had the resources or time, Freshwater had a few 55g and smaller tanks growing up, but jumped head first into a 600g plywood stingray/Arowana budget build back in 2018. (Not sure if I can link but under the same name on MFK) Learned a lot about keeping more finicky freshwater species, and building tanks/filtration systems as everything was DIY from scratch. Am still a bit surprised that people toss in rocks and call it a day for biological filtration in saltwater where as the freshwater monster tanks are extremely detailed in biological filtration methods. For example we ran a fluidized bed on the tank and had to calculate how much media we would need based on aquaculture talapia farming and total ammonia turnover rates. Essentially knowing how much your tank can process in terms of total ammonia as the fish you have are easily 5+ pounds. I don’t plan on dosing ammonia long term but just until my fish can produce enough to keep me stable.

 

[Subsea]

Interesting about your 600G plywood tank. Five years ago I built 20’ by 40’ greenhouse with 8000G plywood tank and eight 150G Rubbermaid stock tanks. It’s empty now because of heating expense for water in winter.

Your focus on maximizing ammonia processing is very interesting. From my experience with reef fish in captivity, it is not good to crowd them. Stress between fish can not be measured but it will upset stability.

 

[DIFish]

Interesting about your 600G plywood tank. Five years ago I built 20’ by 40’ greenhouse with 8000G plywood tank and eight 150G Rubbermaid stock tanks. It’s empty now because of heating expense for water in winter.

Your focus on maximizing ammonia processing is very interesting. From my experience with reef fish in captivity, it is not good to crowd them. Stress between fish can not be measured but it will upset stability.

8000g?! That is absolutely massive and I cannot even begin to imagine the upkeep on that system….
Yes if if there was a reset button there are many things I would have done different with that tank. Having a massive predator was awesome… until it got to be over 2 feet long, stressed every other fish in the tank out, caused multiple fish deaths, and was nearly impossible to re-home because nobody had the space or wanted that mess. Unfortunately I was a bit more focused on the numbers for that build and did not give as much thought into the long term stressors and other harder to measure things.

Trying to do things a bit different with saltwater this time around. Not trying to crowd my reef tank and hope I do not give off the wrong impression about the purpose of this build. Attempting to be very careful with my stocking list and cycling methods, but also wanted to get everything going quickly. I know nothing good happens quickly, but I do think you can skip a lot of the wait if you have a plan prepared and are paying close attention to the tank 24/7. My ultimate goal is healthy fish/corals and long term stability, and I will do just about anything to get there as safely as possible. The current ammonia focus is mostly just for me as in the freshwater tank with a huge bio load it was very important, and now that my saltwater tank is cycled it almost does not even matter and there are other parameters to care about. Will continue to watch it while I am dosing ammonia, but once my low nutrient problems are solved I will hopefully never test it again!

 

[DIFish]

2 Month Update-
2 Months in and things are going okay. Fish are all doing great. No issues at all and am waiting for my next shipment from an online vendor. I am sure this is pretty common but they are causing me no issues and seem as happy as can be, if only I could say the same about coral. For about a week after my 1 month update everything looking great. Diatoms had vanished, algae disappeared, and all corals looked happy. Then I found out the reason my tank looked so clean was due to my Phosphate and Nitrate being 0. Saw some Dino’s forming and my corals, especially softies we’re looking pretty rough, so I started dosing ammonia, aminos, and phosphate to bring everything up. I have succeeded in bringing up phosphates and my corals were looking better, but then the GHA has started. Over the last 10 days Algae has taken over everything, and no matter how much I dose I cannot seem to get my nitrate to come off of 0. At this point I am dosing my tank to almost 1.5ppm ammonia daily. I feel like everything I am feeding to the tank is just boosting Algea growth and the corals are now in a low nutrient system and being smothered by excess algea. I have not lost anything yet as I have been doing aggressive manual algae cleanup, but I can tell that some of my SPS have started bleaching. Not sure if I should cut all the dosing and let nutrients bottom long enough to kill the algae, or stay the course and keep manually removing it. I definitely feel like the bulk of this problem can be attributed to the tank being too new, but I still am enjoying having corals more than I would just having an empty tank at this point so I have no regrets. If anyone has advice for how to rid algae while raising nutrients I am definitely interested in hearing it. No plans to add more corals as I just need the frags to grow out, and after my fish order eventually comes in I won’t be making in major changes to the tank.