Need opinion. Chase these numbers down or let them ride?

[b4tn]

I’m not sure if I should keep doing what I am doing or take steps to lower N and P like reduce feeding, additives, or carbon dosing. It’s a mixed reef about 5 months old now. I have a mixing station and top off water and salt water tests good. Theses are current in tank levels.

Salinity is 35 ppt
Mag 1450
Alk 8.9
Peak ph is 8.3 and night is 8
NO3 is just above 16 ppm
PO4 is just above .16

my algae scrubber is pretty much maxed out in intensity and duration I don’t really want to turn it up any higher.. It’s running 20 hours right now. I’m scraping one side a week. the left side is one week of growth and the right side is 2 weeks

I have no nuisance algae in the display. I have a heavy cleanup crew that keeps it clean and I have to scrape the glass once every 3-4 days.

So my LPS and Nem look amazing! My SPS is 50/50 some look great some look meh. These are pics of the better looking ones.

So should I take further steps to lower N and P? Or should I let it ride?

 

[Colin_S]

nitrate lower than 20 should be fine, po4 is a bit High. have you tested previously? if so whats the trend. is it lowering or increasing? if it were me and the levels were slightly lowering week on week, I would leave it. you have a clean stable healthy tank. stable & consistent is key. if they are rising then you might want to monitor it and take action.
how long do you run the lights on your ATS. upto 16 hrs people run there's for

 

[b4tn]

nitrate lower than 20 should be fine, po4 is a bit High. have you tested previously? if so whats the trend. is it lowering or increasing? if it were me and the levels were slightly lowering week on week, I would leave it. you have a clean stable healthy tank. stable & consistent is key. if they are rising then you might want to monitor it and take action.
how long do you run the lights on your ATS. upto 16 hrs people run there's for

Thanks. I was testing every few weeks and it would hover around .08 and 12. I went several weeks without testing and last week tested PO4 and it was .36. I did a large water change and turned up the scrubber and it dropped to right about where it is now. I have been testing daily and it has stayed not going lower or higher. Right now I’m running the ATS at 20 hours. The tank is still so young I don’t want to start chasing numbers.

 

[sde1500]

I wouldn’t be worried about those numbers. Especially if everything is colorful and growing. If what you’re doing keeps it stable then I’d say stick to that.

 

[b4tn]

I wouldn’t be worried about those numbers. Especially if everything is colorful and growing. If what you’re doing keeps it stable then I’d say stick to that.

It’s 50/50. Some SPS are not doing great but others are thriving so I don’t know lol

 

[BobbyOtto]

I'd keep it steady and keep doing what your doing. Nothing has died, good color, some PE. You'll go crazy trying to chase numbers. Sometimes some corals take longer to start going then others.

 

[ahiggins]

Agreed. Don’t chase numbers. If it was mine, I would try to decrease or wash “dirty” food sources before feeding. Seems like you have a great nutrient OUTput, just need to narrow down the INput a bit

 

[Big E]

I probably wouldn't chase down the nutrients much more for now if some acros are ok. Since your tank is still young it's better to let is just ride and see how things go.

Even though acros will substitute Mg for calcium into ther skeleton if it's more available I'd drop that Mg to normal ocean levels at 1280. This will allow calcium to be incorporated into the acros skeleton vs Mg..............it's a more natural process and could allow for faster calcification of the corals.

Do you know why your Mg is high?

If you're dosing Mg stop.........and let it drop naturally.

The acro picks look ok to me.............if it's the colors you're not happy with I'd focus more on your lights

 

[b4tn]

I probably wouldn't chase down the nutrients much more for now if some acros are ok. Since your tank is still young it's better to let is just ride and see how things go.

Even though acros will substitute Mg for calcium into ther skeleton if it's more available I'd drop that Mg to normal ocean levels at 1280. This will allow calcium to be incorporated into the acros skeleton vs Mg..............it's a more natural process and could allow for faster calcification of the corals.

Do you know why your Mg is high?

If you're dosing Mg stop.........and let it drop naturally.

The acro picks look ok to me.............if it's the colors you're not happy with I'd focus more on your lights

I actually could not be happier with coloration and lighting. I ran a pair of ocean revives for 4 years and this build went with a pair of reefi duo extremes and see colors on corals I didnt know they had lol.

So the reasoning behind my concern is that I feel like I am experienced enough that I know what to do and how to keep things stable. I ran a mixed reef for 4 years (this same one I just started over) but this is my first time with this many SPS. I had maybe 2 or 3 sticks in my last reef and a montipora. Recently several SPS are just not doing well. In the past if an Acro was not doing well it would either STN, RTN, or just turn white. This go around my frags will do tremendously well! I mean completely encrust the base, grow new corralites, then just stop and start slowly fading away. But I have several others that look great. Case in point is the frag below. I put it in and it was still fresh cut I could see superglue. It fully encrusted then just started going south. The picture below are only 2 weeks apart. The pics are backwards its current and then before. The 3 or 4 frags I have lost have all gone the same way.

I keep pretty detailed logs and the only thing that changed is my phosphate snuck up on me. It was at .08 for the longest time and now holding stable at what I guess is around .2

I do not regularly dose mag. I dose BRS 2 part spread throughout the day and after I went through a gallon of 2 part I added magnesium. I brought it up to 1450 from 1300 because My two montiporas where not looking well and read an article some time back that montis like higher magnesium. I bumped the mag after the fact that the frags where not looking well hoping it would bring them back.

 

[danlu_gt]

How often do you test for ALK and nitrate? I have a very large algae scrubber and I noticed my nitrate would swing a bit between cleaning but I clean both sides at the same time. With nitrate swing, I assuming it affects the ALK consumption cause sometimes my doser would result in over and under ALK level.

 

[Big E]

I would still get the Mg back to normal levels.
It's probably not why the acros are dying but it doesn't help running it that high for any corals.

It's very possible you're indicting the nutrient levels and it's not the problem. I'm not a fan of running algae scrubbers with acro dominant systems for many reasons.......they steal nutrients from acros, tend to create limited nitrate situations and also will release some nasties in the water acros don't like.

Are you running carbon?

Have you ever watched Forest Rowher's lecture

 

[Big E]

Honestly, 5 months is awful young from a maturity and bacterial balance standpoint. It may be best to give the system some time to settle since your last set of changes before trying more acros.

Give it at least a couple of months while monitoring the current corals that seem ok.

Another observation from your pics of that frag...........from my perspective it looks bad from the start. It has that dry type look and little to no polyp extension. Just because a coral is encrusting doesn't mean it's healthy.