Review of my system that could be wrong?

[Dilan Patel]

Ok so here is my predicament. I have two tanks. a 180 gallon with a 40 gallon sump and a 55 gallon non drilled tank. Both are mixed reefs. My previous threads have a trend of me wanting to get color and PE because mine has been lacking. So one thin I have done was do a red bug treatment on both tanks. It has seemed to help finished this last week. Then I removed all fish that were mot reef safe such as lemonpeel angel and flame angel. That also improved some. I improved my flow by ditching cheap powerheads and upgrading to gyres xf2540's for both tanks. The 180 runs 3 sb reef lights with 50% intensity on both color channels. It also now runs tow 5ft t5 bulbs to help with shadowing. I use ATi bulbs blue. It has a skimz skimmer external. Running now carbon or GFO on either tanks. I auto dose the red sea color program. I use BRS 2 part for alk and calc and those are dosed 38ml a dayand mag is dosed 8ml a day(does have to be raised in dossages just trying to calculate it). Acropower dosed everyday at 16ml. Color prgram dosed 1ml every other day. I feed LFS food nori daily and 3 times pellet food on autoatic feeder.

180 Stats
Nitrate=5
Salinity 1.024
Alk=10.5
Calc=374
Mag =1350
Phosphatre=.25
potassium=around 446
iodine=.06
iron=0 (never checked right after I dosed)
The trace elements tested was done using red sea kit and dosed witht he red sea color program. Mag is tested with salifert and salinity with a hydrometer and alk and calc and phos with hannah checkers. Nitrate witth he red sea test kit.

Fish list
clown tang
yellow tang
kole tang
4 green chromis
purple pseuochromis
3 clownfish
melanarus wrasse
(do I need more fish to feed the coral)

55gallon
runs two kessil a160 peaking at 90% intensity and 50% color. Run two t5's to get rid of shadowing. Run a hob reef octupus 2000 and flow is created by one gyre xf250 maxing at 50% pulse. Do not run Gfo and carbon. Dose all the same as the 180 but in lower quantities. Alk and calc dosed 10ml a day. Mag is dosed at 4ml a day. Had been dosing 1ml of coral color every 5 days. Now have stopped that to experiment with my first water changes instead. Dosing 4ml of acropower a day. I feed reef roids almost daily to keep nutrients up. I feed LFS food nori daily and 3 times pellet food on autoatic feeder.

55gallon stats
Nitrate=2( raising slowly to 5)
Salinity=1.023 (raising it slowly)
Alk=9.52
Calc=416
Mag=1440
Phosphate= .1
Potassium=446
Iodine=.06
Iron=0(same reason above)
I try to keep both tanks the same as far as chemistry as you can see.

Fish:
foxface
melanarus wrasse
2 black clarki clownfish
(do I need more)

Ok So I am very sorry for making you read this but I am hoping now that I have told what the tanks are functioning as we as a community can hlp me figure this coral stuff out. Please look at chemistry of both tanks and any o f the info provided and examine what im doing. I take harsh critisizim and would love some right about now because I am at a dead end. Thanks so much. The small improvements I have seen have made my day but still trying to improve it. If you would lie to see the color/PE of some of my acros in the 55gallon I posted camera pics in a thread I called first waterchange or something like that that shows some nice photos. Well any advice is awesome. Again sorry for the long and repetitive posts.

 

[Killer Karma]

Couldnt find the pics but im wondering are your corals not colored or just not poping like you see in some pictures? If so all or most of the pics you see of fabulously colored corals have some sort of filter or post picture editing. Please post a pic or two of the corals you beleive are under colored and the community can respond if they are normal

 

[Dilan Patel]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...cided-to-perform-my-first-waterchange.318207/

There is the link to view some of the photos. The photos that are in blue light were taken by my phone camera while the white light photos were taken with a dslr. If the link does not work I can repost those photos. But as you can observe the color and PE are lacking. Some of the colors have improved but most idk what they are supposed to look like since I bought a bundle of corals from a big vendor. Hope this helps.

 

[Killer Karma]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...cided-to-perform-my-first-waterchange.318207/

There is the link to view some of the photos. The photos that are in blue light were taken by my phone camera while the white light photos were taken with a dslr. If the link does not work I can repost those photos. But as you can observe the color and PE are lacking. Some of the colors have improved but most idk what they are supposed to look like since I bought a bundle of corals from a big vendor. Hope this helps.

Everything looks good to me, especially the acans. If you want that "glow" in your pictures you need a lens filter or use a post picture editing program

 

[Dilan Patel]

Everything looks good to me, especially the acans. If you want that "glow" in your pictures you need a lens filter or use a post picture editing program

What about the polyp extension. The 55gallon has better polyp extension than the 180 though.

 

[Killer Karma]

What about the polyp extension. The 55gallon has better polyp extension than the 180 though.

Many of the corals showed fine polyp extension, just a few of the sps corals didn't seem to be extending. If they never extend it would probably be due to flow. You could try target basting them with some oyster mag or something similar and see if you cant elicit a feeding response.