Advice welcomed, here’s my setup

[nomad6]

Need some advice, this tank is a 20 gal WB cube mixed reef(to include acros), high demand and heavily stocked. Livestock include mandarin, Molly, fire shrimp, rainbow nem, and small cleanup crew. Using RS pro
my parameters are:
Alk: 8.5 (raising it to low-mid 9s)
Ca: 460
Mg:1500
No3: 8
Po4: .04
Ph: 8 low point
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 77.9~78.4
Running ROX carbon, uv (3 hrs/ night) skimmer (5 hrs/ night) and started dosing ab+, reef plus, and reef trace on alternating days. Supplementing for major elements, and 10% weekly ( changing to once/ 2 wks soon) and running a fuge with caulerpa and dragon’s breath in middle chamber (4x3”) illuminated by a Fluval planted nano. (Will be upgrading to submersible light soon in the 660nm spectrum and will be running it at night ~4hrs depending on nutrients)

Feeding:
Corals: rotifers, live phyto, zooplankton,reef plus, ab+, frozen copepods
Fish: marine cuisine, copepods with selcon

My lighting:
Kessil a160x 4” from surface at 80% max intensity 5% color 90% violets max (thinking of slapping my a360x but don’t want to burn anything)

Reefbrite actinic lumilite pro 18”: running one channel at 40% and the other at 20%. I have another lumilite pro 50/50 that I’m waiting for parts for mounting. I will raise lights to 5~7” roughly and working on getting a par meter from lfs.

Dc return pump @ roughly 10x turnover working along a hygger wave maker and I’m thinking of adding my maxspect 2k single head mode gyre to add that circular flow.

My question is do you see anything I can modify to make this setup more efficient? Also, just recently purchased some Euphyllia packs and some haven’t fully opened(~5 days in tank) and my torches look a little flaccid (“ultra indo gold” and “neon fade”)first time buying lps online, frammers are doing great, they’re placed in a low-moderate flow area with moderate lighting directly under my reefbrite strip. There’s nothing around them that could be bothering them. I’m working on my dosing pump setup (alk, ca, mg, trace, iodide, no3, po4, and possibly aminos) as this is a high demand tank. Any advice is appreciated and welcomed and yea bigger tank is definitely in the works! The pictures below are current but I’m still placing them in other places (waiting on parts, mounting equipment for lights and some 1/2” loclines to redirect flow to accommodate everything. TIA!

 

[MnFish1]

Nice tank. You may have a bit too much going on 'under the hood' so to speak - but if it isn't broken, don't fix it. Did you have a specific question>

 

[mdb_talon]

Also, just recently purchased some Euphyllia packs and some haven’t fully opened(~5 days in tank) and my torches look a little flaccid (“ultra indo gold” and “neon fade”)first time buying lps online, frammers are doing great, they’re placed in a low-moderate flow area with moderate lighting directly under my reefbrite strip.

Just based off your description my first guess with your torches seeming a bit "flaccid" would be lack of flow. Torches generally like a good amount of flow....usually much more flow than is appropriate for hammers or frogspawn.

 

[nomad6]

Nice tank. You may have a bit too much going on 'under the hood' so to speak - but if it isn't broken, don't fix it. Did you have a specific question>

Just wanted some input from the community to see where I can improve, maybe someone can offer tips and advice, what to look out for or plan for.

 

[nomad6]

Just based off your description my first guess with your torches seeming a bit "flaccid" would be lack of flow. Torches generally like a good amount of flow....usually much more flow than is appropriate for hammers or frogspawn.

My indo gold torch is getting hammered with the most flow out of all my frags. Tentacles are just flopped over, I don’t get it… I’ve got a bigger torch in the back waving real nice but these indo torches don’t seem to want to inflate, ramping up my lights slowly to see if it helps but if you can offer some insight im all ears

 

[Dburr1014]

Personally, I would not raise alk with your nutrients.

Also, have you tried to direct flow to bounce it off the wall first? Breaks it up a lot and makes it chaotic.

 

[nomad6]

Personally, I would not raise alk with your nutrients.

Also, have you tried to direct flow to bounce it off the wall first? Breaks it up a lot and makes it chaotic.

I have cross directional random flow. Pulsing return and fast sine wave mode on wave maker it’s getting good flow. I’m planning to add a single head maxspect 2k gyre to help with flow/dead spots. My goal is ~9.8 dKH and ~430 Ca to have them balanced, using RS PRO but switching to blue bucket. I still have a big bucket left. My reason for a 9.8dKH is because winter is coming, I don’t plan on leaving my window open 24/7, ph will be (hopefully) more stable above 8~8.1 low point. If all else fails I will raise them in conjunction to meet the elevated levels of co2. Could not get my ph above 7.9~8 for the longest time, it is a nano so I’m sure it saturates quicker. Nutrients will be raised with neophos/ nitro .05~.1 ppm PO4 10-15 ppm NO3 as I raise alkalinity and thank you for reminding me. I almost have everything dialed in and will start using a dosing pump soon. Manual dosing is for the birds!!!