I'm depressed with the progress of my tank... What's going on???

[ScottB]

Thanks for the link; I've watched it before and will watch it again. The slide image pasted below has a typo for the phosphate goal, it should read .05. It shows the range as .03 - .07

I test every 3-5 days my ALK, NO3, PO4. Mag maybe once a month. That is all I need to know. Visuals and APEX tell me the rest.
You will need a Hanna Phosphate checker to get this kind of low range measure. Make sure the cuvettes are SPOTLESS with no finger print smudges. I wear nitrile gloves. I prefer Red Sea for Nitrates at low range.

I dose ESV two part to keep ALK at 8-8.5. It works for me, and has the added benefit that all of the coral vendors I deal with run roughly the same ALK. Plus I have very strong PAR and nutrients I work to keep at 3-5 NO3 and .04 to .07 PO4 depending on which system (frag or DT).

I think your hybrid light choice is solid for that size and find T5 light to be super forgiving. Will never reef without T5 again.

 

[Phyber]

UPDATE

I got my refractometer in, calibrated it against my RODI water and on the first try it was spot on for 1.026 which is what I had aimed for.

I also got my Brightwell Aminos in, and have dosed 25 drops a day the last few days. My eyes want to see a little better color and more PE but I'm not sure.

I've still been feeding heavy, with my skimmer off, and tonight my nitrate was still basically undetectable. I'm not sure what I'm to do now :/

 

[Scdell]

UPDATE

I got my refractometer in, calibrated it against my RODI water and on the first try it was spot on for 1.026 which is what I had aimed for.

I also got my Brightwell Aminos in, and have dosed 25 drops a day the last few days. My eyes want to see a little better color and more PE but I'm not sure.

I've still been feeding heavy, with my skimmer off, and tonight my nitrate was still basically undetectable. I'm not sure what I'm to do now :/

Keep doing what your doing. You are obviously seeing some nitrates. That's what you want. Are you testing for phosphate? If so, what are those #'s?

 

[Phyber]

Keep doing what your doing. You are obviously seeing some nitrates. That's what you want. Are you testing for phosphate? If so, what are those #'s?

I'll be honest, with my nitrate kit idk if I'm really seeing something or not. It's barely, barely a pink color when viewed sideways. The instructions say to use 1ml of water which doesn't seem like enough in the vial to really look at.

I've never seen a phosphate reading yet. Still crystal clear.

I see a bit of brown / yellow mulm on some of the low flow sand area, and a dusting every day on the glass but no other signs of nutrients.

 

[Scdell]

I'll be honest, with my nitrate kit idk if I'm really seeing something or not. It's barely, barely a pink color when viewed sideways. The instructions say to use 1ml of water which doesn't seem like enough in the vial to really look at.

I've never seen a phosphate reading yet. Still crystal clear.

I see a bit of brown / yellow mulm on some of the low flow sand area, and a dusting every day on the glass but no other signs of nutrients.

You took the carbon and the filter socks out?

 

[Scdell]

You took the carbon and the filter socks out?

Add more fish.

 

[Phyber]

You took the carbon and the filter socks out?

Carbon is still out but I never stopped socks, I wanted to try and keep some clarity. I just wring them out and rinse in the sink, no deep cleaning.

 

[Phyber]

Add more fish.

This 65g has three clowns, a banggai, a firefish, and larger yellow tang. I still need more?

 

[Scdell]

Carbon is still out but I never stopped socks, I wanted to try and keep some clarity. I just wring them out and rinse in the sink, no deep cleaning.

Take the socks out. If that doesn't do it add more fish. Another 3 or 4.

 

[Scdell]

This 65g has three clowns, a banggai, a firefish, and larger yellow tang. I still need more?

That's not a big bioload for that tank.

 

[reeffreak911]

By reading too much advice you'll end up in the same hole corals dying just leave the tank alone

 

[Phyber]

By reading too much advice you'll end up in the same hole corals dying just leave the tank alone

Very true! My thought process on tank husbandry was "do more to keep waste and algae away" and that a reading of nitrate was bad. Now it seems that's incorrect and you want *some* waste.

I don't have any local reefers to buddy up with and compare setups so viewing online is all I got, and photos are all so inconsistent with light levels, setups, etc.

 

[reeffreak911]

Very true! My thought process on tank husbandry was "do more to keep waste and algae away" and that a reading of nitrate was bad. Now it seems that's incorrect and you want *some* waste.

I don't have any local reefers to buddy up with and compare setups so viewing online is all I got, and photos are all so inconsistent with light levels, setups, etc.

You'll go nuts reading trying out new things is good by trial and error not everything is good for every system what works for one system might not work for you that's why you get comments pulling you in different directions example I had a nano I could grow huge colonies of zoas but I couldn't keep mushrooms alive now I have a 65 gal tank and doing the same exact things I did with the nano and I can barely keep zoas alive but my mushrooms are thriving

 

[Justin Aretz]

Just my 2 cents.....this major change is not the solution either. Slow and steady wins the race, and slow with a reef tank means months. You’re most likely going to have a spike in nuisance algae as you are dirtying your tank very quickly and NA is highly opportunistic. The reason we go slow is to allow for the beneficial organisms, which are usually the trickier to get to thrive, to catch up to what you’re doing. I also suggest adding pods at this time, and multiple difference species/lineages.

In regards to your skimmer, don’t turn it off. Just remove the collection cup. I like to leave the collection cup off for 12 ish hours after A feed to let the food saturate. That is how I build up nutrients. After, 12 or even 24 hours later, I put my cup back on and still pull nearly black Skimmate. You can see this for yourself. I would bet money that your pH is dropping with your skimmer off completely. This won’t help you in any way.

 

[JohnMzreef]

your nutrients are too low. Nutrient removal is overemphasized in this hobby (selling nutrient removing items makes $$). Get yourself some good test kits and some neophos/neonitrate (or whatever). Test your water weekly and maintain measurable levels. I think you will notice a difference within one week.
Also, you may need to turn down your lighting to make zoanthids happy.