Nuvo 20 SPS Dominated Nano Reef Tank - My First Attempt at Reefing

[sotoreef]

SPS is not happy in the tank, especially the forest fire digitata. It started to RTN and have bugs on them, I think its amphipod, but not so sure. All other montis show no sign of growth. The bali shortcake acro has no polyp extension but the colour is still there. Checked my parameters, nitrate and phosphate are off the charts!

Alkalinity: 8.1 dkH (HC dKH)
Nitrate: 25 ppm (Nyos)
Phosphate: 139 ppb or 0.426 ppm (HC Phosphorus ULR)

I checked the phosphate 2 times, but the result is the same, only differ 3 ppb.

Factors may contribute to this high readings:

1.
My friend actually gave me half of the fresh saltwater when started the tank, which may have high nitrate and phosphate. The other half saltwater I mixed it myself using RODI water from LFS.

2.
I top up water in the ATO container using RO water.

Life get too busy and I do not have time to go to LFS to pickup more RODI water. So I can only do small water change and start dosing AF nitraphos minus, 1.5ml daily.

 

[sotoreef]

Bugs on my forest fire which started to RTN. Can someone identify them for me? Is it amphipods?

 

[sotoreef]

I noticed my SPS color becomes pale. Red/Orange/Green monticap used to be so vibrant. Plus there is a lot of green algae on the glass and its hard to remove (I used cheap magnetic cleaner which has no blade). Suspect all of this issue because of the high phosphate and nitrate.

Currently use Nitraphos Minus (carbon dosing) daily and I will test again next weekend to see the nitrate and phosphate level. Hopefully it will come down, otherwise, need to use GFO combine with carbon dosing.

 

[AnotherReefHobbyist]

Bugs on my forest fire which started to RTN. Can someone identify them for me? Is it amphipods?

I would post this in a emergency or ID thread, as you probably wont get to much help on a build thread.

 

[NanoJHB]

Any updates ?

 

[Alex's Nano Reef]

Time to follow. This tank looks amazing i got the exact same one. Go find a par meter you can borrow and map out your tank it will help immensely especially in these tanks. higher end lights will sometimes give you problems with spread in my tank i got a kessil a360w and one half of my tank receives 70 Par the other half receives 120