What’s wrong with my tank?

[bondno9]

It will be about 5 months since I’ve had this tank up and running and I’m running into some issues and would love some input from the community.

Tank is a 40 gallon aio cube. I only have a filter floss, chemi pure, live rock and sand as my media filtration. Also run a uv sterilizer every night for 3 hours.

My water parameters are: (can’t test for mag and cal)

Nitrate - 1.8
Phosphate - 0.08
Alkalinity - 9.5
pH - 8.01

Live stock:
Pair of clowns
Royal gramma
Mandarin dragonet
Fire shrimp
Clean up crew
LPS/ soft corals

For the past 4-6 weeks my frammer, hammer, torches got retracted and swollen. My favia is all spiny and weird. Not sure what to do and would appreciate any help.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

My first thought is ether flow too high or too low, or lights are too high or too low. Can you share more about your lights, type and intensity, and how is the flow?

 

[bondno9]

My first thought is ether flow too high or too low, or lights are too high or too low. Can you share more about your lights, type and intensity, and how is the flow?

I have the nicrew 100w. Running 20% white and 50% blue for 5 hours. I just turned it down from 8 hours. That’s at its highest peak and it starts at 11 am and then at 4 pm I lower the whites a lot and it stays like that until 11pm.

My wavemaker is set to 30% at its lowest.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I would suggest to turn up both the lights and flow.

I have the nicrew 100 watt on a 32 gallon set at 75% for 12 hours.

My 40 gallon has 2 gyres running at 50% with lps, sps, and clams.

I think you are underestimating how much light and flow corals like.

Your nitrates are also very low in my opinion.

Good luck

 

[Lavey29]

I agree with the above and you have beginning stage dinos on your sand it appears. The first year with a tank is the most challenging and euphyllia are difficult to sustain during this period.