All SPS unhappy...I'm lost

ps2cho

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So Im getting some STN on a few of my frags and I don't understand why. The other frags polyps are closed up. Heck even my meteor shower's polyps are closed. That thing has always been happy even if the others weren't. Digi's are closed too.

Tank has been running 6 months.
1.025
79F
9.0 alk
420 ca
1290 mg
0 nitrate
0 po4

Everything has been stable for a while. Maybe a few alk spikes from 9 to 10 once or twice right after a new salt bucket, but that hasn't happened recently. I do 15% water changes weekly with regular IO.
I am keeping up with the alk and ca with kalk in the ATO. I do a small drop of vinegar in each gallon that I mix also.

I have been doing GFO in a reactor for about 5 weeks now, but I still have red carpet algae on the sand bed, so I obviously have phosphates. I'm not sure if its related, but part of my sand bed started getting all chunky a few weeks ago. Kinda cemented itself in 1" clumps. Only on one corner though and it hasn't continued. Maybe it was when the alk spiked the one time?

Why am I not being successful here?
 
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Pete polyp

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If your sand turned into clumps of cement than it could be low Ph
 

hybridazn

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If you just started dosing this is a pretty common occurrence for the sand bed to clump up, nothing to be worried about imo. But the stn could be caused by unstable ph swings. What is your ph at btw?
 

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I would stop the GFO first thing. I would also feed the tank a bit more. You really dont want ZERO for p04 and n03. Your corals will starve, which may be why they are stressed now,

Then I would dose some microbacter7 or microbe lift special blend to beat off the slime algae.
 
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ps2cho

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hows the clarity of the water?

I wouldn't say its crystal clear, but its not cloudy by any means.

If your sand turned into clumps of cement than it could be low Ph

pH is fine...8.05 at night, 8.25 day. probe was calibrated to solution 2 months ago.

I'm curious, what sand do you have?

A mix of Caribsea live sand and Caribsea aragonite (CaribSea Aragonite Aquarium Sand at PETCO)

I would stop the GFO first thing. I would also feed the tank a bit more. You really dont want ZERO for p04 and n03. Your corals will starve, which may be why they are stressed now,

Then I would dose some microbacter7 or microbe lift special blend to beat off the slime algae.

Are you sure the po4 isn't just locked up in the algae?? here's a photo of the algae
algaejuly4.jpg


I have seachem reef plus...its an amino blend. what about that?
 
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deerhunter06

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what kind of lights you running? any sign of aefw? or acro crabs? how bout flow? debris on your sps will ruin them in a hurry. also how where is the stn starting from the base?
 
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ps2cho

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Starting from the base on two of them.

Reefbreeders Value LED at 50%.

No bugs or anything I QT'd every coral. Flow is 60x turnover with two WP-25's.
 

Touring

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im not going to say its the leds but when i initially got leds the growth was great..... then..... it didnt do so good .you should have coraline growth. your parameters look fine.
 

Touring

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looks like you have 2 bad things going on from those pics. diatom bloom on rocks and purple stuff on sand.... hows your flow and cuc?
 
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ps2cho

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The brown diatoms have been there for 5 months now... The red algae on the sand bed started 1 month ago.

I'm just lost on what to do here.

My clean up crew is 5 margarita snails 3 turbos a dozen nerites and a ton of the small Florida nerites.

I have plenty of flow 60x turnover. It's almost at sand blowing flow I turned the wp25s down just enough
 
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TUSI

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The tank is to young for SPS corals. The tank is still going through swings. You haven't reached saturation yet. Your magnesium is low start raising that slowly and you will see a difference
 
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TUSI

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I would stop the GFO first thing. I would also feed the tank a bit more. You really dont want ZERO for p04 and n03. Your corals will starve, which may be why they are stressed now,

Then I would dose some microbacter7 or microbe lift special blend to beat off the slime algae.

+1 agreed
 

Ike

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What are you testing your PO4 with?
 
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ps2cho

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Salifert test kit.

I will lower one of my wp25s so to get more flow in the middle.

Isn't my po4 and no3 zero because of the algae though?
 
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