This is going to be long but....
No mechanical filtration just a decent size refugium with a mix of ulva and Chaeto. Ulva just cycles through effectively as food my tang. 90g tank with a 20long sump.about 4" on either end for incoming and return. Middle section is 50% chamber of rock and the other is the algae section fuge.
20years off and on in the hobby, current system is 5 but had a bad crash from a power outage back in July.
I've always had pretty good luck just eyeballing and running GFO if things look like algae is coming, water changes if things look off, and only ever really monitoring dKH. I've added way more Acropora than I ever had before and trying to do a mixed reef like I usually do but more acropora dominate. In doing so I decided to become a bit more diligent and have found that my "eyeballing it" parameters have the nitrates at 0, and phosphate 0.03 fairly consistently. Dkh 9.3(Salifert an ICP) calcium low 400s(Salifert), ph swing daily but 8.0-8.31(hydros probe) being the typical swing.
Stock list is
1 coral beauties
2 orchid dottyback(pretty small Biota babies)
2 Pavo Damsels
2 clowns
1 yellow tang
1 mandarin
I have typically stocked this level of fish or fewer over the years and fed 1 to 1-1/2 small frozen cubes. I'm finding myself now throwing minimum 2 cubes and 10-15ish medium TDO chromaboost pellets and nitrates stay at zero. This is spread out through the day half a cube at a time with pellets all at once typically since I luckily run a business out of my house.
The fish are total fatasses with big ol bellies most of the day, clowns and dottybacks especially.
I wouldn't really care as aside as pretty much all corals look great. Mostly stuck to old classics. However the TSA Maleficent and the JF Fox Flame acro lost quite a bit of color since purchasing. The only thing that makes sense to me is nutrients being bottomed out. The maleficent is showing growth after only being in the system for a few weeks even but the colors on those two just isn't what it was when purchased. The blue on the GARF bonsai is deep and bright, Green Slimer looks amazing, PC rainbow great, etc. just those two are off.
