SPS dominated MP130

[hardmermaid]

Hi,

I've been thinking about starting this thread for a while but thinking and doing are different things. I recently got back in the hobby after 9ish years out of it. This tank has been up since last November. I figured it would be a good idea to start a build bread to ask questions/suggestions and not start new threads.

Tank: Eshopps 130mp
Lighting: Reefbreeders Meridian & 2 edge bar
Flow: 2 MP40s & 2 Tunze Nanostream 6045s
Return pump: Eheim 1260
Skimmer: Reef Octopus Classic-150 INT (from anther tank several years ago)
Rock: 90% man made and 10% from TBS
ATO: tunza
Doser: Simplicity
Fish: 4 chromis, 8 anthias, 1 baby yellow tang.

My fish are really happy. My corals are doing soso. I've really struggled with low nutrients and getting the correct light settings. Nitrates and phosphates go to zero and I'm currently dosing Neonitro and Neophos. I will dose microbacter 7 occasionally but I don't think this causes things to go to 0 ? I've also had a hard time getting used to LEDs. Nothing against the meridians but I really miss t5s. I'm finishing up a dosing of fluconazole for bryopsis/gha and it seemed to work pretty well. Maybe some snail died as a result and my alkalinity stopped going down. My nitrates/phosphates did not spike and I still dose. Going to do a big water change and add carbon later this week. I'm surprised I had a gha outbreak since my nutrients have always been low. Maybe just prone to it because of the man made rock. I was also out of town for two weeks when it started getting bad so I decided it was a good time to treat the bryopsis.

I will post pictures soon from the beginning.

 

[Baldyreef]

excited to see pics!

 

[hardmermaid]

Edit: pictures from starting the lank last November/December

 

[Baldyreef]

Nice rock scape and adorable dog!!

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Christmas in October?!

 

[hardmermaid]

Christmas in October?!

hahah I’m all for that but I started this tank last November/Decemeber and will be doing an accelerated summary from the start. I should of made that more clear

 

[hardmermaid]

Looking for some opinions/help with some of my sps and tank parameters. Especially my lights. I have a lot of experience with t5s and halides but struggle with LEDs. A handful of my new sps have really declined ever since getting them and look pale imo. They all came from high par tanks and had good PE and color when I got them but slowly declined. Some SPS look great and have great PE.

I did have about two weeks of 0 or near 0 nitrates and phosphates as well as an alkalinity spike of 9 during that time but the decline started before that during a fluconazole treatment while out of town

For the last 4 weeks everything has been stable at:
Salinity 1.026
Alkalinity 8
Calcium 440
Phosphate 0.08-0.12
Magnesium 1350
Nitrates 8-12

I am dosing neonitro and neophos.

I have the meridian shallow reef with two edge bars. I’m currently running them pretty low and will be ramping them up over the next month. My par readings are currently 150 with the VBR aqua meter. With the correction of x1.4=210. They had been running at 300 with the correction for the last several months. I feel like my lower SPS overall seem more happy.

I just ordered an ICP test. It will likely be a few weeks for getting the results.

Does anyone have any opinions on how I should proceed with my tank? Should I crank up the lights faster? Included some pictures. 3rd picture is mostly of what I’m talking about.

 

[X-37B]

Not enough light turn it up.
I run 2 photon 50's on my 60×30×21.
250 par on the bottom. 400+ on the top of the rocks.