SPS struggling in 54G Corner

[PPBlimpy]

I am having a hard time with my current tank. Little to no polyp extensions on sps frags. A couple hammers are pulled in too.

SUPER LONG

Tank is a 54G corner with 10G sump

4 different ideas and things i am working on remedying
-Flow issues
-too much light
-nutrients
-critters
or all of the above

Rest of the tank specs/equipment is listed at the bottom. Trying to give all relevant info up front.

Some corals are doing great, newish frags are struggling.

I am not new to a mixed reef with a couple hardy SPS here and there. But this tank is heading toward SPS Dom with some LPS.

Flow-
Being a corner tank flow is a bit tricky.
Return is thru a seaswirl that pans 90* with two 3/4 rgf nozzles. I will be reducing these to 1/2 rfg soon, can not get enough flow thru the sump for the two current nozzles.
The 4 Xstream power heads are fully programmable just having a hard time figuring out how to get the water to move like I want. Will be playing with this more this weekend. I am thinking a nice push/pull motion would be good. surface agitation is not great. I have a small gyro that I may ad to help with surface movement.
I do have some cyano and thinkign it could be from dead spots, going to move things around a bit. pull out on rock that is blocking things.

Lights-
The Noopsyche led ramp up at 10:00am and ramp down at 9pm with 1 hour up and down. I do not have Par for the LED only
The metal halide is a 315W ceramic metal halide. Turns on at 12:00 and off at 4:00pm only running 4 hours peak
Have power setting selectable at 50/75/100/110% of rated. I tested the par via apogee 420x. I run this at 50% and see 450 @ mid tank, 200 @ sandbed and 700+ 1" below surface. These numbers are halide only. I have not tested with Led but I can assume they are at least 100 higher

Nutrients-
The tank had bottomed out nitrates and phos. I only have 1 fish in the tank - an adult Foxface( yes he is to big for the tank and will be returned back to my big tank when I find fish I like for this tank) He was put in to help with a huge GHA outbreak around week 4, the rocks leached phosphates to the tune of .65 in the first month, turned on the ATS and added the fox face a 6 turbo snails and the GHA was gone in a week.
Last testing was 4 days ago
nitrates 1.3
phos .05
alk 9.3
salinity 1.025
temp swings 76.9-78.2.
cal - lost the little spoon

I have been swapping approx 12 oz of water from my big tank that is very high nutrients into this tank daily as a poor mans dosing. I am guessing its the only reason I am seeing anything.

I am still running the ATS but only 4 hours a night reduced from 16hrs a day when I had the high phos and gha.

Critters-
Red Planaria flat worms have found their way into this system( this was before I started mixing the water) I am guessing i mad the mistake of grabbing the wrong turkey baster or something, could also have had eggs on the initial rock I added. I did treat the rocks in flat worm exit but never followed up again a week later.

Pictures are of the corals doing well, video shows the frags I recently got that are struggling

I Apologize for the dirty glass
2 torches are doing ok,
3 out the 5 hammers are doing good- 2 are struggling( wondering if this is flatworm related and will be dipping them this weekend)
giant 8" bugout stylo colony is growing like a weed with good extension,
purple stylo also growing/regrowing with good extension.
red chalice has healed itself since being removed from the big tank.
lepto looks good
purple acro frag and montipora frags looks ok
duncans doing well
gonipora - this thing looked like it was going to die for the past year in my big tank. never extended just looked like a fuzzy rock, moved it to this tank 12 weeks ago and it is extending and showing signs of new growth
there are a couple different mushroom and a small patch of zoa doing well

now I have recently picked up a bunch of frags, will need to look up the names and what they are because I cant remember.
they were all placed very low int he tank - 1" off sand bed on a frag rack. Been in the tank 3 weeks. all look like crap with little to no extension and some are loosing color.

Am I on the right track?


Tank is going on 4 month, 50lbs rock - 35 dry /15 from my big tank.
Tank is a 54G corner with 10G sump,
4" sock
Skimmer rated for 90G
homemade ATS
8k LPH return pump feeding 3/4" seaswirl
Four Sicce Xstreme powerheads

Two Noopsyche k7 IV pro lights running 10hr - traditional heavy blue sps setting
315w Cermic metal halide with 10000k Bulb running 50% power (approx 204 watts) at peak for 4hrs a day.

 

[X-37B]

I had to dose no3 and po4 in my current 112 growout for several weeks. At 5 months now with 3 fish and decent feeding the #'s are no3 2-4, po4, .05.
No need for the turf scrubber at this point.
Lighting may be to strong for some of the coral. I get 100-150+ par from an edge bar. That adds to the 350 par I get from my Halide at 17" on the bottom.
I had to start the corals on the edge and now they can be put directly under the 400.
The noops put out decent par so maybe get a reading and dial it back some.
I like sweeps, Oraca's for flow.
In the 112 it took 3+ months before this system stabilized and started increasing alk useage.
Corals grew but slow.
How is coralline growth? Once mine excelerated grow exploded.

 

[PPBlimpy]

I will pull the frags as far to the side as I can to reduce light.

I am dosing b-ionic 2 part and trying to keep alk between 9.0-9.5

Coraline is growing on black plastic currently. Powerheads etc.

Haven’t noticed any on the rocks yet.

I will dial down the noops.

I have ammonia bicarbonate on order to start dosing.

 

[X-37B]

I will pull the frags as far to the side as I can to reduce light.

I am dosing b-ionic 2 part and trying to keep alk between 9.0-9.5

Coraline is growing on black plastic currently. Powerheads etc.

Haven’t noticed any on the rocks yet.

I will dial down the noops.

I have ammonia bicarbonate on order to start dosing.

Cool. Whats the reason for 9-9.5 alk? I have always prefered 7-8 with a 7.5 target.
Been this way for 8+ now. I have seen no reason to keep alk higher. It just uses more chemistry. The 112 was putting out 6.5 for days as I kept increasing kalk. I have never seen any issues keeping systems close to the average alkalinity of the ocean, 6.5.

How is your ph?
On my 170 I run a carx. Ph was dipping to 7.6 at night. Added Kalk 24/7 and ph is now 7.9- 8 at night an 8.3 during the day.
Growth has been exceptional since the kalk stabilized the ph.

 

[BryanM]

If that's dirty glass I'd like to see clean, as that looks pretty good to me.

I can only guess that lack of nutrients is what had things angry and I would expect things to improve.

 

[PPBlimpy]

Cool. Whats the reason for 9-9.5 alk? I have always prefered 7-8 with a 7.5 target.
Been this way for 8+ now. I have seen no reason to keep alk higher. It just uses more chemistry. The 112 was putting out 6.5 for days as I kept increasing kalk. I have never seen any issues keeping systems close to the average alkalinity of the ocean, 6.5.

How is your ph?
On my 170 I run a carx. Ph was dipping to 7.6 at night. Added Kalk 24/7 and ph is now 7.9- 8 at night an 8.3 during the day.
Growth has been exceptional since the kalk stabilized the ph.

Truthfully I don't know why I keep alk at 9.0 - 9.5

Just always shot for that, going back to the early 2000's. Seemed like coralline growth took off about that point for me. Once I got this tank steady in that range I started to see coralline on the powerheads.

the big bugout stylo was sucking up almost 1 dkh a day out of this system

ph drops to 7.8 at night and high of 8.1

i have turned the ATS down but don't really want to turn it off yet. i may transfer it to my big tank and let it do its work there for a while. that tanks needs it!!

 

[X-37B]

Truthfully I don't know why I keep alk at 9.0 - 9.5

Just always shot for that, going back to the early 2000's. Seemed like coralline growth took off about that point for me. Once I got this tank steady in that range I started to see coralline on the powerheads.

the big bugout stylo was sucking up almost 1 dkh a day out of this system

ph drops to 7.8 at night and high of 8.1

i have turned the ATS down but don't really want to turn it off yet. i may transfer it to my big tank and let it do its work there for a while. that tanks needs it!!

The only other thing I dose is dsr ez-trace. 2.5ml per gallon into the ato. I have used this ratio for 8 years now. Icp test shows it keeps the 6 elements in range.
It might be worth a look.

 

[PPBlimpy]

The only other thing I dose is dsr ez-trace. 2.5ml per gallon into the ato. I have used this ratio for 8 years now. Icp test shows it keeps the 6 elements in range.
It might be worth a look.

I will check it out.

Not sure if I mentioned it earlier but I run Fritz RPM for salt. I like it and seems to be consistent batch to batch.

Mixes at 8.5 DHK

I am trying to keep up on weekly 5-8G water changes. Eventually I will spend the time and get the AWC setup.

this is the first time using 2 part. will switch back over the Kalk when I run out. I prefer kalk and was just experimenting with the 2 part

 

[X-37B]

I will check it out.

Not sure if I mentioned it earlier but I run Fritz RPM for salt. I like it and seems to be consistent batch to batch.

Mixes at 8.5 DHK

I am trying to keep up on weekly 5-8G water changes. Eventually I will spend the time and get the AWC setup.

this is the first time using 2 part. will switch back over the Kalk when I run out. I prefer kalk and was just experimenting with the 2 part

After many years I only do a little over 5% WC monthly.
50-3g's
100 6-g's
150 9-g's
I will never go back to weekly.
Been at 5% a month for 7+.

I use blue bucket, mixes about the same as yours.

With weekly WC's your nutrients will stay low until the system matures.

 

[PPBlimpy]

i like to do weekly for the first year on a new system. let everything mature, then i usually get lazy and go bi-weekly

i am trying new stuff with this tank, 2 part, running a controller, no calrx( to small ) daily water change.