Stony Coral Island

[CrazyMonti]

Hey everyone,

Really happy to be here and to share the journey, progress, and care of my reef tank with you all. This is actually my 5th reef setup, but before this I only ran smaller nano tanks like the Waterbox Cube 20 and 25 Peninsula. I’ve kept both LPS and Acros in those, but even after 4 years in the hobby, I still ran into user errors and technical issues. I want to share those with you too, so maybe you can avoid some of the mistakes I made.

Quick tank specs:

Tank: Red Sea Reefer G2 200
Skimmer: Red Sea Reefer Skimmer 300
Fleece Roller: Red Sea ReefMat 250
ATO: Red Sea ReefATO+
Dosing Pump: Red Sea
Lights: 2x AI Hydra 32HD (wire mount)
Flow: Maxspect Gyre (older model)
Return Pump: Red Sea ReefRun
Rocks: Arka
Dosing System: ATI Essentials Pro
Nutrients: ATI Nutrition N & P

Current water parameters:

KH: 7.1
Calcium: 420
Nitrate: 8.6
Phosphate: 0.03

Fish stock:

* 2 clownfish
* 1 Synchiropus ramosus
* 2 Pseudochromis fridmani
* 2 Chromis retrofasciata
* 1 Cometsand goby (Koumansetta setosus)

Corals:

* Acropora Enzmann
* Acropora Confetti
* Acropora Tricolor
* Acropora Dragon’s Breath
* Acropora Elsa
* Acropora Electric Miyagi
* Hyacinthus green & blue
* Alveopora (green)
* Goniopora (pink)
* Montipora (various)

The tank’s been running for about 2 months now and has already been through a major crisis. I was using Salifert to test phosphate, and it kept reading zero so I started dosing phosphate very carefully and tested every day. After a few weeks, two of my bigger Acros (Mango Garden and Sour Patch) died overnight.

So I borrowed a friend’s Hanna checkers for nitrate and phosphate and wow... nitrate was at 50 mg/l, phosphate at 0.9 mg/l. Most corals would've died under those conditions, but luckily I managed to save a few. Long story short: I’ll never trust cheap test kits again. From now on, it's Hanna Checkers only.

Now what to do with those crazy nutrient levels? Act fast? Nope. The worst already happened. What you shouldn’t do is panic-buy a bunch of expensive chemicals and dose blindly. Instead, I started doing large water changes (40–50%) every few days, cranked up the skimmer, and added Zeolite. The fleece roller also helps a lot in pulling nutrients out.

You can also ease off on feeding switch from frozen to pellets, or rinse your frozen food well before feeding. Nitrate and phosphate have now come down and are in a better ratio. Still working on slowly lowering nitrate a bit more.

One thing I’ve learned: corals hate sudden swings. They love stable conditions. That’s why I test regularly and only adjust my dosing very slowly. For example, if KH drops below 7.0, I’ll take 3–7 days to bring it back up instead of rushing.

On the tech side: Red Sea’s ecosystem makes things super convenient. I can control almost everything remotely – even adjusted dosing once while diving in Bali, thanks to a friend checking KH for me. How awesome is that?
A KH monitor like a KH Keeper would be great, but honestly, I prefer to keep things simple. I also don’t fully trust these machines long-term unless you regularly recalibrate and compare with Hanna or ICP. Plus, they need expensive reagents and replacement probes now and then.
Maintenance-wise, it’s not too bad. I just need to empty the skimmer regularly, which is super easy with this model it has a drain hose so I don’t even have to remove the cup. While I’m at it, I also clean the skimmer sensor so it doesn’t overflow. If the cup’s full, it gives me an alert and drops the pump speed to 5%.
As for the ReefMat haven’t had to touch it yet. Still running on the first roll.

Right now, I test with Hanna Checkers every other day. My goal is a stable system that doesn't need constant tweaking. Sounds ironic, but there’s a reason why people say: “Keep your hands out of the tank!” Don’t chase perfect numbers just keep everything within a good range, and in balance.

Example: phosphate to nitrate should be around 1:100. Or if KH is on the lower side, don’t let calcium climb too high. I also dose ATI Nutrition N and P, but only a little bit of N since Essentials already contains some. Both are in a form that corals absorb more easily than straight nitrate/phosphate. For example, ATI P contains phosphorus instead of raw phosphate.

That’s it for my first post here. Looking forward to chatting with you all and learning more from the community!

Salty greetings from Germany,
Marc

 

[Rocks reef]

Beautiful tank and welcome to R2R!!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hey everyone,

Really happy to be here and to share the journey, progress, and care of my reef tank with you all. This is actually my 5th reef setup, but before this I only ran smaller nano tanks like the Waterbox Cube 20 and 25 Peninsula. I’ve kept both LPS and Acros in those, but even after 4 years in the hobby, I still ran into user errors and technical issues. I want to share those with you too, so maybe you can avoid some of the mistakes I made.

Quick tank specs:

Tank: Red Sea Reefer G2 200
Skimmer: Red Sea Reefer Skimmer 300
Fleece Roller: Red Sea ReefMat 250
ATO: Red Sea ReefATO+
Dosing Pump: Red Sea
Lights: 2x AI Hydra 32HD (wire mount)
Flow: Maxspect Gyre (older model)
Return Pump: Red Sea ReefRun
Rocks: Arka
Dosing System: ATI Essentials Pro
Nutrients: ATI Nutrition N & P

Current water parameters:

KH: 7.1
Calcium: 420
Nitrate: 8.6
Phosphate: 0.03

Fish stock:

* 2 clownfish
* 1 Synchiropus ramosus
* 2 Pseudochromis fridmani
* 2 Chromis retrofasciata
* 1 Cometsand goby (Koumansetta setosus)

Corals:

* Acropora Enzmann
* Acropora Confetti
* Acropora Tricolor
* Acropora Dragon’s Breath
* Acropora Elsa
* Acropora Electric Miyagi
* Hyacinthus green & blue
* Alveopora (green)
* Goniopora (pink)
* Montipora (various)

The tank’s been running for about 2 months now and has already been through a major crisis. I was using Salifert to test phosphate, and it kept reading zero so I started dosing phosphate very carefully and tested every day. After a few weeks, two of my bigger Acros (Mango Garden and Sour Patch) died overnight.

So I borrowed a friend’s Hanna checkers for nitrate and phosphate and wow... nitrate was at 50 mg/l, phosphate at 0.9 mg/l. Most corals would've died under those conditions, but luckily I managed to save a few. Long story short: I’ll never trust cheap test kits again. From now on, it's Hanna Checkers only.

Now what to do with those crazy nutrient levels? Act fast? Nope. The worst already happened. What you shouldn’t do is panic-buy a bunch of expensive chemicals and dose blindly. Instead, I started doing large water changes (40–50%) every few days, cranked up the skimmer, and added Zeolite. The fleece roller also helps a lot in pulling nutrients out.

You can also ease off on feeding switch from frozen to pellets, or rinse your frozen food well before feeding. Nitrate and phosphate have now come down and are in a better ratio. Still working on slowly lowering nitrate a bit more.

One thing I’ve learned: corals hate sudden swings. They love stable conditions. That’s why I test regularly and only adjust my dosing very slowly. For example, if KH drops below 7.0, I’ll take 3–7 days to bring it back up instead of rushing.

On the tech side: Red Sea’s ecosystem makes things super convenient. I can control almost everything remotely – even adjusted dosing once while diving in Bali, thanks to a friend checking KH for me. How awesome is that?
A KH monitor like a KH Keeper would be great, but honestly, I prefer to keep things simple. I also don’t fully trust these machines long-term unless you regularly recalibrate and compare with Hanna or ICP. Plus, they need expensive reagents and replacement probes now and then.
Maintenance-wise, it’s not too bad. I just need to empty the skimmer regularly, which is super easy with this model it has a drain hose so I don’t even have to remove the cup. While I’m at it, I also clean the skimmer sensor so it doesn’t overflow. If the cup’s full, it gives me an alert and drops the pump speed to 5%.
As for the ReefMat haven’t had to touch it yet. Still running on the first roll.

Right now, I test with Hanna Checkers every other day. My goal is a stable system that doesn't need constant tweaking. Sounds ironic, but there’s a reason why people say: “Keep your hands out of the tank!” Don’t chase perfect numbers just keep everything within a good range, and in balance.

Example: phosphate to nitrate should be around 1:100. Or if KH is on the lower side, don’t let calcium climb too high. I also dose ATI Nutrition N and P, but only a little bit of N since Essentials already contains some. Both are in a form that corals absorb more easily than straight nitrate/phosphate. For example, ATI P contains phosphorus instead of raw phosphate.

That’s it for my first post here. Looking forward to chatting with you all and learning more from the community!

Salty greetings from Germany,
Marc

I love all of the corals you have in your tank! Nicely Done!

 

[CrazyMonti]

Hey everyone,

I thought it was time for a small update on my reef tank, a few months after my last post. Quite a bit has happened in the meantime – some good progress, some frustrations, and a few lessons learned along the way.

---

Lighting – finally a change​

Since my last update, I have to say that I was not very happy with my lighting setup. I was running two AI Hydra 32 HD on a wire suspension, and over time I realized that the light just wasn’t doing my corals any favors. Coral response felt mediocre, and visually I never really loved the look.

For a while, I added an AI Blade Glow as a temporary solution. That definitely helped with color and gave the tank a bit more “pop”, but overall I was still unhappy. The fans were always audible, and after about half a year I noticed something that really bothered me: the lenses started melting again.

That honestly made me question the long-term build quality of the AI fixtures. I was disappointed, and that was the point where I decided to move on and invest in a new light.

I’m now running an ATI Straton X, and at least from the coral response side, it does seem to work better for my system. The corals appear more stable overall, and I’m now hitting a much more even PAR distribution across the tank. My target was around 400–450 PAR on average, which I’ve managed to achieve quite well.

---

Flow – maintenance matters​

After about six months, I also realized that I had neglected one thing a bit too long: cleaning my flow pumps. They were noticeably dirty, and flow in the tank had dropped more than I thought.

I soaked them in citric acid, scrubbed everything thoroughly, and after reinstalling them, the difference was huge. Flow is now back where it should be.

The pumps are set up to work against each other:
when one pump ramps up to around 90%, the opposite one drops to roughly 20%, and then they slowly switch roles. This creates a kind of alternating, pendulum-like flow pattern, which I really like.

---

Fish & clean-up crew updates​

Unfortunately, I lost one of my black-and-white clownfish after it jumped out of the tank. I replaced it later on.

I also added:

• a dwarf angelfish
• a peppermint shrimp (which sadly isn’t doing its job very well…)

I still have a small Aiptasia that the shrimp completely ignores, so I’ll probably end up injecting it manually.

I also added an LSD mandarin, which is a real highlight. It’s active, visible quite often, and looks fantastic.

For algae control, I temporarily introduced a sea hare because I couldn’t get rid of some filamentous algae. It did an amazing job and cleaned everything up quickly. As a backup, I still have two turbo snails, which do a great job keeping things clean.

Sadly, the sea hare didn’t survive after being moved to another system. I suspect I acclimated it too quickly – unfortunate, but a lesson learned.

---

Corals – growth is there, patience helps​

On the coral side, I added:

• an import Acropora tricolor
• several Acropora frags from small local growers (Hyacinthus, Vividis)
• some Seriatopora
• a few Micromussa from a friend

The Micromussas didn’t look great initially, but they’re slowly recovering.

Overall, I’m very happy with growth. My chalices are growing well, and the Acros clearly show progress. It’s one of those things where you sometimes feel like nothing is happening – until you compare with old pictures and realize how far things have come.

---

Water parameters – mostly stable, some hiccups​

I did underestimate phosphate development at one point. I measure it regularly, but still had a few upward spikes. To get this under control, I decided to use Fauna Marin Phosphate Adsorber 004 to cap the value.

Yes, I know that means I’m technically wasting some phosphate that I dose daily – but it gives me peace of mind. I also set a calendar reminder to change the absorber monthly, and I usually change carbon at the same time.

Current values:

• Nitrate: stable around 3–4 ppm
• KH: currently 8.6 dKH
• Calcium: unclear at the moment

Calcium is a bit of a question mark. I’m still using an older Salifert test, which shows unrealistically high values that I honestly don’t trust anymore. I also own the Hanna Calcium Checker, but I’m not fully comfortable with it yet, as results didn’t always line up with previous ICP tests. I need to spend some more time understanding and validating it.

---

Skimmer & pH strategy​

My Red Sea skimmer is currently mostly off. With a relatively light fish load, it sometimes feels unnecessarily loud. However, I plan to run it at least at 1% during the day to introduce some air and stabilize pH.

Following a recommendation from ATI’s YouTube channel, I also switched my KH dosing to nighttime. This helps buffer pH drops during the night, and I’ve noticed that my Acros seem to respond positively.

---

Acropora issues & stress aftermath​

One issue I’m still dealing with: poor polyp extension on my Acroporas. This started about 1.5–2 months ago, when I had a combination of:

• elevated nutrients
• low KH
• low calcium

At that time, polyp extension was actually still good. I then tried to correct things too fast by adding extra daily doses over several days to rebalance the system. That was clearly too aggressive, and since then, polyp extension has been poor.

I suspect this was stress-related and worsened by the fact that my flow pumps weren’t working optimally at the same time. Right now, I’m simply waiting it out and letting the system stabilize.

One coral that really frustrates me is my Acropora “Enzmann”. It has completely lost color and turned dark over the last 3–4 months. Occasionally, small pieces die off when phosphate fluctuates slightly. I suspect the coral is simply too weakened.

A friend of mine has a large, healthy colony of the same coral (and also the Elsa variant), so I’m considering reintroducing two larger branches and placing them high up in the reef structure, left and right. I really like the open growth form, especially since fish love to swim through them.

---

Amino acids, feeding & trace elements​

I recently started dosing Red Sea Amino Acids again. I’ve had very good experiences with them in the past. While ATI Essentials already contain some amino acids, I notice a clear improvement in vitality when adding Red Sea Aminos on top.

I’m also considering reintroducing coral feeding, either with Reef Roids or Min S. There’s increasing evidence that occasional feeding helps SPS with polyp activity and growth.

Some corals clearly benefit:

• my grey/turquoise Montipora on the reef roof is growing like crazy
• my Dragon’s Breath acropra looks fantastic, leaning more yellow than red

That color shift might be related to trace elements.

Speaking of trace elements: I currently dose Fauna Marin trace solutions once per week (the red, blue, and green bottles). I don’t necessarily believe they magically color corals based on bottle color – I see it more as covering 80% of the basics with 20% effort. I’m not aiming for perfection, just stability.

I might switch to ATI Daily Doses in the future, but for now I’ll finish what I have.

---

ICP, water changes & philosophy​

I plan to run a new ICP test early next year. I haven’t done one in about four months, which I know is controversial. I also didn’t do many large water changes lately.

This was a conscious decision. I’ve talked to several long-term reefers (one with over 20 years of experience), and their experience was that stability matters more than chasing perfect numbers. ICP tests are great tools, but they also carry the risk of overreacting and overcorrecting.

That said, I’ll do a larger water change over the holidays, mainly to address my uncertainty around calcium.

---

Final thoughts & question to the community​

Overall, I’m happy with the direction the tank is going, even if not everything is perfect right now. The ATI Straton X is a mixed bag for me:
very good light output and coral response, but I’m still not fully happy with the daylight-heavy spectrum, especially for LPS, which can look a bit pale.

I’m currently running an SPS-focused profile, originally designed by a coral farmer, and while I like it, I might still tweak it further.

I’ll link my Straton X thread below for those who are interested.

ATI Straton X – First Impressions & Technical Review (Red Sea Reefer G2 200)

Unboxing & first impression Yesterday I received my ATI Straton X, which I ordered during ATI’s Black Friday sale. The light was only available in limited quantities, so it may take some time until it becomes regularly available again. Delivery time for me (Germany) was roughly one month. One...

www.reef2reef.com

That’s it for now.
I wish all of you a snowy and peaceful Christmas, enjoy your tanks, and see you soon.