Struggling

[MajorDad74]

Hey guys. I’m struggling a bit and can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. My 90 gallon has been slowing down for the past few months. Everything but the fish are unhappy. It’s a mixed reef tank. I had an algae bloom a few months ago and hasn’t been right since and still battling algae. Contents and live stock will be in the pictures attached as well as water parameters with dates. The only thing I might contribute it to is the addition of the Aquaspace A100 lights I recently installed and set to the mixed setting. I haven’t found a setting I really like yet.
This could be premature since I just did a 30% water change 2 days ago. But still concerned. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Equipment is as follows:
30 gallon fuge
Aqua space a100 lights
Ioaoi skimmer
Uv light
1 liter reactor filled with carbon- 1 week old
Fuge is filled with healthy sea lettuce
Dosing 150 ml of mixed live plankton that I culture
Aqua vitro fuel
Stopped dosing 180 ml of kalk and reef roids.
Feeding frozen foods, mixed with plankton, fuel, garlic, clam purée

Thank for any advice!

 

[akma]

Just taking a quick look.
For me personally alk seems a bit high.
Ammonia should be 0
What are you checking for phosphates? reefroids fed 2x a week will raise phosphates pretty fast.
PH seems off.
August 13th PH was 8.4 but 4 days later roughly same time PH is 7.8

are you dosing anything? calcium or alk?

 

[MajorDad74]

Hey guys. I’m struggling a bit and can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. My 90 gallon has been slowing down for the past few months. Everything but the fish are unhappy. It’s a mixed reef tank. I had an algae bloom a few months ago and hasn’t been right since and still battling algae. Contents and live stock will be in the pictures attached as well as water parameters with dates. The only thing I might contribute it to is the addition of the Aquaspace A100 lights I recently installed and set to the mixed setting. I haven’t found a setting I really like yet.
This could be premature since I just did a 30% water change 2 days ago. But still concerned. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Equipment is as follows:
30 gallon fuge
Aqua space a100 lights
Ioaoi skimmer
Uv light
1 liter reactor filled with carbon- 1 week old
Fuge is filled with healthy sea lettuce
Dosing 150 ml of mixed live plankton that I culture
Aqua vitro fuel
Stopped dosing 180 ml of kalk and reef roids.
Feeding frozen foods, mixed with plankton, fuel, garlic, clam purée

Thank for any advice!

Also, using ro/di water. And here’s another pic of more parameters.

 

[CHSUB]

guessing you stopped kalk because of Alk. Regardless, corals don’t like algae and your rock and gravel don’t look healthy. When you do WC are you removing crud, algae, and detritus or just water? My suggestion is better cleaning.

Oh stop the garlic, bad for fish.

 

[Science/G]

Alkalinity is high at 12 IMHO. Even 10 is high.

 

[MajorDad74]

Just taking a quick look.
For me personally alk seems a bit high.
Ammonia should be 0
What are you checking for phosphates? reefroids fed 2x a week will raise phosphates pretty fast.
PH seems off.
August 13th PH was 8.4 but 4 days later roughly same time PH is 7.8

are you dosing anything? calcium or alk?

Alk, calcium and magnesium have been high for a couple weeks. Magnesium and calcium just came down after water change and dkh didn’t, not sure why.
Only dosing plankton and fuel at the moment. I stopped kalk since calcium **** way too high.

 

[MajorDad74]

guessing you stopped kalk because of Alk. Regardless, corals don’t like algae and your rock and gravel don’t look healthy. When you do WC are you removing crud, algae, and detritus or just water? My suggestion is better cleaning.

Oh stop the garlic, bad for fish.

Last feeding I did forget to put garlic in. I did a gravel cleaning about 2 weeks ago.

 

[MajorDad74]

Last feeding I did forget to put garlic in. I did a gravel cleaning about 2 weeks ago.

Just surface algae on sand. Goby is a bit slow.

 

[MajorDad74]

Just taking a quick look.
For me personally alk seems a bit high.
Ammonia should be 0
What are you checking for phosphates? reefroids fed 2x a week will raise phosphates pretty fast.
PH seems off.
August 13th PH was 8.4 but 4 days later roughly same time PH is 7.8

are you dosing anything? calcium or alk?

I’m using api for phos

 

[Science/G]

Your nitrates and phosphates are low. A little bit of that polyp lab poly booster and some Reef roids would help bring those numbers up. Just go easy with the power booster.

 

[MajorDad74]

Your nitrates and phosphates are low. A little bit of that polyp lab poly booster and some Reef roids would help bring those numbers up. Just go easy with the power booster.

The nitrates just dropped after water change. They were 5+ prior.

 

[MajorDad74]

The nitrates just dropped after water change. They were 5+ prior.

I’m also using api for phos so it’s not an exact number

 

[CHSUB]

Last feeding I did forget to put garlic in. I did a gravel cleaning about 2 weeks ago.

Gravel cleaning is good. I do it weekly, however scrubbing the rocks with a toothbrush and then blowing with a turkey baster during a WC is more important and often overlooked. Forget about other stuff like test kits, nutrients and clean, clean, clean…

 

[MajorDad74]

Gravel cleaning is good. I do it weekly, however scrubbing the rocks with a toothbrush and then blowing with a turkey baster during a WC is more important and often overlooked. Forget about other stuff like test kits, nutrients and clean, clean, clean…

I blow the rocks off almost daily and by mid day it looks like I never touched it. I think that’s my culprit but not 100% sure. I tried dosing Dr Tim’s waste away to no avail. I also need to replenish my copepod population.
Could all this surface algae just be plankton? I have to scrape my glass almost daily as well. 150 mls of plankton daily.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Alk and Mag are elevated.
Are you using any tap water for top off, etc?
Is this tank at or near a window?
What if any clean up crew are you utilizing?

 

[MajorDad74]

Alk and Mag are elevated.
Are you using any tap water for top off, etc?
Is this tank at or near a window?
What if any clean up crew are you utilizing?

No tap water whatsoever. Only rodi. Not near a window and using two big snails and two emerald crabs. Smaller snail just died. And copepods.
Mag was 1680. Alk as you see has been 12 for a bit and calcium was over 500 for about two weeks.

 

[vetteguy53081]

No tap water whatsoever. Only rodi. Not near a window and using two big snails and two emerald crabs. Smaller snail just died. And copepods.
Mag was 1680. Alk as you see has been 12 for a bit and calcium was over 500 for about two weeks.

Those levels need to drop a little and very insufficient amount of snail/cleaners

 

[dvgyfresh]

Very high alkalinity / calcium but no phosphate / nitrate is not a good combo. I would recommend lowering alk while boosting nitrate / phosphate.

 

[MajorDad74]

I also forgot to add that was also dosing seachem reef builder which I am no longer doing.

 

[MajorDad74]

Very high alkalinity / calcium but no phosphate / nitrate is not a good combo. I would recommend lowering alk while boosting nitrate / phosphate.

Any recommendations for doing this?