Update:
Parameters-
Salinity- 1.0265( finally stable)
nitrate- 10
Phosphate- .01 (attempting to raise)
Calcium- reading 500 but may be testing error
Magnesium-1450
Alk- 9.0-9.2
I’ve battled some issues with what I thought were Dinos for a few months. Turns out it was cyano after installing a uv and nutrient control, chemiclean fixed that. Then algae (green and brown) appeared all over the rocks. I let that go away on its own with some help rubble from a friend’s established system.
Turns out after that my refractometer calibration solution was off/ my refractometer from
brs was bad, idk. My salinity was really low (like 1.020). Between that and blooms of various types I killed a few corals. I corrected that with a new tropic Marin glass hydrometer. (Now 1.0265)
Filtration wise I’m running carbon and rubble in the rear chambers. I removed floss and socks because they caused the water level to be erratic. (My main goal was to stabilize salinity) it seems to to be working however, I have white particulate in the water. It is most likely dust from the air and dog hair ( I have a shedder). I’m looking to address this in the future to clear up the water without affecting salinity.
As for fish….. I’ve lost quite a few unfortunately, most were due to jumping. Now I have a lid. Firefish jumped. Chromis jumped. Coral beauty jumped. One clown to uronema. I was on a trip and lost a clown for unknown reasons. So now we have only one clown and are looking to add more now that we have a lid. Between salinity and the jumping I believe I have rectified the issues causing the majority of deaths.
Chasing stability in a tank of this size has been a challenge as you can see. I installed a jebao doser for aquaforest 3 in 1. It has 3 ports so I have room for growth in the future. Additionally I am dosing neophos. My phosphate is often undetectable. A very successful reefer that has been mentoring me says it is way too low. Hopefully the fish/lid will help as well.
I want to add some advice/ thoughts for others. This is my third tank over 20 years. I always kind of did this hobby is in isolation. I am lucky to have a local reefer I met that has an aspirational system. (You may have recently seen his tank video on tsa YouTube) I follow his advice and as they say the proof is in the pudding. Find someone who does it well and be willing to ask for help. Even though it is easier than it was 20 years ago reef keeping still is a challenge especially when starting a new system.