Water Parameters / AI PRIME 16HD / Pistol Shrimp

[ZR2]

Ok, I have a few questions and figured I would roll all this into one post.

So over the last few weeks my zoas have closed up and are not looking good, but my Star Polyps seem very happy. I also have a rock flower that seems to be doing well. I got a Galaxea a few weeks ago but I think it may be dead. It arrived a mostly white color with some green on it and now it just looks all white.

I think my salinity could be high, not sure if my hydrometer is wrong. It showed as being in the 1.30 range so I added some more fresh water and I will check it again in the morning.

Here are the water parameters:

PH: 8.0
Nitrate: 5.0-10.0 ppm
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Phosphate: 0 (Did not really detect much on the test)
Alkalinity: 9.8 dKH
Calcium: 490-500 ppm
Magnesium: 1600+ ppm
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Before owning this tank, I owned a fluval eco 13.5 for about a year when I transferred that tank over into a new 22.4 Fiji Cube AIO. This was just before Christmas, and overall there has been no major issues.

I got the new AI Prime 16 HD light for the tank, but overall have been frustrated with the controllability of the light. It does not come with any instructions and the AI support basically said "we don't have support videos yet but we should soon."

I am trying to figure out the ideal lighting settings for this light, I am getting a ton of brown algae on the glass, I clean it off and it's back again within an hour. I really would like more of a blue tint to cut back on the white light, just need to know the right mix. The other issue I have is using just the blue light at night. The light has a moon mode, but it is not actually blue and it is useless the way the settings for the moon mode are configured.

So I tried to alter the settings to run just the blue channel after the main light goes off for the day, the problem is the blue channel will run all night until the regular schedule resumes in the morning. Ideally, I would like the normal lights to come on at 8am and be off by 5 pm with the blue lights on till about 12 am.
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Lastly, a few weeks ago I bought a watchman goby and a pistol shrimp, the shrimp was very small. It crawled in the rock within 5 minutes and I have not seen the shrimp since and I took apart the rocks to look for it. Is it a goner?

Sorry for the long post, just trying to get this all figured out so I can have some better luck with my corals.

Thanks!

 

[Spare time]

If you magnesium is too high it could be hurting the inverts (I think it basically slows them down to the point of sleepy death). For Primes, the first 4 channels (particularly 2,3,4) give you the most coral power (however if you raise intensity, the strength should be increased slowly, and only raised to your tanks size/needs). Red and green should be used sparingly. White is personal preference. Look up graphs of chlorophyll A and C spectrum to see how your colors match up to what zooxanthellae uses.

 

[Spare time]

How did you acclimate the galaxia? Are there any polyps left?

 

[ZR2]

How did you acclimate the galaxia? Are there any polyps left?

Thanks for the reply. It never really looked like much when I got it. It looked like a white rocky structure with hardly any color. I floated it in the bag according to the instructions. Normally I would coral dip but I had to leave the house unexpectedly so I did not want to leave everything in the bags.

My Zoas which were fine for quite some time are looking bad. I just can't figure out what is going on. Not sure if it's the lighting and I am not sure why the mag is so high and what causes that?

 

[ReefingDaily]

Find someone with a calibrated refractometer or other type of reliable meter. This way you can calibrate your hydrometer because they tend to read a few points higher or lower.

 

[Spare time]

Thanks for the reply. It never really looked like much when I got it. It looked like a white rocky structure with hardly any color. I floated it in the bag according to the instructions. Normally I would coral dip but I had to leave the house unexpectedly so I did not want to leave everything in the bags.

My Zoas which were fine for quite some time are looking bad. I just can't figure out what is going on. Not sure if it's the lighting and I am not sure why the mag is so high and what causes that?

The only guess u have for the mag is that it's in something you dosed or it's a test error (be that in mag or when you mix salt)

 

[Spare time]

What are your light settings?