What would you do with this...? Please help!

daer119 · Aug 27, 2022

Hey Everyone,

My wife and I have been in this hobby for over two years; however, it's been an up-and-down battle. Even after all this time I still know nothing. We started with and AIO 25 Waterbox where we had some bad advice and after a month I think we had zoas, a torch, a hammer, 2 clowns, and some other corals I don't remember the name of. Well a year went by and some how the torch, hammer, one zoa, and our two clowns survived. We ended up finding a really good deal and decided to upgrade to the 65.4 AIO Waterbox. We've had that for about 8 months, was seeded with previous filters and rocks from 25g tank, and wanted to stop going along the same path I have been and really get some reviews on our tank and suggestions about providing the best possible home for our corals and fish. Because our corals even though they didn't die I don't think are the happiest and haven't really grown at all.

Tank Stock: 1 Maxima clam, 2 clowns, 6 damsels, 1 shrimp, 1 hammer, 1 torch, 2 zoas, gsp, 1 paly, 1 acan, 1 goni

So my questions:
What do you think of the aquascape? Should i take out some rocks (planning on taking out large white one in the front right) or they look good?
What about the placements of corals? My goal is to have a torch/hammer garden and a zoa garden somewhere. I have 3 AI Prime Reef lights, schedule will be posted below.
What would you add to the tank? Protein skimmer, another power head or wavemaker, take out the uv light, etc?
We have reef roids, fusion1 and fusion2, however we do not dose or feed. We do weekly 10% water changes because we were told with the amount of corals we have we didn't need to yet. What schedule would you suggest?
We also have had an explosion of these hard white spiral things all over the tank. We have had differing answers of what they are, how to get rid of them, or if we should get rid of them. We scrape them off the glass, but thought they looked kinda cool on the back wall, although I wanted that covered in the people-eater zoas i think they are called, or gsp.
And I am so out of my depth if there's an obvious question I haven't asked please let me know any suggestions or pointers you have.

I appreciate everyone who took the time to read the post and help out a flailing reefer!
We just had our water tested again yesterday.
RESULTS: Salinity 1.027, pH 8.0, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 3, Phosphate .1, Alkalinity 7, Calcium 400

Wasabiroot · Aug 27, 2022

The goniopora really should be periodically fed. Clams also appreciate some phyto but theoretically can generate all their food from light. However, they should be under high light. I can't see where it is but those lights are on the weaker side (not bad, just weaker) so higher up on the rockwork would be better. Don't move it around too much. Scape looks good. Torch seems happy so you're probably doing better than you think. I would suggest maybe feeding. You don't have to go crazy and you can broadcast feed if you'd like but they may appreciate it. Parameters are important tho - stable is good but stable in a good range is better. Hope that helps.

daer119 · Aug 27, 2022

Wasabiroot said:
The goniopora really should be periodically fed. Clams also appreciate some phyto but theoretically can generate all their food from light. However, they should be under high light. I can't see where it is but those lights are on the weaker side (not bad, just weaker) so higher up on the rockwork would be better. Don't move it around too much. Scape looks good. Torch seems happy so you're probably doing better than you think. I would suggest maybe feeding. You don't have to go crazy and you can broadcast feed if you'd like but they may appreciate it. Parameters are important tho - stable is good but stable in a good range is better. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the feedback! Would you suggest feeding them the reef roids or something else? The clam is on the top rock on the left. Sorry for the bad picture.