A Shallow sps reef

[Ryanerickson]

Mindy I agree my nutrients are about right but what I didn't add was I previously was using 250ml of rowa every 14 days to keep phosphate at this level and after dosing fluconazole to kill bryopsis I've had hair algae start growing in a few spots mainly on zoa frags. So I'm hoping the refugium will help keep the phosphates low without the rowa and also hoping the refugium will become the ideal spot in the system for algae to grow and die off in my display. I feed vitalis marine pellets twice a day that's it. Guessing my aquaforest foods add nutrients also.

As for jd check out big r corals I think this guy has the best looking colony around definitely inspired me.

[Myka]

Wow, yeah that's a lot of RowaPhos! So where the heck is all the PO4 coming from? Your tank is setup up in a fashion you'd think it would be nutrient-poor. What do you have for clean up crew?

The Aquaforest foods (Amino Mix, Build, Energy, and Vitality) are designed for use after achieving ULNS so you can tweak exactly how you want nutrients in your tank. You're not supposed to use them in tanks with nutrients. Also "Energy" has copper in it which promotes the pastel look, so if you're looking for rich colors, don't use Energy.

Yeah that Big R Corals guy has a lot of nice stuff. Too bad he's in Texas (iirc).

[Ryanerickson]

Originally Posted by Myka

Wow, yeah that's a lot of RowaPhos! So where the heck is all the PO4 coming from? Your tank is setup up in a fashion you'd think it would be nutrient-poor. What do you have for clean up crew?

The Aquaforest foods (Amino Mix, Build, Energy, and Vitality) are designed for use after achieving ULNS so you can tweak exactly how you want nutrients in your tank. You're not supposed to use them in tanks with nutrients. Also "Energy" has copper in it which promotes the pastel look, so if you're looking for rich colors, don't use Energy.

Yeah that Big R Corals guy has a lot of nice stuff. Too bad he's in Texas (iirc).

For clean up crew is have or had 60 lefty hermits 3 turbos 3 yellow ring cowries 8 trochus snails and a conch. I'm pretty sure I had phosphate in the live rock i used and it's leaching out but only a guess. So with the af foods I do amino and vitality 1 drop of each every second night and only the build on the alternative night also at one drop. Recomended dose is 5 drops on my system Im going super light because of my nutrients and yeah I don't use the energy as it has copper in it. I use kz coral Vitalizer instead as I think it's somewhat the same minus the copper.

[Frogger]

The problem could be your nitrates.

Get a Red Sea Pro nitrate test kit. Reef Supplies sell it. I found the salifert test kit sucks when measuring below 5ppm.

Find out exactly what your nitrates are. I was having a problem with phosphates off the chart on a similar low fish bioload system. Once I got my nitrates to 1.5ppm I was able to take the GFO off line and now have acceptable level of phosphate without any GFO

[Ryanerickson]

Originally Posted by Frogger

The problem could be your nitrates.

Get a Red Sea Pro nitrate test kit. Reef Supplies sell it. I found the salifert test kit sucks when measuring below 5ppm.

Find out exactly what your nitrates are. I was having a problem with phosphates off the chart on a similar low fish bioload system. Once I got my nitrates to 1.5ppm I was able to take the GFO off line and now have acceptable level of phosphate without any GFO

Thanks I'm on this as I think you may be right