Getting frustrated.

I am having some lingering issues with my 150. It seems like I cannot get rid of the nitrates completely and it leads to off and on cyano blooms (Currently maybe have a dime sized spot on the back of a rock). Also, my wife likes feather dusters, she has had the same two in my small tank for two years. She attempted to put one in the 150 last month and it abandoned it's tube and died. Last week she bought a Christmas tree rock and after two days the worms were not coming out. I moved it to my small tank and now looks great. Lastly, I have a couple of small acro frags that look good but I can't keep a zoo or a softy in the this tank for the life of me. The tank has been up and running since about May. I did a DIY LED fixture a couple of months ago. I plan on getting a PAR sensor at the end of the month to rule out light issues.

Here are the particulars;

Tank water volume: 150 gallon display + 20 gal fuge + 17 gal sump.

Filtration: SWC Mini S skimmer + filter screen changed every couple of days on the return + 140 lbs rock + 130 lbs sand + chaeto in fuge (Not doing well... Forgot to mention that) Have run carbon and GFO off and on. Currently the reactor is four weeks into running bio pellets.

Lighting: 96 3 watt CREE LED's 45 cool white 51 royal blue. 45 degree optics. 10 hr cycle.

Water Parameters: Ammonia 0, Nitrates 0, PH 7.8, DKH 12, Calcium 524, Nitrates 0.2, Phosphates 0.05, Mg 1350, Salinity 1.025, Temp 76.8. (Tested with Salifert kits or Hanna checkers)

Fish/invert stock: Two small/medium black clown, one smaller blue tang, one smaller sailfin tang, yellow watchman, cleaner shrimp. began with a CUC from Reef Cleaners.

Feeding schedule: Small amount of pellets twice a day, replace one feeding with nori twice a week. I also feed corals twice a week.

Additives:Seachem alk and calcium, kalcwasser for top off, Tech M

Misc. Use Aquavitro Salinity, gets a 20 - 25 gallon water change every 10 - 14 days. Two mag 18 return pumps, two Koralia evo 1400's for flow.

 

what are your params

and it sounds to me like the lighting may be too strong for the,

 

hi i believe your doing everything fine the only things that stick out at me are the lighting, i'm not and expert on leds but, i have read alot and what i believe is you have very powerful leds i would either raise them higher above the tank or dim them and 10 hours of intense lighting may be to much remember with the true sun the reef only gets about 6 hours of direct overhead sun give or take and hour, so i would just lighen up a little and you should be ok and the ph is a little low should be around 8.3 to 8.4

 

Bruno, the parameters are listed in the middle of the post.

Yup, all those parameters are from testing yesterday so I will get the PH taken care of over the next couple of days. I suspected the lights were too much but what would that have to do with keeping polychaete worms? The photo period shouldn't have much to do with those. Also this is the biggest tank I've had. would it take better then six months for the nitrates to come down. I can test my small tank and they read zero. If I remember right the tank was nitrate free in a couple of months.

 

sorry i missed them i must be blind lol

...a ph of 7.8 isnt necessarily bad, its more important to have ph stable rather than at perfect levels....my tank was reading 7.8 for a long while and i had no problems and once i added a powerhead facing up to agitate water and my macros it ascended slowly up to 8.3 ish and stay there now

 

if your ph is a steady 7.8, do not bump it up too quick. chasing a number can cause bad things to happen real fast. my tank runs at 7.8 all the time, and I have no problems. So I am not going to change it. The thing you might want to look into is why your chaeto is not doing well. what kind of bulb do you have for it and if you run it opposite of your tank, that Co2 exchange will help with your ph.

 

yea you can raise your ph by raising the amount of dissolved oxygen in the system so macros would definitely help and surface agitation as well

 

To me your calcium and alk are a bit high. May wanna cut back on dosing.
It is generally accepted that in a home marine reef aquarium a calcium reading between 350ppm and 450ppm is acceptable. A calcium level in the aquarium which is higher than 550ppm (your close) will normally precipitate out of solution. This means the water becomes calcium saturated and no more can be held. Because of the water being saturated the calcium forms calcium carbonate. This is not a state of affairs that we realistically want.

Just an idea

 

But all of these things mentioned so far are probably not causing your issues. It would be interesting to know the params of the small tank as well. If you moved "easy" stuff from it and it died, or vice versa, it might be that the acclimation of the 2 systems being different causing the issue. And if you have happy SPS and your zoas and softies are dying, it is possible your water is a little too clean for them. 0.2 nitrates, and 0.05 phos is not bad at all. the phos technically could come down to 0.03. Running new bio-pellets at 4 weeks, they are probably just now getting some decent bacteria on them, so you should see a drop in your phosphates and nitrates from that. Your chaeto could also being dying off from the pellets as well. I think the pellets out compete chaeto, unless its a huge refugium.....some things to consider...

 

The light I run in the fuge of the 150 is a 75 watt equivalent 6500 k compact fluorescent. Yes it does run opposite of the main tank lighting.

The param's of my small tank are very close to the big one but they are as follows;
Salinity 1.025, Alk 9.9, Nitrate 0, Ammonia 0, Nitrite, Mag 1390, Phosphate 0.06, Calcium 543, Temp 76.3, PH 7.8.

The small tank has been up and running for a little over two years.

I can put just about anything the my small tank and they do really well. Problem is, my wife made a fairly large order from Vivid Aquariums and now my small tank is about to burst because we are skiddish about putting things in the 150.

As far as surface agitation goes I have (At least I think) quite a bit. Both tanks are set up similarly, at least as far as surface agitation goes. I guess the only thing different would be the fuge. I built the small tank sump with the fuge in the second chamber and all the water runs through the fuge and the pumps are in the 3rd chamber. The 150, the fuge is separately plumbed into the 3rd chamber and the pumps are in the second, so I have low flow through the fuge.

I thought the biopellets took about eight weeks to make an impact? Either way, the chaeto hasn't been doing so hot for a while.

Really, all I can figure is I am blasting the tank with too much light. Like I said though, I could be missing something.