Getting frustrated.

the alkalinity difference is enough to put something in shock if moved over quickly, and not drip acclimated.

 

+1 to that

if you have a fuge and good surface agitation then maybe try adding an airstone if you dont mind and see if that does the trick to bump it up a little but 7.8 still isnt bad anyway

 

I don't move things from either tank without acclimation and a coral dip. I may test the alk and PH in the big tank again today.

 

I'm guessing the problem with the tube worms is the lighting. They don't like extremely bright light. Temps on the low side are good though, and you're in the right range there.
As far as the Nitrates, you don't seem to have anything excessive. Tube worms like a little Nitrates, as do most soft corals.

 

+ 1 again the water is good it has been reported over and over again about the power of 3 watt leds, being, corals not comming out and such,my next set of lights will be leds,i believe they are the future of home reef keeping that being said,i believe getting just the right amount of them is the problem with most setups,we just don't want to believe now powerful these little lights are, the ph is low compared to most ocean reefs its not about chasing a number it is to ape the real thing the more we copy the real thing in my opinion the closer we get to where we need to be.

 

Well, I ordered a PAR sensor from Apogee. Hopefully it will be here in a week or so and I can see exactly where= I also dosed a little bit of buffer and will try to get the PH in both tanks up a bit over the next couple of days. I haven't dosed anything else over the last couple of days except kalc. in the top off water.

I have put the Rapid LED controller on manual and turned my white LED strings down nearly all the way and the blue strings down a little.

With the decreased light I will keep an eye on my setosa, digitata, and my acro, frags and see how they react to the decreased light. I will see if the couple of trumpet frags look any better over the next few days also.

 

Over the last couple of weeks not a lot has changed and my Apogee Quantum Sensor came today. It's an SQ-110 so it's the sunlight calibrated model. Attached is a picture of what my readings are. The red numbers are what the readings were to begin with after I turned the lights down last week and the yellow numbers are what I are now after I turned them down to what I think they should be. Granted, this is my first try using the sensor and I'm not really sure how much the LED's are affecting the readings. The only real change in water quality is I have been trying to slowly raise the PH since my last post. The PH today was 8.14.

Is my light still too high? My white LED's are down as far as I can get them but I have some room with the blue adjustment. What other options do I have? Unwire some LED's? Raise the fixture? Take off the lenses (60 degree)?

P.S. that's and old picture.

Thanks all.

 

so you were getting 500 at midway down! thats insane. wonder what it is at the top?

 

745 right at the surface.

 

I am planning on getting an Ecotech mp40 in the next month or so. I have two Koralia Evolution 1400 in there now as well as the returns from two mag 18's. I have less flow in the small tank.