Biggles
Member
It's very late here but i think it's more to do with your lighting than water mate. Are you using GFO and or carbon, how quickly do you get a green sheen on the glass, enough to take the shine off viewing.
What is the halide bulb you're running and the T5's if any mate. I looked back a lot further, i saw colorful frags but was that soon after you bought them or were you holding good colors for months and then things changed.
I'd drop the alk and calcium down to 8/420 ish as high light and high alk are not good for stressed acros and you won't see any difference running levels that your acros actually evolved to thrive in......................
I run 7.5/410 btw and have tried everything from 6.5 - 9 with zero change in growth or colors.
I'd urge you to stop using anything like aminos or coral food products as the algae is a nutrient issue indicator, from my experience the brown algae on the pumps is a good nitrate excess sign whereas more than daily glass cleaning is a good heads up for high phos. Your rocks are way to clean for the issue to be anything major so you probably just need to tweak a few things in your food in and food out management to sort the imbalance out.
The readings mean nothing once there's enough algae growing to absorb phos and nitrates quicker than the acros can get it. Trust your eyes not the kits because that algae isn't living on salt water alone.
Sorry if i sound abrupt or knowitally but i'm pooped and trying to get a lot out fast lol. I'll check back tomorrow but i'm sure we can sort everything out so your acros are smiling again.
Edit: I meant to say that you MUST get a Mg test kit, Salifert is a good brand. If you're doing weekly water changes it's probably fine but low Mg will have consequences once it drops down into the 1100's or worse. You can dose it once a week so it's easy to manage and doesn't require daily additions to manage like alk and calcium do.
What is the halide bulb you're running and the T5's if any mate. I looked back a lot further, i saw colorful frags but was that soon after you bought them or were you holding good colors for months and then things changed.
I'd drop the alk and calcium down to 8/420 ish as high light and high alk are not good for stressed acros and you won't see any difference running levels that your acros actually evolved to thrive in......................
I run 7.5/410 btw and have tried everything from 6.5 - 9 with zero change in growth or colors. I'd urge you to stop using anything like aminos or coral food products as the algae is a nutrient issue indicator, from my experience the brown algae on the pumps is a good nitrate excess sign whereas more than daily glass cleaning is a good heads up for high phos. Your rocks are way to clean for the issue to be anything major so you probably just need to tweak a few things in your food in and food out management to sort the imbalance out.
The readings mean nothing once there's enough algae growing to absorb phos and nitrates quicker than the acros can get it. Trust your eyes not the kits because that algae isn't living on salt water alone.
Sorry if i sound abrupt or knowitally but i'm pooped and trying to get a lot out fast lol. I'll check back tomorrow but i'm sure we can sort everything out so your acros are smiling again.
Edit: I meant to say that you MUST get a Mg test kit, Salifert is a good brand. If you're doing weekly water changes it's probably fine but low Mg will have consequences once it drops down into the 1100's or worse. You can dose it once a week so it's easy to manage and doesn't require daily additions to manage like alk and calcium do.
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