Need Coral keeping advice?

[Wrenchedup]

Ok I've actually been a Reef keeper for about 5 years now but am not the greatest at knowing what parameters for which type of tank, what I mean is do I keep the water nutrient free for sps or full of nutrients for softees? I'm still really confused because I get all this info from so many different people and I think it's starting to catch up I love hard Coral but also love zoas and fish?
My tank is as follows
Oceanic 155 tall
Tek 8bulb ati bulbs
Wmp60 vortech
Apex Neptune w/breakout for float switches
2 brs dosers all/cal
Tom's aqualift ato
Berlin 150 sump
Octo nwb-150 w/diablo 3500 pump
Octo 110 biopellet reactor
Two fish reactor w/phosgaurd

Alk-8.9 cal-480 mag-1200 ph-8.0

My problem is after the tank had ran for a year one day all my sps started melting and green,brown,red algea showed up and I've been fighting it ever since picking and vacuuming every day, please I welcome all advice! I'm sure I missed some stuff

 

[eyesinthedrk]

It gets a bit more complicated than that but yes less nutrients set ups are generally better for sps. And softies are more tolerant of nutrients.

Based on your numbers alk is okay. your cal is a bit higher than I'd like in my tank. If it were mine i'd stop dosing it till it came down to 430 to 440 ish. And I'd bump your mag up by 100 points or so.

You didn't post phosphate or trates.

Also remember that there is so much more than just chemistry with sps. Lighting type, temp and intensity is a factor, flow rates and direction is a factor. Water temp is a factor. I've had sps die because the rock it was glued to slipped out of my hand and "clacked" to hard agains another rock.

 

[Wrenchedup]

That's great info ok I have bulbs as follows
Ati blue plus x3
Ati aqua blue special
Ati actinic x2
I've been only running 6 bulbs, I use salifert test for alk,mag,cal. And seachem for phos,nitr they are nitrates/trites 0.0,0.1 phos its never the right color but it lokes close to .15.
My water temp used to be at 80-81 all the time until I put 2 computer fans in my hood across the water, with the apex I've been able to get it to stay a 78 all the time now.
I have my vortech mp60 on the side of my tank faces towards the opposite side of my return at half power.
It's just one day brown blanket type algea showed up on the rocks and all of my grapefruit size (blue tort,green stag) bleached out now I've been fighting all types of algea ever since

 

[Wrenchedup]

Wow I thought more people would respond

 

[eyesinthedrk]

It's just really hard to give advice to such a broad open ended question without knowing every single aspect of your system.

 

[eyesinthedrk]

For example. Just looking at the numbers a single mp60 sounds like you should have enough flow. But without seeing it in action I can't really say.

 

[rmcaum]

Do a big water change, like 30-50%. Maybe it is some depleted beneficial or built up harmful micro constituents. Couldn't hurt either way. Drop your phosphates to zero with more phosgaurd, gfo or LaCl. Your trates are low enough. Then feed heavy. How long has it been since you replaced your bulbs? Maybe new bulbs... I would also try increased flow, I know you have enough with the MP, but to add additional dynamics. That is what I would do. Some will discourage this, but I would vacuum my sand bed, maybe even moving the rocks to remove excess built up detritus. I just did a deep clean on both of my tanks about a month ago, 1 and 2.5 years old, and I don't remember them looking so good. I have low nutrients in both, around zero if not at zero and my softies are doing fine. Good luck.

 

[steve&mari]

The numbers from test are wrong the algae is masking the true numbers it's using phosphate so it's not showing on test properly. Have you tried cutting down on feeding also what are you feeding I've noticed with some foods you see more issues like this then with others. Your rock probably has stored phosphate as well that leaching as it is used from water by algae to keep feeding it. Have you tried the 3 days blackout for it.

 

[Wrenchedup]

Thank you guys for the info this is great, so when I noticed the algea wasn't going away I remembered the bulbs were 1 1/2 yrs old so I changed them, then I noticed and didn't realize in my 5 years of reefkeeping that the corners of my sump,overflow,tank were packed! With brown/tan dirt type stuff, and I recently found out that its detrius? I think that's how it's spelled? Anyways I was told it releases nutrients and I did not know that so I vacuumed all that out and of the rocks! Man that was a pain in the but!
Also I've been trying to find the right placement for my mp60, I'm not sure if its better on the side of the tank or pushing from the back of the tank?