Custom 3 feet mixed reef

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Location
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So after moving homes I decided to do a little tank upgrade. Kept most of the old equipment and stand but used a new 3 feet standard tank with polished edges.

Equipment:
3 Feet tank, DIY bracing on top and black high gloss perspex trim
Custom steel stand with pine wood
Bubble magus skimmer
Seachem Tidal filter with Matrix
100 W heater
5x12 W Led light
Sunsun flow pump JVP 110

At the moment only topping up with kalkwasser and performing 5L water change every second week with Aquavitro Salinity.

Moved all the corals in a plastic container that was their home for about 6 weeks, after transfer to the new tank I left it half filled and topped up with water weekly until filled.

Pics to follow
 
FTS

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Interesting LED unit. What is it?
 
I do not know the brand but it has 5 x 12w 14000K downlight Leds with blue and white only drivers
 
Thanks a lot. I prefer to keep it simple as it keeps running and setup costs down and still gives all the joy. I will start to add some more fish now and some variations of sps and maybe a clam or two. Thinking along the lines of a sixline wrasse and dwarf angel as next inhabitants.
 
Looking good, might have to put a cover on tank once you add a sixline, as they can jump. Do you find the SunSun and Tidal filter provides enough flow?
 
My water level is about 10cm from the top of the tank and with the bracing I hope he will have a hard time to get out. The flow is the one thing that could be increased a bit. The Tidal and SunSun looks sufficient but maybe not optimal, although the Tidals also have a high flow rate.
 
@Franske was it you staying in stellenbosch back in the day? remember visiting you once.Think i bought frags from you.lekker setup!!
 
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Will post a little photo update later today.

I however need some help. Atm I am only dosing kalkwasser in my topup water along with water changes (seachem vibrant) to replenish nutrients and minerals. My corals especially SPS dont seem to have the same pop in colours they used to have. Nitrates and phosphates seem under control since I dont get any algae. In my tidal filter I run matrix and phos remover and except for that my only other filtration is the bubble magus skimmer.

Any advice with regards to what I could dose or add to help me with the problem, my Alk stays quite low 6-7 and it seems like the kalkwasser dosing does not keep up with consumption.
 
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Tbh I have not tested them for a very long time and dont even have test kits anymore, do you reckon that would be the most probable cause? Even more so than alk, cal, mag and ph?

I also assume that tds of ro will be fine if nitrates and phos are in check so dont have to test for that seperately.

I dont mind testing just dont have all the kits available.
 
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For sps to lose colour and brown out it is most probably nutrients that is the issue, maybe test and see? My tank also has almost no algae, but nitrates around 80, so can’t really go on amount of algae in tank.
 
Some photos
 

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So I did some testing today, seems like alk, ca and mg a bit on the low side and the kalkwasser is increasing PH a bit so assume I cant increase the kalk dosing from here on.

What supplements would be recommended to correct these, maybe Redsea ABC?

Should I worry about dosing trace elements and would that possibly increase depth of colour on the corals?

KH 6.4
PH 8.6
MG 1200
Phosphate 0
Nitrate 0
CA 260
 
Some latest pics. My skimmer pump broke over Dec holiday, skimmer was off for 3 weeks and corals never looked happier. Needless to say the skimmer was not replaced.
 

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