I don't understand what I am doing wrong

Hi,
I have had my 55 gallon reef tank up and running for about 9 months now.
It has had several bad algae outbreaks, current gha outbreak, and dino's. Every time it get's better another out break happens. I use rodi water, run a skimmer, 4 ati t-5 lights (new), 30x water turnover, water changes once a month. It is now bare bottom.I have 4 small fish and a large cleanup crew. I am starting to think the dry rock I have is leaching phosphates. Is there a way to fix the rock or does it leach it's self out? Should I be adding any supplements? I mainly test for ph, amm, nitrates, ph and cal, which are all fine.

 

Please list the numbers from your tests, they may show something you have missed.

Where do you get your rodi water from? If it from your own filter when was the last time you changed filters?

If you rock have phosphate in them then you will need to wait it leaching out.

GFO reactors can help with your issue by removing phosphate from your water.

 

What are using using for any type of filtration? Sump? Cannister?

Your methods sound good, so you probably are not causing a nitrate factory with a dirty filter.

Yes, I've heard of rocks doing that, but I've heard those rocks have alot of algae on those rocks themselves.

Sorry for your woes, I hope it gets better soon

 

It is entirely possible that your rocks are leaching nutrients. If the rocks were mined from an agricultural state(like Florida) they will indeed suck up fertilizers, and even pesticides. If this is the case the rocks will eventually stop leaching.The four main things you want to test for are Alkalinity,Magnessium, Calcium,and PH.Things like Ammonia,Nitrate, and Phosphate need only be tested if you start experiencing an algae problem or animal die off after you have completed the initial cycle.Supplements should not be needed as long as you are doing regular WC's and your Alk, Calcium, and Magnesium are at the proper levels. These levels are more important when adding LPS or SPS.How large is your CUC?What kind of fish?How often are you feeding?What are you feeding?
Large CUC's can actually do more harm then good IME if there is not enough food in the tank for them.

 

A few other questions:

How much and how often do you feed? What kind of flow do you have?

 

The 4 fish I have are a bicolor blennie, 2 clowns and a royal gramma. My cuc is one of the package deals for a 55 gallon tank. I feed the fish rods frozen food once a day enough they can finish in 2 minutes. I do not test for alk or mag. I actually just bought a gfo about half an hour ago. And I have around 30x flow. I also only keep soft corals for now.

 

Not everyone has it as bad, but what I've learned slowly is your experience is fairly normal. Tanks go from one pain in the butt to another. The thing is, over the first year, they slowly fade away.

If you keep doing things right however, fight the nutrients as best you can and keep things as consistent as possible, a day will come when it all of a sudden starts to come together.

GFO will help, but time will too. You're getting there.

 

Its still a good idea to have your RO/DI water tested anyways. Whats your dosing schedule look like? I honestly noticed sometimes when I did feed my fish daily it did start to feed the tank somewhat, I switched too a two day regime and It seems to be fine, havent seen much of a difference though. Also if anything, I would test Alk, some people soly only test for that.

 

My 10 gallon nano used to have BAD cyano outbreaks. I added a powerhead for more flow and ran gfo and cleared it up in a week. Never had it come back