I think my water is too clean...

I'm rocking a 55 Gallon Reef tank with 7 inches of clown fish, a heavy amount of pods, crustaceans, variety of LPS coral and soft coral. I've been running a Coral Life SUPER SKIMMER 65. In the last few weeks I added a Fuge, overflow and a Media reactor w/ 100 mlROWAphos.

Nitrates and Phosphates are not detectable with the kits I have...

Long story short I think some of my LPS (Caulastrea specifically) aren't too happy and seem to be beaching and I had a Kenya Tree Die (It was new so i dono). The frog spawn seems fine but doesn't open as much. Everything else looks happy at the moment (Green StarPolyps, Anthelia, mushrooms, galaxia)


Here's my questions:

What do I do to get the nitrate levels slightly higher?
Is it ok to use the skimmer or media reactor less?
Should I feed the fish and coral more to make more nitrates?
Due I let the LSP suffer at the expense of being able to grow tougher corals?

 

I would give it time adding a fuge to the system will make a small cycle until the fuge sets itself up. Everything needs time to adjust. also do you have a (deep sand bed)DSB in your fuge?

as far as nitrates why would you want higher lvls?

 

Sorry I ment sump... it's just has my equipment sitting in it.

I've notice before I got the media reactor that if I did my water changes later (2 weeks vs 1 week), some of the LPS coral looked healthier. Things have definitely changed since the reactor.

 

just talk about this in dingos thread. Put an extra sponge like fro a overflow in the sump and dont clean it

 

Found dingo's thread... thanks for the heads up, karma all around

http://www.3reef.com/forums/algae/how-increase-nitrates-89649.html

 

How funny, I've had the same problem with my nano. I'll give the sponge thing a shot.

 

Extra sponge, or extra feedings.

 

LPS and softies don't need tons of flow or light either.

 

There's quite a few LPS that have higher light requirements than most SPS (Faviids come to mind as a particular example), and a few LPS that need less than some softies (Trachyphyllia). I think the generalizing of LPS/SPS/Soft is pretty harmful for that reason.