is my water too clean??

I have been having difficulty keeping Macro algae in my refugium. It all seems to waste away. My chaeto is white, the green bubble algae I once had plenty of is all gone, and just a few small strands of calupera left. I am wondering if my skimmer is too aggressive for my current setup. Does anyone run their skimmer part-time?? should i try only skimming at night? My water tests come back pristine...but thats the goal right? ammonia, nitrate,nitrite, phos =0ppm, temp =77Deg, salinity= 1.025, pH=8.2, cal=440, mag=1300, dkH=11. I have a fairly mature tank, its a 55G with a 20G fuge... a little more than 3 years old now

I also just days ago took in a carnation coral by mistake...didn't know what it was and i assumed it would be easy because it was very similar looking to my kenya tree coral that is thriving. I want to do everything i can even tho i have heard its almost forsure gonna die. I have some Kent Zooplex and some marine snow, both are for filter feeders. I would feed it as much as possible but the polyps are rarely out of the body of the coral and seems to be slowly deflating. Not sure why...it's under shade in medium flow and my water seems to be great unless its too clean...What can I do? any suggestions?

 

Inability to keep macro algae usually means a nutrient imbalance or limitation, not that the water is too clean. It's pretty much impossible to have water that's "too clean" for most of our livestock. However, it can certainly be too clean for macro algae, but that is usually good for everything else. It can be tough to determine if there is a nutrient limitation though as test kits aren't accurate really.

However, assuming no nutrient limitation, nitrate, phosphate etc... even in ULN systems tend to be significantly higher than where the majority of our corals come from. There are certain corals that may like slightly higher nutrient levels and there can be reasons other may do better with slightly higher levels than found in nature. For the most part though, cleaner is better. You could dose some iron KNO3, amminos etc... if you really want to keep the cheato, however, once you've had the carnation coral for a while, odds are your cheato will bounce back with a vengeance.

 

Sounds like you have a low nutrient system now. Turn off the flow in the tank, spot feed a tiny amount to wake the coral up then add in the rest when it is awake.

 

sounds great guys! i wasn't sure how to balance the need for nutrients and the quality of my water.

I tried turning the flow off and spot feeding it.. it worked! now it's open and looking better than it ever did. I added the rest to the tank, but now how much should i run the skimmer and mechanical filtration??? If i didn't use the skimmer at all and just relied on the macro algae in the fuge would I have trouble? The carnation coral is in a shaded area but i am about to create a small cave it can hang upside down in as i hear this is how they are usually found in nature. The carnation came attached to a piece of LR so i think if I take two larger pieces of LR and lean them into one another i should be able to wedge the LR the carnation is on in between the two like the key stone on a archway

I have a mix of filter feeding suppliments, and just picked up a bottle of seachem reef phyto plankton to give more diversity of food. already had the marine snow and some kent zooplex.

i added a picture. this is how it looks today...only thing i notice is its not quite as tall and looks kinda wrinkly.

Any other suggestions to try and keep the coral happy?

 

I would keep running the skimmer 24/7 and just run it so it skims dryer. You will be generating a lot more nutrients with daily feeding that the carnation requires.

 

ok, now with daily feeding..... is this a multiple times a day spot feed in small doses or should i dose the whole tank with one larger amount and have it circulate in the water once a day or every other day?

 

You need to spot feed daily and fairly heavy if you do it once a day