what am i doing wrong???

[benny]

my phosphates are way too high at 1.5-2.0, my nitrates are way too high at 80-160 ppm, i get algae growth of green algae and red slime algae also some kind of red furr on glass...
here is a detailed spec of my set up. please help with any suggestions. thanks

Fish Tank Specifications
Fish:
Lawnmower Blenny, Yellow Tang, Cleaner Wrass, Tomatoe Clown, Koran, Domino Damsel, Bicolor Damsel, Snow Flake Eal, Sand Sifting Nudibrack, Red & Yellow colored Nudibrack

Inverts:
Sea Fan, Orange Gregorian, Carpet Anemony, Bubble Tip Anemony, Blue/Red/Hair Mushrooms, Dersa/Maxima Clams, Carribean Flame Scallop, Leather Coral, Brown/Green/White/Orange Button/Yellow Polyps, Hammer Coral, Pink Bubble Coral, Orange Sponge, Green/Brown Star Polyps, White/Brown Fan Worms, Acroporah (Light Brown)

Critters:
Approximately 10 to 15 Hermit Crabs, 3-5 Snails, countless small critters and Live rock, 1 large Hermit Crab in bottom sump tank

Water Perimeters:
Water is RODI, Ammonia is .001 - 0, Nitrite .001 -0, PH 8.2 - 8.3, Salinity maintained at 1.020, Kalk mix dripped with RO/DI is 400-450 PPM, Nitrate is very high at 80 - 160, Phosphate 1.0 - 1.5ppm, Alkalinity 8 - 9dkh

Tank Specs:
29 Gallon MainTank (30�wide x 12� deep x 16� high), Sump tank Below Main Tank filled with 30 Gallons of water, Gravel on bottom of sub tank (not sure if this does anything or harms tank, 200 watt heater, 500gph Mag Drive Pump ( Used to circulate
water) 950gph Mag Drive Pump ( Used to run Skimmer), Down Draft Protein Skimmer (Custom made, similar to E.T.SS Evolution 500), 1 Power Head in Main Tank ( Lots of water movement from pump and sump below) lights are one daylight 10,000 and one
actinic 10,000 110 watt power compact florescence.

Additives:
Kent Ammonia Detox Liquid, Sea Buffer Powder, Mark Weiss Black Powder, Dried Phyto, Iodine Liquid, Seachem’s strontium powder b- ionic calcium hydroxide kalk,

Fish Food: (twice a day via 2 automatic feeders) Omega one flake food, Freeze Dried Plankton, Prawns (mostly for eal) Sea weed vegies (mostly for Yellow Tang)

Prognosis & Observation:
Things doing very well :
All fish, Button and star polyps, clams and scallops, leather hammer, fan worms,

Things doing OK:
Anemones, one acroporah

Things not doing well:
Pink Bubble, Sea Fan (has algae growth on it) Gregorian (has algae growth on it)

Lost Specimens:
Three Goneporahs, Torch, One Arcroporah, Plate, Brain Coral,

***Note: Due to my failure in keeping these specimens alive I will not purchase again until I know why they died.

Areas of Improvement:
Getting Nitrate between 10 & 30 PPM, Getting Phosphate to lower levels, having more sand sifters.

[ReefNutPA]

Benny,
Your tank is WAAAY overcrowded :eek2: . A 29 gal tank (30" of swimming room) is too small for a Koran Angel, let alone a Yellow tang. With that bioload in your tank it will be extremely difficult to ever get your nitrates down. What I'd suggest is to reduce the fish population and lower the amount of nutrients in the tank. Doing frequent water changes will help lower the nitrates, but with that many fish in there I don't believe it will get too much lower. Sorry to bring bad news....

Tom

[buddywally]

Two impressions;

1) That gravel in the sump is just a big crap-trap. Having said that, have you considered growing some kind of macroalgae in the sump. 30g is a luxury that I cannot afford (due to space limitations), but you could do some big-time nutrient export with the real estate and some very inexpensive lighting.

2) Lots of fish for that tank (as many have said before me). However I will say that I appreciate the thinking behind it, hell you have a sump that's same size as your tank, so you've obviously put some thought into this.

Hey that gives me an idea, if you were to "blue-up" the lights in the display tank while adding a wide-spectrum light to the sump you could maybe get the nuisance algae to grow preferentially in the sump. I know that this doesn't "get rid" of the algae, but merely relocates it. However, even nuisance algae works to remove phosphate, and you can harvest it from the sump probably easier than from the display.
That's while you follow the excellent advice given by the more experienced reefers herein.

Happy New Year!
dsw

[ATJ]

http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/search.php?action=showresults&searchid=134029&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I see that you've gotten plenty of good answers both here and in the main forum. If you still have a chemistry question, I'm happy to help!