Nothing growing in my tank (1 Viewer)

[pickle311]

Tank is a 50 gallon cube and has been running since April. I've been very slow to add things to the tank as I feel that nothing good happens fast in a reef tank. In that time, I've only added a couple of small frags and an anemone. 1 small frag of zoas, 1 single polyp blastomussa, and a sunset monti frag. Blasto looks great, zoas look great, and the sunset monti was starting to color up until the hurricane. The power loss and all that mess caused it to start slowly bleaching and it hasn't come back. Pretty sure it's a goner.
In this time, I've had no coraline algae growth either. None on the glass, none on the power heads, nothing. There's very few purple spots on my rocks and the spots aren't growing at all that I can see.
I just checked the water a few minutes ago and everything looks good.
SG 1.026
Ph 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ca 480
Alk 7.3dKH
Mg 1380

Ca, Alk, and Mg are Salifert test kits. Others are API. SG checked with a refractometer and I verify calibration prior to each use.

Cheato is growing like crazy in the sump, it's jam packed in there now.

For lighting on the tank, I'm using the AI Hydra 26 with the program cycle many people have claimed to have the best success with. I had it pretty high over the tank, little over 2 feet above the water. Over the weekend I dropped it down to 12" from the water. I know that could be a factor, but I'd still expect it to be getting enough light to grow coraline. The anemone has been happy in the lower part of the tank and not moving with the light that high. The sunset monti was also in the lower 1/3rd of the tank and starting to color up as well.

Any ideas? I'm kinda at a loss here. Hoping to see some improvement with lowering the light.

 

[Diesel]

Low nutrients and low ALK aren't the best for coraline algae to grow.
coraline needs some what dirty water and cause of that you can run your ALK higher.
Where sits your Po4 at?

 

[webster1234]

Light could be part of it. You don't need a lot of light. Maybe try setting it at 50%. I think the bigger problem is that your alk/calcium is out of balance. Your cal is too high and your alk it too low. A proper ratio is around 420 cal/8.2 dKh alk. Try bringing your calcium down first and see what happens to your alk. When one drops, the other usually rises. Do it over a few days.

This is predicated on the fact that you are dosing. If you aren't, then your alk is simply too low. Start bringing it up to 8.2 and try to keep it there with some daily dosing protocol. Once you get it to 8.2, see what happens to your calcium. You may need to end up dosing that as well. But not much will grow with alk at 7.3.

 

[pickle311]

Thanks, I've got the Alk up to 8.1 now. I'll keep an eye on it and see what happens. I'm also upping feeding a little as well.

 

[Paul Buie]

Thanks, I've got the Alk up to 8.1 now. I'll keep an eye on it and see what happens. I'm also upping feeding a little as well.

That will help. Sometimes newer tanks won't take off until a decent bio load is present. Fish are a big help to the system if nutrients are too low. As long as it is a good nutrient exporter with no dead spots etc, a good bio load has seemed to help me fare well and dial things in. I feed more than most, but export capability is good and algae is kept at bay. Sounds like you are doing things right. There are lots of ways to up nutrients, so adding more fish may not be in your plans.

 

[reeftopia]

Ben is right about the alk I keep mine over 9.0. Don't worry about the coralline I never have had any and my sps grows out of the water it grows so fast.

 

[Luman01]

It took my dads tank to grow coraline when we went to Hawaii in August we shut off the skimmer and when we came back boom a whole back panel filled with coraline. And my dad has had the tank for 8-9 months!

 

[PorpoiseHork]

Coraline algae can be rather fickle. Some tanks mature in a few months and start growing it pretty quickly. Others may take a year or more for it to develop, while some just don't ever grow it at all. Mine took about 6 months until I saw the first spot of it appear on the glass. Now a year in on my current tank and I have about 50% coverage on my live rock. One of the things I did was get a couple frag plugs with some coraline on them and scrape it off and mix it with some tank water and a full dose of Mg and Cal. Then much to my wife's dismay used the hand blender to pulverize the coraline scrapings in the solution. I then seeded the tank with this solution. It was still a couple months until I saw any develop.

 

[pickle311]

Thanks for the input. I certainly plan to add more fish as I only have 2 in there now, I just like to do it slow to ensure everything stays healthy. The last fish went in about 3 months ago, so maybe this weekend I'll see if I can find a new addition.