Reef help

[slipknotno]

HI I started my 40 gallon breeder tank about 7 months ago. this is my first atempt at reef keeping and it is not going well. First my stats
40 gallon breeder
4X 96 watt Orbit PC light. 2 10K 2 antinics
50lbs of live rock
40lbs of live sand
1 yellow watchman goby
1 purple firefish
2 black and white false percs
1 regular false perc
several turbo snails
I have tried pulsing xenia , mushrooms and zoo's.
Everyone of them lasts about a week. the zoo's never opened in my tank but I gave to a buddy's and they opened for him.
SG 1.025
PH 8.2
Temp 80.1F
Cal 430
Nitrates .2 PPM
Alk 13.7
Phos 0
Remora skimmer
emperor 350 Hang on filter
These are all the test kits that I have. One friend says that it's a phos problem. I do have green and red algee growing. Another friend says that the lights I have are too high. at almost 10 watts per gallon I do have to consider it. The second friend works at a petstore. The zoo's I bought were from there tank. And they had acro growing right next to it . He said to try acro and if it grew I just had too mcuh light. That's what I'm tring now. I'm getting really frustrated and I don't know what to do. Any help would be great
Thanks
Matt

 

[fishieness]

naw, an acro isnt going to do well for long under there.
its not too much light. i have a 150 watt metal halide DE HQI with 2X65 watt PC with mushrooms right in the center. they may be at the bottom, but its with halides and my tank is only about 14 inches deep with my sand bed. my guess is that it is either phosphate or it could be light acclimation. what lighting are they under at the LFS? and where are you putting them in yoru tanki?

 

[nereef]

phosphates can be taken care of. don't overfeed, run some phosgaurd filter media, and most importantly us RO water.

 

[slipknotno]

I ordered a phosban reactor and. the LFS is using metal halides. I'm not sure what wattage but the acro I got is in the same tank I got the zoo's. Also I started with the zoo's on top of a rock then after a few days moved them to the sand bed

 

[wax32]

I ALWAYS start corals on the sand... fry less of them that way. You can always move them up. But if you start them high you can't unfry them.

 

[chrisarca]

Your parameters look good. Move things around and use basic common sense to see where things look happiest. your lighting is fine.

 

[dburr]

First off, is the tank new or used? I was thinking copper but the snails are living, right?
What salt do you use and how do you mix it? How often do you do water changes?
What do you have for powerheads/water movement?

 

[slipknotno]

I bought the tank new. And yes I have snails. I also at one time had crabs and shrimp. I use instant ocean, and do water changes every 2-3 weeks. 20-25 percent. and I have a closed loop with a mag12 and scwd in the back corners and have a maxi jet 900 accross the front.