Jon's 20g mixed reef

[jon.smolders]

So this tank had been up and running for about a year. It did well for the first few months and then I had to do camp work for a few months and my water change routine fell off. My tank was overrun by this wierd brown slime algae/bacteria (possibly dinos but not sure) and some cyano. At any rate I neglected my tank for about 6 months.

Last week I decided to get it back on track. I did a 25 percent water change, vacuumed the sand bed, and took out all the live rock and scrubbed it with a wire brush. Its looking pretty good now though there is some algae holding on.

Tank Specs:
- 20g standard display, 20g long sump
- AI prime led light
- small refugium with live rock and chaeto in sump
- 8w uv sterilizer (lamp is a year and a half old, not sure if its still effective)
- tunze nano ato
- bm curve 5 skimmer

After deep cleaning parameters are:
- 0 nitrate
- pH 7.8
- alk 10.5 dkh
- calcium 480 ppm
- mg 1380 ppm
- sg 1.026
- temp 78 - 79 F

Livestock:
- Royal Gramma
- frogspawn
- nepthea frag
- gsp frags
- ricordea florida frag
- rhodactis mushrooms
- yellow polyps
- "grassy field" some type of encrusting lps?
- photosynthetic gorgonian
- meteor shower cyphastrea frag

My new maintenance plan consists of:
- Water change wednesdays (approx 25percent / week)
- Increased chemical filtration (1/2 cup carbon, purigen, and phosguard, renewed monthy)
- kalkwasser in top off water (to keep levels up, hopefully increase coraline growth on live rock, and increase the pH)
- periodically vacuum sand into filter sock

Any tips or advice would be appreciated. Havent seen much growth in my frags over the last year. I would like to see this tank thrive. I would be thrilled if even my mushrooms and gsp took over the tank lol.

(Pictures coming soon)

[jon.smolders]

[604reefer]

I also have a 20g tall. Thinking about getting an AI prime myself. How's the tank looking?

[Myka]

I totally missed this thread! Yeah, how's it looking these days? What setting are you using on the Prime?