Thank you everyone for the welcome. Ill give all of you a quick run down of the tank i have along with the equipment under the hood. I have a red sea e-170 with a few upgrades. I have a maxspec gyre 230, two small inovative marine reactors (was running bio pellets in one and gfo/carbon in the other but just turned both off the other day), 2 brs dosing pumps, a hydrofill auto top off, and ditched the red sea skimmer for a psk75 in sump skimmer that i trimmed the base plate to make fit in the aio rear sump section. I have been using polyfill at the top of the return section, cut the foam in that section in half so i could fit a few marine pure spheres on top and cover with polyfill. I removed the filter basket to fit the reactors in that area. Other then that it is stock e-170. I have had an issue with high nitrates down to 20ish from 50 finally. I do not believe i over feed as i only feed 4 times a week. I attribute the nitrate level to the red sea skimmer that came with the tank. I had to adjust that skimmer daily and 2 time the air inlet seemed to plug up and just didnt produce any skim for a few days before i noticed. I had done everything thing to try to lower the nitrates, multiple 5 gallon water changes a week, bio pellets, gfo ( i now know if only removes phosphates). I started using nopox about a week ago and that mixed eith the better skimmer seem to really be knocking the nitrates down. My current water parameters are as follows.
Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.2
Nitrate 20ish
Mag 1410
Cal 410
Alk 9.5
Phosphates ? Planning to pick one up this weekend
I dose 7ml of fuel 2 times a week and daily dose brs 2 part broken up over 6 doses daily.
Have been using coral pro salt and rodi water only since day one.
My biggest challenge i have right now is i have lost a few pieces of coral and have a fee that dont look to great and then i have others that are doing amazing and growing like crazy. Lost a small acan frag of 4 heads and a dmall hammer coral. I have 2 dmall acros that are not dead but one is not growing but still has nice purple color, the other was vibrant green when i first got it and now is a pink color and has been that way for about 2 months. I am starting to see a little green reappear. All my other corals are doing great, zoas, palys, 2 types of frogspawn, elegance, duncan, gonipora, Trachyphyllia, and encrusting monti. I had a bubble tip that did great for about 2 months then when my old skimmer decided to screw up he started to turn inside out. I kept a close eye on him for about 6 days but he seemed to get worse everyday decided to remove it before a disaster. Long story but wanted to give as much info as possible as i see alot of people post questions with very limited info about their tank.
So at this point i have 2 main questions that i hope i can get some input on. First is what do some of the more experienced think about my coral issues, related to high nitrate, possibly low phosphates since i have not tested and was stupidly running gfo w/o ability to test level, or possibly my settings on my hydra26hd.
Second what are your guys thoughts on upgrading to a lower sump? I seem to be able to fit what i need in the rear sump at this point but am really interested in refugiums as they seem to help with lots of issues when i comes to water quality.
Thank you again and sorry for the novel.