ATS For 120 Gallon Tank.

You can probably dim them down to around 50% on the PWM signal, maybe a bit less, and run 12 hours

 

Reefkeeping is a game of patience. It takes 6-12 months for a reef tank to get established.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/eb/

But let me back up a bit: You started the tank about 2 or 3 months ago, correct?

What is in the tank now? Any fish, live rock, etc?

How did you cycle the tank?

After you finished the nitrogen cycle, did you perform any water changes?

 

There are a lot of things going on in a new tank, but especially a saltwater tank. There are many chemicals and compounds that we can't easily test for, as a hobbyist. So I would read that article, it gives you a very realistic timeline of what to expect. You can add some corals, but make them "easy" ones, and definitely not expensive corals. Make sure that you are able to maintain stable levels of Alk, Cal, and Mag over a long term before you think about moving on to more challenging corals.

If you rush into it, chances are you're going to rush out of it also - because rushing things in this hobby often leads to failure, which = empty wallet and nothing to show for it, which is very much bad!

 

This is something you can probably expect as part of the maturing of the tank, it's noted in that Reefkeeping Magazine article. I don't know if I would say that it means conditions are "ideal" for scrubber growth, it just tells you that you should not have a lot of trouble growing algae on your scrubber because it's definitely present in the system

 

API Nitrate kit is finicky, you have to make sure that you shake that #2 bottle hard for 30-60 seconds and then follow directions to a T. Also if it's expired then throw it out.

 

I can't say that I agree with this completely. The best thing for a tank is just time. Livestock that are fed good foods will produce waste (urea, etc) and this is the fuel source for algae, either directly or indirectly (after bacterial digestion).

 

You have to let the periphyton develop. The algae bloom is sometimes part of that process.

You mentioned that you used "dead rock" seeded with live rock. Where did you get the dead rock from? Was it dried out from a previous tank, etc...this might matter.

How much of each type of rock (pounds) do you have?

 

But, what was the original source of the dry/dead rock? An old tank? Bought off craigslist?

Had it been acid soaked, powerwashed, etc?

80 lb of unknown origin dry rock could be anything. You could have bound up waste that needs to be leeched out which can take months. The most comon way to eliminate this unknown is "cooking" the rock, are you familiar with that term?

 

If they were ocean harvested and then dried out, there's probably a ton of life that died off in the drying process and now all that dead life is being leeched out.

There's a big difference between clean dry rock and dead live rock.

Have you ever heard of the process of "cooking" live rock? In case you have not, it is not putting your LR in boiling water. It's a multiple-month process by where you cure the rock for use in a reef tank. If you haven't done this, you are looking at several months of algae growth in the tank. There's really not a whole lot you can do about that either because the rock is full of "fuel" for the algae. You can build an aggressive scrubber to try and keep the water N and P really low, and this will speed up the process, but that doesn't remove the fuel, you just have to burn it out and that takes time.