Sps nutrition while fishless

[greenhead]

Well I violated my own QT procedures after being told the anthias I bought were pre quarantined. Well I am now going from under stocked to fishless. I pulled everyone from display to hospital tanks last night. I have Eros Aminos, phyto feast, and oyster feast on hand.

What my question is, is there anything else I could be feeding to get deeper color? The system is made up of a 150 gal cube and three 40 gallon frag tanks. Also a 40 gallon sump. Pretty much a 300 gallon system before water to rock displacement. Although frag tanks have no rock. My biggest issue is since the Tangs are out my already crappy brown furry algae problem is going to get worse and I don't want to give it more nutrients to thrive off of. Even though the stuff seems to get worse the lower my nutrients are. Here is how everything looks now.

Salinity: 1026/35ppt
Ph: 8.22 (via apex lab grade probe)
Orp: 430
No3: undetectable
Po4: .01 to undetectable
Lightning is 1 x 400 watt radium with 4 x 36" t5 actinics.
Tank dimensions are 36x36x27

Also are there any fish I can be positive of that won't host the ick in there gills? The amphipods are going to go crazy. Last time I did this I actually saw big amphipods eating the encrustment of my smaller deep water sps. I already have been trying to overfeed and get nutrients up. But with only 12 fish it has been hard to do it responsibly. Corals have good color but are lighter and more pastel than I would like.

[tofucube]

You can try adding more snails and increase the dosage on the amount of amino.

[dowtish]

Feed coral food and aminos. If your skimmer wont keep up then do more water changes

[greenhead]

Quick question about my skimmer. I have the AquaC EV400. This darn skimmer pretty much completely quits working when I feed. Is this normal for downdraft style skimmers? I have not been real impressed by this skimmer so far.

[greenhead]

When i say quits working I mean it stops foaming for a couple hours. And needs cleaned 2 times a week to even run halfway efficient.

[Reefvet]

When i say quits working I mean it stops foaming for a couple hours. And needs cleaned 2 times a week to even run halfway efficient.

It stops because of the change in surface tension in the water, the rest of the time it's a very good skimmer. Yeah you could spend hundreds of dollars and improve on it, but not by much.

And why do people always think a skimmer should be constantly producing ?

That's a the best sign you've got a skimmer that can't keep up.

[GreshamH]

FWIW Phyto-Feast won't feed your SPS, but it will feed zooplankton your SPS will eat (or eat the larvae of). Oyster-Feast however will indeed feed your SPS.

[greenhead]

Thanks GreshamH. I just wonder if I even have a suitable amount of zooplankton. My ORP reads 430+ without running my ozone generator. And the system is fairly young when it comes to an SPS system. Before removing my old 120 from the system I got excellent sps coloration while dosing NoPoX. But it contained some very old rock and sand that I believe we're providing a good food source for my coral. But as soon as I removed it my entire system became super clean in less than a week. Even after I stopped carbon dosing I could not build a detectable nutrient base. Couldn't grow algae for the life of me. I somehow really messed up the ionic balance of the system. My coral now grow faster than I have ever seen and all the corals that almost died have colored up well. Except for that nice pastel look to them. Any new pieces I add to the DT do excellent and have seen no color change. I know it all takes time but I tell you, it's a boring time. .

[kevin_e]

I dosed amino and oyster feast. You could always ghost feed too. I know I'm feeding properly if I need to clean my glass every other day.