Live Rock

[Christs_Knight]

I have a 44 Imperial Gallon tank.
Amonia - 0.1ppm
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 20ppm

My nitrate is abit high, but other than that, what could be causing this?I have around 50kg of LR. my corals also just dont look good....
My fish are fine and so are my inverts.
I have a protein skimmer that i clean daily, i have 2 powerheads (both do 1200l/h) and a 200Watt heater. I also have a Compact Fluro (10K each bulb i think).
I just dont get it... I also have alot of waste on the sand, which is clearly but it is still there. I have around 30+ hermits and 6 Snails.
My fish are as follows
2 Ocellaris Clowns
1 Yellow tailed Damsel
1 Banna Wrasse
1 Banded Goby
1 Mandarin Fish
1 Black ribbon eel.
I really need help, i am scared that all the money and time i have spent may o to waste, well it wouldnt be wasted because i have learnt so much, but i dont really wanna start over.

 

[Navarre]

Ok lets have some more info here...
How long has the tank been running, what is the SG, PH and how often do you do water changes? Are you using RO Water?

 

[Christs_Knight]

Been going for around 6 months now.
The SG is between 1.025-1.026.
around 5% a week, What is RO water?

 

[L200]

Reverse Osmosis

i get mine from my LFS,

as i understand its a MUST in marine aquariums...

 

[Christs_Knight]

well thanks for telling me the name... but r u gonna tell me what it is?

 

[smooth_bourbon]

from what I have been reading it is filtered water. http/www.aquadirect.com/catalog/ro/

If you google it there are tons of webpages for it. A lot of people buy the water from their LFS rather then filtering it themselves.

edit : Click on RO water a little ways down on the left.

 

[Navarre]

RO Water is reverse Osmosis as already mentioned. Its pure water with all chemical and trace eliments removed. Whilst i would not say its essential that RO water is used, (many tanks have survived years without it) I owuld say that it does stop alot of troubles that occur with high phosphates nitrates etc. It also stops the danger of the local water authorities adding chemicals to kill freshwater inverst that live in the pipes. These chemicals aare just as deadly to saltwater inverts too )