How to raise Nutrient Level in my system

[yankee26th]

Hello fellow members ---

I have a 180 gallon mainly an SPS dominate system. The system has been established for 4 years now. Over the past several months I have started to see some of my SPS corals begin to bleach starting at the base. The bleaching then gradually works its way upward until the coral is completely bleached. All my water parameters are within range for a successful SPS dominate system. I have heard that maybe my Nutrient level maybe too low. If this is true, I need your input on how I can raise my nutrient level, or any other suggestion that may be useful for me to resolve this problem.

Thank you for your time and cooperation

 

[ajcanale]

Aside from the regular "advice" to feed more (which will raise phosphates, not necessarily a good thing) you can use nitrate supplements intended for planted aquariums in the form of potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate.

The bigger question here is knowing for certain what the issue is. The most seemingly frequent cause of base up necrosis, in my opinion, is alk swings/excessively low alk/ unstable or unbalanced elemental levels in general... or parasites. If you can rule these two out then introducing nutrients is easy.

 

[Eastone]

if it's bleaching and basal recession, I'd assume low nutrient. I dose potassium nitrate almost daily but I'd check your phosphate, it's usually phosphate deficiencies that causes tissue stripping when it's not waterflow related, you may want to look into raising those levels somewhat.

 

[sahin]

I'd first ascertain exactly what your PO4 and NO3 levels are. Are you feeding the tank regularly? Did you remove a lot of fish from the system prior to these issues? Have you recently added extra filtration such as a Biopellet reactor?

Did you have problems with the alkalinity dropping to very low levels? Have you pulled out one or two acros and did for pests?