GardenVariety
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have you considered emptying skimmer cup back into sump
What do you mean by that? Actually dump the skimmate back into the water?
have you considered emptying skimmer cup back into sump
Thanks. I am not sure how to increase my phosphate at this point since I feed 4 times a day and don't run GFO. I was unaware that low PO4 and 9 Alk was an issue.
How about testing for strontium have you done that?
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Aside to what everyone has mentioned above.. low PO4, slightly high alk. You might consider increasing the intensity of your lights or lowering your lights' height. I feel like the kessils are a bit underpower. Definitely check on that shrimp.. One reason y I don't have any shrimps in my tank, bad experiences in the past.
If all else fails, you can always do a triton test and get a better idea.. who knows you might have dropped a small piece of metal that's rusting away in your tank.
I've had two episodes of RTN's, last year and last summer.
- first one was my monti cap and birdsnet last year. I pinned point the problem with Alk swing. Newbie mistake, I dont know anything about dosing calcium and alk. I was able to save my monti by dosing kalk, but it was too late for the birdsnest, it kicked the bucket.
- second one was just last summer, pink floyd, pearlberry, walt disney, SD rainbow milli SPS's lost color and got really pale. PE was bad as well. The pink floyd actually turned brown. For this one, the problem was temp. My usual temp before summer was 78-79 deg, but couple days of heatwave, my tank shoot up to 82 deg for a few days,. as soon as I added a fan and stabilized my temp to normal/usual range, corals gradually went back to normal.
With that being said, what is your dosing regime? No power outage in your area to cause temp spike? How about aerosol that could be accidentally sprayed near the tank? Stray voltage? Do you use GFO even if you have undetectable P04?
Check you RO/DI water for chlorine. ALK is not high enough to cause a problem in my experience. What test kits are you using? I may be able to come take a look tomorrow early afternoon. I agree I would not expect the kessils to be enough light at 50-60%.
The best advice I can give u is stop dosing and let your reef balance out. Right now something is missing or accumulated in your tank and you don't know what it is until u have an icp test. Don't add any more corals buy an ati icp test and send your water out. I like ati since they will test your rodi also and they including self postage to send out your water sample. Just monitor your alk and keep it stable.
I only dose CA and ALK right now. If I stop dosing then I will get an ALK drop. How do you suggest I keep ALK stable without dosing? I just ordered an ICP test.
I don't believe there's any possibility of that.
Every pump has a magnet of some sort so there's always the possibility of the magnets going bad. Just to be certain, I'd check all the pumps and make sure the magnets are intact. Also, check and magnetic probe holders, magnetic veggie clips, anything with a magnet on it.
Also, I may have missed it but what type of flow do you have through the system? And what type of powerheads are you using?
If your phosphate is at 0 then your corals are starving. Turn off skimmer GFO anything regarding reducing phosphate. Let your tank run a couple weeks u will see improvement. How is your Coraline algae when u see pink Coraline start growing on the wall thats the indicator that your water chemistry in balance.
Can you post some pictures of your tank and equipment? I didn't see it mentioned in the original post but where did you get your rocks and where they live or dry when you started the tank?
Can you also post pictures of the dying corals?