SPS Symptoms of high P04 levels?

deputydog95

deputydog95

New member
I recently noticed a lot of my SPS are looking pretty faded. Some have died completely off, other have burnt tips and some STN on the base. They all around look like crap right now.

I immediately checked numbers and the dkh was 10 and the phosphates were .10, which is up from my usual .04

I have algae growth on the tips, the glass, etc... Which is kind of strange as I don't overfeed, use RODI water, run the skimmer 24/7, change filter pads every other day, and do 10% water changes weekly. I did have a small bag of GFO which had been sitting in the sump that was hard as a rock, so I'm assuming it's exhausted and wasn't working anymore.

Is .10 really that high to cause this much havoc, or do you think I have something else going on here?

I have lowered my dkh to about 9 to be on the safe side (burnt tips), and have also added a bad of chemipure blue as of yesterday which spike my ORP from around 330 to 380.

Thoughts?
 
My po4 level has been at 0.24 for the past month or longer and sps seem to be doing perfectly fine. I've always wondered if po4 really mattered so let's see what others have to say
 
Depends, if you have zero nitrates, it definitely can be a problem.


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What are your nitrates at? I get similar issues when the ratio of N03:pO4 gets wonky.

Best growth for me occurs when they are around 100:1 ratio.


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Nitrates are at 5. Seems reasonable, right?

I turned my alk/ca dosing down the other day and the dkh is rising. It's back up to 10 today. So the corals are clearly not using it.

I'm turning off the dosing for the time being.

I have a carbon pad, a poly filter, and a 75 gallon chemipure blue in there. I had the poly filter and the carbon pad lying around. Trying to rule out something bad in the water so I put them in with the chemi pure blue.

My ultra lower phosphorous test is out of regagent, so I used the phophate hanna. Came it at .03, but it's off like .04, so it's probably .07 still.

I'm not sure what the heck is going on. Did a 10 gallon water change yesterday, and one on the previous Fri.

Everything is still super ****ed...
 
N03 seems reasonable. Don't think the elevated PO4 is the problem-will cause algae to grow over already damaged issue but most likely not the root cause.

What do you normally keep dkh at, what salt do you use and have you made any changes at all recently?



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No changes that I've done intentionally...

I typically keep the alkalinity at a DKH of 10.

The fish seem fine, nothing out of the ordinary. The SPS corals are getting worse by the day.

The tank is primarily SPS, and is about 3 years old.

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deputydog95 said:
No changes that I've done intentionally...

I typically keep the alkalinity at a DKH of 10.

The fish seem fine, nothing out of the ordinary. The SPS corals are getting worse by the day.

The tank is primarily SPS, and is about 3 years old.

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I went through something similar a couple months ago. Montis first showed discoloration, then SPS began to stn. I bought an Triton ICP test and sent in right away. I would suggest you do the same otherwise your just guessing. I ended up having a fair amount of low trace elements that I would never test for normally. I dosed like Triton suggested and it his made an incredible turn around and is rocking again. It's worth the 50$.

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cboltsd said:
I went through something similar a couple months ago. Montis first showed discoloration, then SPS began to stn. I bought an Triton ICP test and sent in right away. I would suggest you do the same otherwise your just guessing. I ended up having a fair amount of low trace elements that I would never test for normally. I dosed like Triton suggested and it his made an incredible turn around and is rocking again. It's worth the 50$.

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Click to expand...







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cboltsd said:
I went through something similar a couple months ago. Montis first showed discoloration, then SPS began to stn. I bought an Triton ICP test and sent in right away. I would suggest you do the same otherwise your just guessing. I ended up having a fair amount of low trace elements that I would never test for normally. I dosed like Triton suggested and it his made an incredible turn around and is rocking again. It's worth the 50$.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...



I had the same thing happen. Best $50 I've spent in this hobby. Did a Triton test and found out iodine and potassium were low. Once I switched to ESV and brought those levels up everything started growing again.

I can now tell when iodine is low by looking at my montis!


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I have a pre paid test I haven't used yet. I'll go ahead and turn it in. It's not Triton but something similar in the US. Results come back faster.

I would be surprised if I have a trace element deficiency though.

I do water changes with red sea blue bucket once a week and dose Reef Fusion A/B daily via a dosing pump. Both products have trace elements.

But then again, who knows?

I forgot I had that ICP test so thanks for reminding me.

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dubmaneh said:
I had the same thing happen. Best $50 I've spent in this hobby. Did a Triton test and found out iodine and potassium were low. Once I switched to ESV and brought those levels up everything started growing again.

I can now tell when iodine is low by looking at my montis!


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I had similar results. My potassium and boron were low. Including strontium and iodine. After dosing like Triton said, I was back in business.

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I sent my sample in to ICP analysis.com a few mins ago. Can't believe I forgot I had one laying around...

It'll be there on Monday as the company is in Colorado.

Heading to my local LFS to have them test my water as well to validate my results.

Anything I should do in the meantime?

Would 10 percent water changes every other day be a good idea? If there's a toxin it should reduce it and if there's a trace element deficiency, it should brng it up.

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I think it may be your dosing schedule. I use Red Sea blue bucket also and alk consistently tests around 7-8 DKH when I make my new water. I also had issues when I dosed A & B with SPS rtn. Could never get alk steady using that method. It would spike and then go down when I did water change. I since started using a calcium reactor and this solved my issues and it keeps my alk steady at 8.5. New sps are doing well with polyp extensions all day.
 
So I got my ICP results back...

I'm suspect about Arsenic reading... Let's just say it's accurate even though I don't think it is based on the number of posts I've seen about issues related to ICP and arsenic. How would I bring that down?

Any idea why my Bromine levels would be so high? I certainly don't add it individually...

Iodine seems like an easy fix.

I have idea what to do about Potassium. It's not in my A&B and Red Sea lists K levels at normal sea parameters. How in the world do I bring that down?
 

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Start with your iodine. It's the easiest fix. You'll be surprised at how much it takes to raise and keep levels stable.


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Gatorfan said:
Is your salinity at 1.029(39ppt)?
Click to expand...
No, it's 35ppt. I don't know how reliable the ICP is with salinity. Between the shipping process and temp deviations, hard to say. That's a good question though.

I use a calibrated Hannah and check it against a 35ppt reference solution every so often.

The Apex, for the most part, confirms the reading on the Milwaukee.

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