I would appreciate any help on this, as I have no idea what is going on.
I had my tank running for 2 years no issues then I decided to plumb in 2 tanks to the system which 5x the water volume. do to the added surface area I got a large algae bloom of cyano, dinoflagellates, and hair algea which was expected due to the added surface area. Mainly Cyano is dominating the systems. Right as I added the system I decided to go fallow (fishless) for 76 days I am 3 weeks in. Going fallow caused my nitrates to bottom out.
At the start of the fallow period all sps, acros and lps had great polyp extension. But slowly over the course of 2 weeks the polyp extension started to decrease.
This I suspect was because the nitrates were bottoming out keep in mind only acros seemed to lose polyp extension at this point. Due to nitrates bottoming out I decided to dose nitrate in the form of potassium nitrate and Ammonium chloride. This was when things started to go down hill. The next day after I had increased the nitrate 3ppm form 0. And added the equivalent of 0,75 ppm nitrate in Ammonium chloride. The next day all sps polyps where retraced even Strylophora and seriatopora. Here are the parameters at this point.
Magnesium: 1250 ppm
Calcium: 400 ppm
Alkalinity: 8 dkh
Phosphate: 0,04 ppm
Nitrate 7 ppm
Salinity 36 ppt (calibrated refractometer with rodi water)
Temp: 77-78
Ph 8.3-8,4
My first thought was that there was some impurity’s in the ammonium or nitrate supplement I was using so I decided to send out I ICP OES test to see if there was any heavy metals in the water. I just got the icp back today. And I see no elevated heavy metals. I will attach the ICP test results.
My thoughts are: when I had added all the system with newly mixed saltwater the coral where perfectly happy with great polyp extension so i doubt that any trace element that was depleted over the 3 weeks could cause even stylophora to retract. As per my measurements I see no reason for corals to be retract based purely on water chemistry. only thing out off whack is iodine which is only double natural sea water. As to regard to stability Kalkwasser is dripped 24 hours a day and kept stable by my Alkatronic (automatic tester) My only possible guess at this point would be that the Cyano is bothering the coral.
I would really appreciate any insight or advice.
I don’t think the icp test link is working so I am attaching pictures
additional information:
No trace dosing at the moment.
I run Carbon constantly
I had my tank running for 2 years no issues then I decided to plumb in 2 tanks to the system which 5x the water volume. do to the added surface area I got a large algae bloom of cyano, dinoflagellates, and hair algea which was expected due to the added surface area. Mainly Cyano is dominating the systems. Right as I added the system I decided to go fallow (fishless) for 76 days I am 3 weeks in. Going fallow caused my nitrates to bottom out.
At the start of the fallow period all sps, acros and lps had great polyp extension. But slowly over the course of 2 weeks the polyp extension started to decrease.
This I suspect was because the nitrates were bottoming out keep in mind only acros seemed to lose polyp extension at this point. Due to nitrates bottoming out I decided to dose nitrate in the form of potassium nitrate and Ammonium chloride. This was when things started to go down hill. The next day after I had increased the nitrate 3ppm form 0. And added the equivalent of 0,75 ppm nitrate in Ammonium chloride. The next day all sps polyps where retraced even Strylophora and seriatopora. Here are the parameters at this point.
Magnesium: 1250 ppm
Calcium: 400 ppm
Alkalinity: 8 dkh
Phosphate: 0,04 ppm
Nitrate 7 ppm
Salinity 36 ppt (calibrated refractometer with rodi water)
Temp: 77-78
Ph 8.3-8,4
My first thought was that there was some impurity’s in the ammonium or nitrate supplement I was using so I decided to send out I ICP OES test to see if there was any heavy metals in the water. I just got the icp back today. And I see no elevated heavy metals. I will attach the ICP test results.
My thoughts are: when I had added all the system with newly mixed saltwater the coral where perfectly happy with great polyp extension so i doubt that any trace element that was depleted over the 3 weeks could cause even stylophora to retract. As per my measurements I see no reason for corals to be retract based purely on water chemistry. only thing out off whack is iodine which is only double natural sea water. As to regard to stability Kalkwasser is dripped 24 hours a day and kept stable by my Alkatronic (automatic tester) My only possible guess at this point would be that the Cyano is bothering the coral.
I would really appreciate any insight or advice.
I don’t think the icp test link is working so I am attaching pictures
additional information:
No trace dosing at the moment.
I run Carbon constantly