Mrhappy
New Member
Apologies for posting this question that has been asked over and over but I was unable to find a relatable answer in existing threads regarding what I’m seeing.
I have a RS E170 that has been set up about 7 months with a pair of clownfish and a sand sifting goby. Roughly a month ago I added 5 starter corals 2 monti caps,forest fire digi,green birds nest and a Duncan. All besides the Duncan are looking terrible one monti is browned out the red monti cap is pale in color and the digi has no polyp extension and to be fair looks like a goner. The Duncan is doing fine and the birdsnest is so so but no color.
Before adding corals parameters were
Nitrate-4
Calcium-420
Alk-9.1
Phosphates-.01
Ph-8.0
I checked alk roughly every few days to try to get a handle on when to start dosing and what consumption would be but weirdly alk kept rising as high as 9.7. And phosphates up to 0.04 All this is using Hanna testers. I did start running chemi pure blue shortly after adding corals since I increased feeding and wanted to keep things stable. I took it out thinking maybe I bottomed out nutrients causing some of my issues.
I took a sample to LFS to double check my results. They tell me alk is 7.0 and phosphates were so high it was off their chart, also said my nitrates were 10. I wasn’t sure I trusted the results so I stopped and bought a cheap api kit to sort of find a baseline( I know not best choice) and using that I tested both with Hanna and api with results of
Alk-9.8(Hanna). 10(api)
Phosphate 0.02(Hanna) and not detectable w/api
I’m leaning towards trusting the 2 tests I personally took but can’t help but question what the lfs tested. Who do I trust here?
Somethings off for sure considering corals aren’t looking great but can’t pinpoint it, is it just new tank syndrome? 7 months was about as patient as I could handle. On another note I have zero algae of any kind and would think I would of phosphates were through the roof.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have a RS E170 that has been set up about 7 months with a pair of clownfish and a sand sifting goby. Roughly a month ago I added 5 starter corals 2 monti caps,forest fire digi,green birds nest and a Duncan. All besides the Duncan are looking terrible one monti is browned out the red monti cap is pale in color and the digi has no polyp extension and to be fair looks like a goner. The Duncan is doing fine and the birdsnest is so so but no color.
Before adding corals parameters were
Nitrate-4
Calcium-420
Alk-9.1
Phosphates-.01
Ph-8.0
I checked alk roughly every few days to try to get a handle on when to start dosing and what consumption would be but weirdly alk kept rising as high as 9.7. And phosphates up to 0.04 All this is using Hanna testers. I did start running chemi pure blue shortly after adding corals since I increased feeding and wanted to keep things stable. I took it out thinking maybe I bottomed out nutrients causing some of my issues.
I took a sample to LFS to double check my results. They tell me alk is 7.0 and phosphates were so high it was off their chart, also said my nitrates were 10. I wasn’t sure I trusted the results so I stopped and bought a cheap api kit to sort of find a baseline( I know not best choice) and using that I tested both with Hanna and api with results of
Alk-9.8(Hanna). 10(api)
Phosphate 0.02(Hanna) and not detectable w/api
I’m leaning towards trusting the 2 tests I personally took but can’t help but question what the lfs tested. Who do I trust here?
Somethings off for sure considering corals aren’t looking great but can’t pinpoint it, is it just new tank syndrome? 7 months was about as patient as I could handle. On another note I have zero algae of any kind and would think I would of phosphates were through the roof.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
