I usually try to offer help to others, but recently (ok, the last few weeks) have lost my grip on my DT and I'm paying for it. My DT is covered in brown algae (the rocks and walls), I've lost every piece of SPS (frags to small colonies) with exception of 2 unknown frags (but no PE). All my pieces either RTN'd or just turned to bleached white or super brown. I had noticed an increase in algae earlier in the past week, so as I assumed, it was phos and nitrates creeping up. Well, creeping went and now running skyward is more like it. I've cleaned the sump, cleaned the top layer of LS with a vac, multiple water changes, and wet skimmed as much as I thinnk I can, only fed every other day,and added more powerheads for flow. Still, my phos is 15ppm and my nitrates are 20ppm!!! I can't seem to beat these into reducing. I recently added BRS GFO to assist the phos, but my main concern was the nitrates. During all this, my 2 part BRS dosing went crazy (hose on alk wasn't working) and I had a Alk swing from 10 to 6. My cal increased up to 550 though. So in my conclusion, I think the ALk swing caused the RTN, but the nitrates and phos levels didn't help. The weird thing to me is all my softies, lps, and 2 clams are extremly happy. Usually when my phos started creeping up, my softies (xenia mainly) would shrivle up, but they're out and pulsing great. I sitting here looking at my reef and had to type this up, reguardless of admitting I turned my back on my reef for a few and now have issues. Any thoughts would be great.
BTW, I've considered a turf scrubber, a couple reactors (yeap, I'm rocking mesh bags in the sump), or just adding more pods to assist along with the others.
240 DT with a 55 sump, swc cone 230, LED lighting (a few weeks old, turned down for acclimation),3 tangs under 5 inches, 2 clowns, 1 neon gobie, 1 brittle star, numerous snails, a few hermits, tropic eden reef and mini flakes for the LS, roughly 15k of flow in DT, let me know what else you need.
BTW, I've considered a turf scrubber, a couple reactors (yeap, I'm rocking mesh bags in the sump), or just adding more pods to assist along with the others.
240 DT with a 55 sump, swc cone 230, LED lighting (a few weeks old, turned down for acclimation),3 tangs under 5 inches, 2 clowns, 1 neon gobie, 1 brittle star, numerous snails, a few hermits, tropic eden reef and mini flakes for the LS, roughly 15k of flow in DT, let me know what else you need.