Ati icp test results in. IMO don’t look so bad so why are most my corals deflated not happy starting to show skeleton.

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Hello I have struggled for long time to have a health reef tank with corals that grow. Well I can’t even keep them alive. Constantly I buy multiple 3-500$ corals that never grow and most the time start to deflate and loose flesh and eventually die. For months I have devoted my life to reading and learning as much as I can to try to fix this issue but I am stumped. I’ve spent almost 10k this year on new equipment and all the fancy gear and gadgets and corals to literally get no where. I have almost endless supply of money and yet still have one of the worst growing tanks on r2r. Yesterday was ju at telling my wife I’m about to give up because as much as I know this hobby is very expensive I can’t justify constantly throwing money down the drain with literally no enjoyment from a dying tank that I do nothing but stress about. Sent out another icp test and here is the results. Be great if you guys can look this over And tell me what I’m missing. In this test phosphates show .01 the day I sent out my Hanna read .02 2 days before sending icp out phos was .05 and since test back now it’s .08

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For the longest time I thought this was a Nutrient imbalance. Between phosphate, nitrate, Alk, and light intensity. So I have been all over the board. For few months ran alk at 7.7 or so and same issue. Noticed other night after changing carbon in reactor that everything seemed very very mad so I end up removing all carbon. For months I was testing .10 phos and 0 nitrates I’m thinking that’s got to be it. So I start to dose nitrates. I get nitrates up to 12-25 range with nyos tester and then phosphates drop to .03 so I start to feed more but it does not raise. So 3 days ago I removed my skimmer cup and turned down amount of time algae scrubber and refugium light is on by couple hours each. Now phos at .08 and nitrates at 12-25
 

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Phosphates 0.08 is good. Maybe bring the iodine up.
Do you have any leather corals?
They can mess with other corals with their defenses. They throw it in the water.
Try to stabilize parameters.
I think we underestimate bacteria, maybe use some microbacter 7.
Do you run a skimmer?
 
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Phosphates 0.08 is good. Maybe bring the iodine up.
Do you have any leather corals?
They can mess with other corals with their defenses. They throw it in the water.
Try to stabilize parameters.
I think we underestimate bacteria, maybe use some microbacter 7.
Do you run a skimmer?
I can try to bring iodine up think I have some.
I do have a bunch of leather corals. I have all types of corals. I was running carbon 24/7 as a precaution for it. Just recently 3 -4 days ago removed all carbon because I replaced it 4-5 days ago and a day later things looked worse so I just turned it off for that reason. But either way no change with the carbon running.
I use apex and trident and dosers with hope that they have been stabilizing my peramiters best possible.
Never used microbactor or anything like that. I did it the old fashion way about 10 years ago. This system been running ever since. Started with real live rock that came in newspaper live sand. Edit: added pic below of my tank. 8 months ago tank seam blew out so got new tank. Most water and everything went to 55 gallon cans for 5 days till new tank installed. Hmmm I wonder if microbactor could help....
Yes I run a skimmer. Just recently removed collection cup and letting it over flow in sump for the oxygen and outside air line run to skimmer to keep ph at 8.35-8.4 all day because phosphates was .01 on icp test so it helps to raise phos
 
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Pistondog

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tomorrow when you turn all pumps off to feed, just before they go back on, smell the water above the leathers. Maybe something is bothering them that you can remedy.
I don't know if they throw their chemicals all the time or just when they feel threatened.
I removed mine a year ago for this and space reasons.

I also have a puffer fish that cuts his teeth, like a beaver, on anything other than softies. I set up a 20g satellite tank for nicer corals. Or you could try a guppy tank at the top to isolate from pests, finned or otherwise.
 
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You have an awful lot of frags in there that you are trying to keep happy. How old is this tank and What lighting are you running?
System is 10 years old. 250 gallons total this tank is 120 gallons. Sump and frag tank in basement. Now I use 2 radion g5 x30 Very very low level. At 12% is about 40 par on sand bed. Trying not to kill chalices
 
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tomorrow when you turn all pumps off to feed, just before they go back on, smell the water above the leathers. Maybe something is bothering them that you can remedy.
I don't know if they throw their chemicals all the time or just when they feel threatened.
I removed mine a year ago for this and space reasons.

I also have a puffer fish that cuts his teeth, like a beaver, on anything other than softies. I set up a 20g satellite tank for nicer corals. Or you could try a guppy tank at the top to isolate from pests, finned or otherwise.
I would think with the water volume I have That it would be less toxic but I can try this
 

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System is 10 years old. 250 gallons total this tank is 120 gallons. Sump and frag tank in basement. Now I use 2 radion g5 x30 Very very low level. At 12% is about 40 par on sand bed. Trying not to kill chalices
It looks very clean for a 10 year old setup, not much coraline on your rear boxes or glass, 40 par is quite low plus chalices out out sweepers do they not. I think you may have alot of chemical warfare going on in there. I know carbon,well too much is also bad. Do you run biopellets or gfo?
 

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I would think with the water volume I have That it would be less toxic but I can try this
I don't think your volume rivals the ocean, where these animals compete. Plus the chemicals are recirculating, not drifting away with the current.
No chemicals are removed by filtration 100% on the 1st pass.
 

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I see you dose nitrates. What exactly are your dosing? How exactly are you mineralizing your tank? I will probably follow on with this question so I will ask it now ... how is your water change schedule? Please not the schedule that you want to change at but the schedule you actually change at.

I feel your frustration. :(
 

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wonder where the Sn is from?
Could be from alot of places I suppose, could be pumps, even plumbing, a float valve, heaters, even could be a stand or light bracket/hood over any of the tanks that are linked to this system. It might take a while to figure out where it's coming from if there is alot of equipment involved.
Also I assume there could be some condensation on pipes/ducting/fans in the basement that could potentially contaminate?
I hope whatever it is is an easy fix as he has alot invested.
 
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It looks very clean for a 10 year old setup, not much coraline on your rear boxes or glass, 40 par is quite low plus chalices out out sweepers do they not. I think you may have alot of chemical warfare going on in there. I know carbon,well too much is also bad. Do you run biopellets or gfo?
Yes you are correct not much coraline in this tank. I edited my first post to say that 4 month ago my about 9 year old tank blew a seam out at that time everything including water went into other tanks that were connected to rest of the system in basement till got new tank. So the actual glass tank is 3 months old. Cleaned sand only and transferD everything back to new tank including water. ( with that all being said I do feel I have a hard time growing coraline but yes the system is about 10 years old )
I never Really see many tentacles on my corals Because most time not happy.But yes they are supposta.
was running carbon with no change just turned off 3 days ago.
Never ran biopellets
Ran gfo for like 2 years to keep phosphates under .2 when I was feeding a lot so decided to try another approach of feeding less and more skimming and stopped all gfo about 8 months ago. With a little effort and control I was able to die without the gfo and now have phosphates of .08
 
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Looking at your earlier photo of the montipora digi that's got RTN it looks rather close to chalice?
Yes it’s next to a dead hulk chalice and candy corn favia. It’s been there for 2 months and this rtn happend in past 3-4 da s
 
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Also is that a chalice inbetween the either a torch/hammer and a weeping willow leather?
In this area it’s all chalice frags and none of them doing good either. I’d assume chemical warfare would effect the whole tank and obviously not be found in icp test smh

image.jpg
 

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