Bad tank issues. Please help

d-man

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Hi randy Sorry to bother you but I’m having a coral tank crash over past few months and am at a loss. Hopefully your expertise can help.
Problem. My sps, zoas and euphyllia gave all been slowly getting smaller and ultimately dying over several weeks or month.

Parameters
Alk 7.7-8.3
Ca 390-420
Mg 1130-1250
Nitrate -0
PO4 -.7-.9(super high) but always like that ‍♂️
ICP showed no metals elevated and iodine was .09. Only high other than phosphorus.

Back when my phosphates were as high as 1.0 for ppm my nitrates were between 10 and 20 ppm all the (Korl)’s were happy. Then at some point my naturopath drop to zero and that’s when I’ve been having issues. I don’t know if that’s the problem but it’s the only variable I can think of.

I also made foam rock walls but they’ve been in multiple tanks and I’ve never had a phosphate issue. I don’t think they Leach anything and I’ve done a couple experiments by soaking in water and test in the water before and after and both times it showing up with no change at all. I hope you have an idea. Thank you
 

jccaclimber

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Life doesn’t often do well in our tanks without at least some nitrate. Seeing as you already have high phosphates, a little nitrate dosing (KNO3, or the similar Ca or Mg versions) may help. Feeding more would do it too, but wouldn’t bring the phosphates down any. Did you get a nice slimy red cyano outbreak as well?
 

ReefLab

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I would try to get your nitrate and phosphate in a better balance.
10-20ppm Nitrate and sub .2 phosphate.
Either water changes or small amounts of GFO then feeding more should get it into a natural balance (unless something is leeching PO4)

What nutrient export methods are you using?
are you dealing with a lot of pest algae growth?
 
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d-man

d-man

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I use LC but not sure the actual amount so I dose cautiously.
I want to dose KNO3 but again am unsure the amount
My tank is 960g DT and 200g sump
 
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d-man

d-man

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I had a refugium but took it out this past weekend as to try to bring NO3 up. Starting to get a lil cyano but no pest algae or anything. I tested my RODI via ICP and the results were great. No issues
 
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d-man

d-man

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I feed my fish heavy and was feeding my coral AB+ and oyster feast. Things were well then. But then my tank started to decline after about a month. Not sure if the corals started growing and used up the nitrates too fast or what.
 
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d-man

d-man

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I would try to get your nitrate and phosphate in a better balance.
10-20ppm Nitrate and sub .2 phosphate.
Either water changes or small amounts of GFO then feeding more should get it into a natural balance (unless something is leeching PO4)

What nutrient export methods are you using?
are you dealing with a lot of pest algae growth?
My tank is 1100g total volume. GFO would be a fortune to go from .8 down to .2. Need to figure out how to DOSE LC correctly
 
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d-man

d-man

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Hi randy.
Tabk has been running for 20 months. Phosphates have been an issue for a long time. At least over a year. Before that honestly I didn’t test. But for the most part it was fish only with some softies because I had a bunch of angels for about five months. Then velvet wiped out my tank and I went ahead and went back to Ful reef with no angels.
ICP analysis in CO did the tests

Currently I don’t does anything. I have a calcium reactor that keeps my elk, calcium, magnesium pretty stable. I did try dosing potassium nitrate about a month ago but again was unsure of how much to add daily. So I did it very sparingly but daily. It seem to have slowed the process down a little bit but not much. And I still test zero with the nitrates. I was dosing about 100 mL a day. No change still.
I dose LC but unsure how much so I dilute 10ml in about 2g and drop it over about a 3 day period.

Other additives were(Red Sea AB, oyster feast and KZ lps amino)
 

jccaclimber

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Greenleaf powdered KNO3
At 1100 gallons 6.8 grams or 1.3 tsp is 1 PPM. I'd start dosing that daily.
Could dump it in all at once, or just dissolve it in solution and throw it on a dosing pump.
Check a little after the first dose to make sure you didn't do something wrong.
If you're shooting for say 5 PPM check after 5 days to see how much is actually in there, and adjust. Zero consumption it would be at 5 PPM, higher consumption it would be lower.
It's not unusual to have really high consumption the first week or two then have it taper off. I had to start at almost 2 PPM/day, then after several weeks I dropped to ~0.7 PPM/day to maintain the level I wanted.
Obviously testing more often is better and will prevent a much higher value in case consumption changes or dosing is incorrect.
Also don't be surprised if your currently nitrate limited algae population changes.
Might also want to check potassium, although any time I've had to dose KNO3 I've found my K too low, not too high.
 
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d-man

d-man

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What about the LC dosing?
Randy, or anyone else can give me a proper protocol for this for my tank? Thank you
 
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