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- Aug 27, 2019
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I'm running a Red Sea 170 and it has been established for 5 years. For years phosphates were extremely low, so low that I stopped checking. But when some of my corals began to recede I began testing everything and found nitrates at 20ppm and phosphates. .22ppm. I began carbon dosing in May. By the end of May nitrates were at 0, but phosphates still high. I began dosing nitrates. Four months later phosphates are still high...even higher than when I began. I'm barely feeding my fish and corals (frozen mysids), yet phosphates are rising. I suspect the rise is due to all the corals that are dead and dying. I'm about to throw in the towel after 5 years and just quit the hobby. My sump is so small there really isn't room for a GFO reactor, and I've read some people believe they've lost corals to GFO. But to be honest I haven't done a huge amount of reading on the topic because it's not an easy option for me.
I tried a product that had lanthanum chloride, but it just seemed to accelerate my loss of corals with very little impact on my phosphates. I think some of the coral loss was due to large swings in alkalinty that occurred as a result of the carbon dosing. My alkalinity has been so stable for so long that I only test once or twice a month, so I was flabbergasted when I found levels had risen to 13.6. I didn't know that could happen when you carbon dose. I still don't really understand what makes that happen, but I certainly went through some up and down swings as I tried to determine the new level of alkalinity consumption (greatly reduced, from 42ml/day to 10ml/day).
I'm wondering if others have gone through this and if they found a solution?
I tried a product that had lanthanum chloride, but it just seemed to accelerate my loss of corals with very little impact on my phosphates. I think some of the coral loss was due to large swings in alkalinty that occurred as a result of the carbon dosing. My alkalinity has been so stable for so long that I only test once or twice a month, so I was flabbergasted when I found levels had risen to 13.6. I didn't know that could happen when you carbon dose. I still don't really understand what makes that happen, but I certainly went through some up and down swings as I tried to determine the new level of alkalinity consumption (greatly reduced, from 42ml/day to 10ml/day).
I'm wondering if others have gone through this and if they found a solution?