Corals not doing well

[bkayereefs]

Hey all, I’m completely lost. Recently I’ve noticed my corals all look ticked off, I had a sick fish as well, lost a lot of a GSP wall and now I’m noticing my torch’s flesh line is basically gone and brown. The trachy in the video used to be super vibrant, now its dull; the plug its sitting on is turning a brownish color. My acan is dealing with the same thing. I checked my parameters yesterday. I do water changes every Sunday with Coral Pro salt at 1.025ppm. I did notice my phosphates were gone with about a 5-10 in nitrates (according to Salifert kit) everything else was basically on par with what the coral pro salt says it should be. Alkalinity is was at an 8 yesterday, about 2 or 3 days after a water change. I haven’t changed a thing in my routine. Any ideas? I’m desperate
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[Mebbid]

What's your parameters at?

From what I'm reading your phosphate dropped to 0.0? What was your last reading and when was it? Have you added anything in to consume phosphates like GFO?

 

[bkayereefs]

What's your parameters at?

From what I'm reading your phosphate dropped to 0.0? What was your last reading and when was it? Have you added anything in to consume phosphates like GFO?

So I run Carbon in there and used to have phosguard, I removed the phosguard yesterday, but what I don’t understand is I had the phosguard on for months with no issue

 

[Mebbid]

So I run Carbon in there and used to have phosguard, I removed the phosguard yesterday, but what I don’t understand is I had the phosguard on for months with no issue

So, phosphate binds with live rock and can leech out for long periods of time. If the phosphate backlog in the rock finally ran out, your phosphates could bottom out.

What was your previous phosphate reading and when was it taken?

 

[bkayereefs]

So I run Carbon in there and used to have phosguard, I removed the phosguard yesterday, but what I don’t understand is I had the phosguard on for months with no issue

So, phosphate binds with live rock and can leech out for long periods of time. If the phosphate backlog in the rock finally ran out, your phosphates could bottom out.

What was your previous phosphate reading and when was it taken?

Gotcha, that makes sense. The last time I tested was a few months ago and I want to say I was at like a .25, I was getting lots of hair algae so I ran phosguard. Could low phosphates also contribute to a sick fish?

 

[Mebbid]

Gotcha, that makes sense. The last time I tested was a few months ago and I want to say I was at like a .25, I was getting lots of hair algae so I ran phosguard. Could low phosphates also contribute to a sick fish?

I'd say they are likely unrelated. But that's a pretty big drop in a week. Very likely could contribute to the dulling of colors in the corals and it's not uncommon for GSP to melt back a bit after a big shift in nutrients.

What's sick about the fish?

 

[bkayereefs]

Gotcha, that makes sense. The last time I tested was a few months ago and I want to say I was at like a .25, I was getting lots of hair algae so I ran phosguard. Could low phosphates also contribute to a sick fish?

I'd say they are likely unrelated. But that's a pretty big drop in a week. Very likely could contribute to the dulling of colors in the corals and it's not uncommon for GSP to melt back a bit after a big shift in nutrients.

What's sick about the fish?

Well that’s the thing is the shift couldn’t have been drastic, I left the same phosguard in the filter tower for months, and over the past few weeks it has gradually gotten worse. I have a clownfish that has been sick (dull colors, hasn’t been eating, sits near top of tank) and dosed ruby reef rally and it didn’t help. It’s so odd man there’s just something going on that I can’t figure out. I had a cleaner shrimp die too

 

[dloberry]

So it sounds like the changes in parameters may be what is happening. When a shift is too much at once it can cause a disruption to coral. Inverts are usually very sensitive to shifts as well and does not take much for them to die. As for the clownfish I am not entirely sure but swimming at top is jot alarming. Mine stay at the top and have for months. Not eating and discoloration is alarming.

 

[dloberry]

To help bring back the parameters add additional food, or try Brightwell Neo Phos. Try to stay away from too many bottle dosing though, when you fix one problem you will often create another. What seems like high phosphate or nitrates may not actually be horrible if the NO3 and NO4 are balanced.