Hi everyone,
This drama has been going on for quite some time now, so I will try and cut straight to the important bits.
I have a 130L tank, that's being on for over an year now, and I've been battling GHA since the beginning (which was carried over my previous tank, that's on me *facepalm*). But lately the GHA problem was really getting out of control, that's when I started to carbon dose in order to lower phosphates and hopefully weaken the algae. Unfortunately, although I got to the point where my PO4 readings (Hanna ULR) were near zero, the algae didn't seem to bulge (probably because the algae was consuming it to grow). That's when I decided to test the fluconazole treatment, once again hoping it would end the GHA reign. And so it did. The algae started to get white and most of it died within 20 days. During this period, I stopped dosing carbon, per instructions of my LFS. The thing is, after two weeks, I started noticing some LPS and SPS were not happy, contracted even. That's when I started to search for the cause, since everywhere I read, fluconazole seemed not to blame. Next I will list the steps, in the order they happened, I took in order (to try) to uncover the issue:
Below the water parameters I have available (tested today):
I will run an ICP, but I think it will be too late by the time I get the results back, so any help is appreciated.
This drama has been going on for quite some time now, so I will try and cut straight to the important bits.
I have a 130L tank, that's being on for over an year now, and I've been battling GHA since the beginning (which was carried over my previous tank, that's on me *facepalm*). But lately the GHA problem was really getting out of control, that's when I started to carbon dose in order to lower phosphates and hopefully weaken the algae. Unfortunately, although I got to the point where my PO4 readings (Hanna ULR) were near zero, the algae didn't seem to bulge (probably because the algae was consuming it to grow). That's when I decided to test the fluconazole treatment, once again hoping it would end the GHA reign. And so it did. The algae started to get white and most of it died within 20 days. During this period, I stopped dosing carbon, per instructions of my LFS. The thing is, after two weeks, I started noticing some LPS and SPS were not happy, contracted even. That's when I started to search for the cause, since everywhere I read, fluconazole seemed not to blame. Next I will list the steps, in the order they happened, I took in order (to try) to uncover the issue:
- Performed daily 15% water changes (over 3 days)
- Turned on activated carbon
- Since the algae was gone, and my PO4 and NO3 readings were pretty low, I assumed I was reading the correct concentrations. And since the corals were happy when NO3 was high, I dosed NO3 to see if it would help. I also started to coral feed more (even spot feeding the affected ones).
- The NO3 didn’t seem to help, so I continued on my quest. The LFS suggested that it could be some kind of white bug, so I treated one of the affected corals separately to see if it would improve, but to no avail.
- That’s when a cleaner shrimp died, and since they are sensitive to heavy metals, and ammonia was unreadable, I decided to dose with Triton Detox (and turned off the activated carbon) since the condition of the corals is degrading fast.
Below the water parameters I have available (tested today):
- KH: 8.8 [Hanna]
- Ca: 530 (a bit high, but I doubt this is the problem, at least for the LPS) [AF]
- Mg: 1280 [AF]
- PO4: 0.166 [Hanna ULR]
- NO3: 12 [Nyos]
I will run an ICP, but I think it will be too late by the time I get the results back, so any help is appreciated.
