Finally solved my low nutrient issue

mattshell81

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At the start of September I had some issues with paling and dying sps that had little to no pe while others stayed fine. I thought this was a pest until I realized I had bottomed out nutrients. I had always had cyano in my refugium that houses my clownfish babies and was tied into this system when I started it. I never thought much of it because it stayed in there and never spread to the tank. I started vacuuming it weekly and dosing nutrients to keep them above zero but I see now that the cyano had such a strong foothold that it would use up the nutrients and bottom them out again before the already unwell corals could. My dosing simply cashed the cyano to bounce back each week and even spread to the display. I’m creating this update to help others that may have been confused like I was. After treating my tanks cyano with chemi clean all my macro algae’s and sps have gained all the lost color back in just a few weeks. I’m now able to maintain a healthy balance of nitrates and phosphates without dosing and can simply pull out some of my macro if it ever starts to consume too much since it grows at a much slower pace than the cyano. Corals that have been closed and place for 2 months came back much faster than I would have though possible now that they don’t have as much competition for the nutrients they needed. When I get home today I can update the thread with some photos of corals that went to solid colors that are already getting their secondary colors in their tips back.
 
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mattshell81

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Thanks for the info. :)

"and dosing nutrients"

What were you dosing?
I was starting nitrates and phosphates because they were just always zero. I think I underestimated how much and how fast all that cyano in my sump was sucking everything up. Here’s the difference in a piece just 2 weeks after treating. The first photo is when I noticed things losing pe and changing colors back in September vs just now today.
 

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