HELP! Coralline algae looks like it's bleaching

stephanjupillat

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Hey guys. Need some help determining what's happening here. Tank is 8 months old and originally started using zeovit method with proper reactor. 60 gallons total water with sump. Lifereef skimmer running dry. Mostly LPS and softies with a few SPS. Par is 100 on sand. 130 in middle and 200-220 at very top

After testing nutrients this morning I noticed what looks to be a die off of coralline algae. It may have been happening over the last few days but I haven't noticed it until this morning where it looks drastic. I thought it may have been some kind of deposits but it's everywhere.

Here's a pic of my tank about a month ago. coralline algae is going strong.
PXL_20210831_010349431.NIGHT.jpg




tank as of this morning
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I've been fighting elevated nutrients for a long time and have resorted to larger water changes. About a month ago I had 10-15 no3 and .1-.15 po4 with zeovit and couldn't figure out how to lower them. They honestly kept going up so I gave up on zeovit and slowly changed over to NOPOX and a reactor with denitrate running 35gph and small amount of gho in fluidized reactor. Zeovit is essentially carbon dosing but NOPOX was started from 1ml slowly up to 5ml a day now. Nutrients have been slowly going down.

When I changed over from zeovit to NOPOX and the reactors is caused a cyano outbreak which was treated with chemiclean 2 weeks ago and a 25% water change was done after 48 hours. Skimmer was left with collection cup off and I added a large air stone in DT to increase oxygen.

I received my ICP test few days ago and noticed I was low on some trace so started dosing redsea trace colors A-D 2 days ago. This is the only thing I can think of that screwed it up but I used so little. And it's only received 2 days worth.

current tank parameters

Capture.JPG



salt is actually 34 and FL-GHO flow sensor isn't being used

Daily
5ml NOPOX
4ml RedSea Reef energy AB+
8ml Reef Nutrition Phyto - stopped feeding the live one last week as it goes bad too quick.
8-14ml BRS alk
I don't dose Calcium or Magnesium as they have always been high enough.

Every other day
7ml Zeolife to clean water

3 times a week I dose 2.5ml of zeo coral snow with 1-3 of the below items
2 drops zeobak (may stop this as I don't know if it's needed with NOPOX)
2 drops zeo biomate (soppose to lower phosphates)
5 drops zeo cyano clean as a preventive

And the trace colors which I was going to do Monday-Friday as I do 10gal water changes on Saturdays.
Trace A - 7drops
Trace B - 1.5ml
Trace C - 1ml
Trace D - 7 drops

ICP test from 2 weeks ago

I've been fighting to get Iodine up and this time is was 0. potassium a little low I think. They say iron was low.
Unsure about the rest but I know I needed to start dosing some trace elements

Capture2.JPG



and if you need to see my sump
20211012_151614.jpg




apex nutrient records:

Capture3.JPG


Capture4.JPG



I was thinking of sending another ICP test and stopping the trace colors but any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
 

MERKEY

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Nopox can do some crazy stuff and it can deplete nutrients pretty fast even with us on top of it, I'd say this couod have played a little part....

I also see alluminum is at 30+ppb....not saying thats going to kill a lot of things but that's a little high and could be also attributing to the small Coraline die off if nopox already was hard on it.

Have you thought about rowa or gfo instead of nopox?

I'm sure others will chime and give some more help.
 
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stephanjupillat

stephanjupillat

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Nopox can do some crazy stuff and it can deplete nutrients pretty fast even with us on top of it, I'd say this couod have played a little part....

I also see alluminum is at 30+ppb....not saying thats going to kill a lot of things but that's a little high and could be also attributing to the small Coraline die off if nopox already was hard on it.

Have you thought about rowa or gfo instead of nopox?

I'm sure others will chime and give some more help.

Thanks for your input. ICP results from 4 test always shows some aluminum though.
140ppb in march
108ppb in april
70ppb in june
and this one was 32ppb.

least it's going down but that's not it otherwise coralline algae would have died long ago

rowa is gfo, which only removes phosphates. Yes I'm using BRS gfo. The better one as it's less dusty and larger. Though 1/3 cup is all I need and even that brought my po4 to .03. It's such a small amount that even on the lowest setting the water pushes the base filter up. Had to put a rock in the media reactor to weigh down the little filter pad but that's barely helping. haha

NOPOX removes mostly nitrate which I was trying to lower. I don't think it does much for po4 but I know you require some po4 for NOPOX to remove no3.

I know I'm not soppose to chase numbers but was looking for 5-10 no3 and .05 po4. I'm going to be raising my alk up to 8 over the next couple weeks. 7 is a little low as that was what was required for zeovit systems running ULNS. Since I'm not I believe 8 would be better. using tropic marin pro salt which is 7 but no good salt is 8.

You're right I can probably back off NOPOX though.

thanks!
 

Bryan68

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I lost all my Coralline with elivated po4. Even now with po4 at reasonable levels, Coralline is not coming back.....it may just take awhile.
 

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