I’m getting desperate! I cannot pinpoint my issue

[Garf]

Okay, will order now. Will this take care of my potassium issue as well? Or do I need to order a potassium additive? What is strange is that I dose potassium nitrate daily in order to bring my nitrate levels up.

Have you any idea what the brown stuff is on the sand?

 

[braaap]

My 2 cents: we all draw conclusions from "experiments" that lack controls. Increasing K from 400 to 420 has little or no significance.

I have control. I saw major difference with that change. You are just using uninformed opinion.

 

[BryanM]

I'm no expert, but that ICP test looks pretty good to me.

if nothing else has changed I would also be inclined to start doing some water changes, which will help rule out any trace element issues it might be.

 

[Koty]

In case you misunderstood: "control" means an identical tank to which you did not add K and did not see an effect.
Here is my K profile during a year in my no-water-change tank. I do not recall seeing any effect:

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Potassium according to his ICP is on the low end at 399. Accounting for margin of error it could be outside of ideal ranges.

I keep mine around 420. Saw instant success when I got it above 400.

You keep yours higher than normal ocean water. That may be fine, but I do not recommend dosing it above normal 35 ppt ocean water at 400 ppm.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Are there any other trace elements that you can see are low? A few people on a Facebook page I’m in, said some of my trace elements were low or non existent.

Triton does not use an icp method that can detect most trace elements at low levels. That’s why they show zero as green. It takes icp-ms to measure these low levels.

You might or might not benefit from a supplement such as Tropic Marin A and K, but such dosing rarely solves big coral issues. It is more likely to make subtle changes (except in macroalgae growth).

 

[chickendirt]

Looks like Iron and Manganese are low. Red Sea Trace elements Iron has manganese in it. Two birds one stone. I've read and not really sure the accuracy of it, that manganese is crucial to certain corals and drains fast. Important for bone growth and healing.

I don't know if anyone here can confirm or refute how much this relates to a reef tank. I'm also interested to learn more.

 

[pooootiqe]

Try taking a picture of your tank and refugium under white light. My personal hunch is that the nuisance algae and macroalgae says a lot about the tank condition…

 

[Pod_01]

Just my opinion, I would try to bring the PO4 value up to 0.1-0.15ppm. At 0.04ppm I never had luck with corals, some reefers can make it work but I suspect they have more livestock and end up with different types of P (fish poop particles) that corals use and test kits may not measure.
I use TM Phos feed and corals look happy, so something to consider, there are also other options.

Also as was mentioned by Randy you can consider dosing TM A and K trace elements. I use it and corals do show positive response. It is not magic, assuming the tank has all the main elements inline Alk, Cal, Mg etc… and there is enough N and P, addition of TM A and K can help with trace element limitation.

 

[tikireefer]

What are you feeding your tank? List all foods you have used.

 

[Mattiejay6]

That sounds like a very low lighting schedule for SPS. Photon's are ok but they're more considered budget lights, so to only have them on for 2 hrs at peak intensity is probably light starving acros.

Also, 10 months is too young of a tank to have acros, regardless of what any YouTube video or forum post says. Your tank still has major swings, and those alone are enough to kill acros. Is it possible to keep acros at 10 months? Maybe. Is it likely? heck no.

It is very likely and not hard at all if you use all live rock from the ocean

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It is very likely and not hard at all if you use all live rock from the ocean

We will see what happens, but I’m putting a cali tort into my tank less than a week after the second batch of tbs ocean rock arrives for my new tank. :)

 

[Mattiejay6]

We will see what happens, but I’m putting a cali tort into my tank less than a week after the second batch of tbs ocean rock arrives for my new tank. :)

I did my display with dry marco rock, and did a big cryptic fuge of live rock :-) im stupid acro heavy and going great!