ICP Help and Suggestions

BW1199

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I have a RSR 625 so roughly 160 gal total water volume and my tank is about 10 months old. I've had FOWLR tanks with a couple cheap zoas and stuff but this will be my first reef tank. The tank is bare bottom with mostly new reef saver dry rock but I used a couple pieces of live rock from my previous tank to help seed this one. About 4 months ago I added a handful of mixed corals...a couple zoa's, an acan, torch, couple hammers, and a couple cheap sps. About 2 months ago I started having trouble keeping my nitrates and PO4 up which I think kick started an ugly stage. Around that same time the flesh of my sps turned purplish/brown and there were a couple weeks where all the corals with the exception of my torches weren't happy. They have pretty much always had good extension for the most part. I'm on the tail end of the ugly stage and the tank is starting to look good again however my sps are still purplish/brown but the polyps still have color and good extension. However about 3 weeks ago, my 2 hammers started bailing out 1 head at a time. During this time I did an ICP test and the results are below. I wanted to see what you guys would suggest to get the tank back on track as I would like to start adding more color to the tank and get the wife off my back about killing the hammers. Or should I just leave it alone and let it stabilize on it's own? I have started to see more coraline starting to grow as it stopped 2 months ago when the ugly stage started but the hammers bailing out has me confused.

Here's my param's which for the most part are pretty consistent with the exception the nitrates and PO4 a couple months ago. I am still trying to get my nitrates and PO4 up a little more.
SG: 1.026 (refractometer)
PH: 8.0-8.2 (apex)
Temp: 78-79.5 (apex)
Alk: 8.1-8.2 (apex)
Cal: 500-530 (apex)
MG: 1220-1235 (apex)
Nitrate: 3-5 ppm (nyos)
PO4: 0.02-0.03 ppm (hanna)

Here are my ICP results. According to their website my Co, Fe, I, Mn, and Zn are low.

Test746105836_Results.jpeg
 

brmreefer

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Based on your ICP results, and if that were my system, I would start looking into dosing some iodine or iodide based on the products recommended dosing levels.

From what I understand, NSW is right around 0.06 ppm iodine.

Yours shows 0 ppb iodine.

If my math is correct, then one should shoot for 60 ppb or 0.06 ppm iodine when converted either way.

Start there, but don't make too many changes within the system to aid identifying lack of iodine as the potential issue. Hope that helps. :)
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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