Hi,
I'm having problems with my corals. I already lost 3 Pavona colonies, many softies became pale or even white. I thought it might be due to too low nutrients because I had undetectable PO4 and NO3. I've been dosing Na3PO4 and NaNO3 and increased feeding for some time and I keep PO4 at 0.06-0.1 ppm and NO3 at 5-10 ppm for few months now, so I don't think this is the issue. What changed though is amount of algae, green hair algae and cyano are everywhere and I have to clean the glass daily.
Here are my ICP results:
Biggest issues I see here are aluminum contamination, almost 6x the norm and some serious iodine deficiency. Could it be the cause of my issues?
I keep my tank at fairly constant 25°C, pH 8.0-8.3 (I use CO2 scrubber, otherwise it drops to 7.6 at night).
What could be the cause of such level of Al? AquaforestLab suggests RO water, but only metal part in my filter is check-valve after the membrane, could it be the source of Al? I also use these check-valves after my dosing pump because otherwise fluids flow down to containers. Maybe a contamination in salts I use for dosing? I'm using sodium bicarbonate (baked), calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and reef mineral salt, all from Aquaforest.
I guess I should buy some Iodine additive and start dosing to reach >0.55 ppm.
I'm having problems with my corals. I already lost 3 Pavona colonies, many softies became pale or even white. I thought it might be due to too low nutrients because I had undetectable PO4 and NO3. I've been dosing Na3PO4 and NaNO3 and increased feeding for some time and I keep PO4 at 0.06-0.1 ppm and NO3 at 5-10 ppm for few months now, so I don't think this is the issue. What changed though is amount of algae, green hair algae and cyano are everywhere and I have to clean the glass daily.
Here are my ICP results:
Biggest issues I see here are aluminum contamination, almost 6x the norm and some serious iodine deficiency. Could it be the cause of my issues?
I keep my tank at fairly constant 25°C, pH 8.0-8.3 (I use CO2 scrubber, otherwise it drops to 7.6 at night).
What could be the cause of such level of Al? AquaforestLab suggests RO water, but only metal part in my filter is check-valve after the membrane, could it be the source of Al? I also use these check-valves after my dosing pump because otherwise fluids flow down to containers. Maybe a contamination in salts I use for dosing? I'm using sodium bicarbonate (baked), calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and reef mineral salt, all from Aquaforest.
I guess I should buy some Iodine additive and start dosing to reach >0.55 ppm.