Lps slowing dying off - Opinions

[ColorAddict]

Over the past few months, a handful of my lps species have been receding back. So far, I have lost a few different hammers, acans, and now a couple trachys. I think I have it nailed down to my nutrient levels bottoming out for an extended period of time but wanted some other opinions just to confirm. The tank is a 75 gallon and my nutrients were undetectable with my hanna checkers for probably 3 months. I have been upping my feedings to what I consider an insane amount and finally, I have some levels in my tank. I sent in an ICP test to ATI to check for any other possible reasons for losing these corals. What do you guys think based on the results, was it the nutrient level deficiency or are any of my other parameters the culprit?

 

[Formulator]

You are on the right track with nutrients. They were starving. If you find it difficult to keep the nutrients up just with increased feeding, you may want to look into dosing. Brightwell makes decent nitrate and phosphate supplements called NeoNitro and NeoPhos. I dose the NeoNitro daily because my old tank is nitrate-limited. Cheaper than over feeding, more precise control, and less pollution to the tank too.

Another option for nitrate is to dose ammonium chloride. Corals actually prefer dissolved ammonia as an organic nitrogen source so they benefit from the brief ammonia influx before your bacteria convert it all to nitrate (which they also use, albeit less efficiently). Randy has an article or thread about it somewhere around here if you search ammonium chloride dosing over in the Reef Chemistry forum.