Treefer32
Valuable Member
ICP tests saved me from losing all my corals. I've done two of them over the last 4 years. The first one was when I was using straight IO salt for my 340 gallon mixed reef. It had some rough starts. I had lost 16 fish due to circulating electricity in the display (over a 3 week period) most of the fish died in the sand bed, or in the rocks and without tearing things down I couldn't get them out. I replaced the bad heater and let the tank go fallow with one fish that survived. That was in my first year of running the tank. I went about 6-8 months without adding new fish. I had dinos growing in on the sand bed all over. I think that's what it was, thin strands of spaghettic all over. I hand pulled them in bunches.
I figured my nutrients bottomed out with one fish in 340 gallons. Over the course of time I slowly added more fish. Treating is a new tank. It was a year or so after that and up to 20 fish or so, when I started losing my stylaphora and birdsnest. The stylaphora had grown huge in that time. Probably 12" across. It was doing great, then suddenly branch by branch died. I took cuttings in an effort to save a branch at least. But even the cuttings died. So, I sent in for an ICP test, thinking that maybe copper or a screw or something toxic fell into the sump somehow. I'm really careful about that stuff, but I don't know maybe something did.
The ICP results were... Eye opening. The culprit was nothing more than the age old issue of nutrients. All of the major elements were 0 or undetectable (other than what should be there) My trace elements were undetectable as well - a whole other issue.
My phosphates were .56. I ordered a ULR PHosphate Hana tester then, and tested a week later and phosphates had climbed to .66.
I was starting to lose my massive chalice in that time too. Flesh just started pealing off it. I started dosing phosphate -e (Lanthinum Chloride) starting out with extremely small doses. And each week upped the ml per day to two to three times a day. After 3 months My phosphates dropped down to .1 and my chalice had grown back new flesh and thrived again and the rest of my corals looked so much better. I didn't know they could look that good!
My stylpora and birds nest were both lost. But the rest thrived once I got it under control. Then, I made some changes and continued to monitor, with the goal of stopping dosing phosphate-e. I upped my ATS to running 24 /7 (had been shutting the lights off for 8 hours a day.). I continued doing larger water changes for another 3-4 months to get the phosphates out of the rocks and/or sand bed. I switched to reef crystals salt.
I continued monitoring. Now, my phosphates are stable between .04 to .08 and I only test once every other week. No Phosphate -e. I did switch to dosing trace elements and am dosing vodka as now as well. Converted my cannister water polisher to a denitrator with matrix rock. And upped my vodka dosing to control nitrates as well as phosphates.
I did another ICP test about a year apart. And all trace elements were well within where I needed them and my phosphates came back within a margin of error of my Hanna checker. confirming I was doing right!
If I had continued oblivious of my phosphates I would have lost many more corals. I didn't believe in the test kits, jaded by the color tests I had done previously which are ridiculously inaccurate to try to determine shades of pink and green. I thought my phosphates were a little high at .12 to .16. Not .66.....
I figured my nutrients bottomed out with one fish in 340 gallons. Over the course of time I slowly added more fish. Treating is a new tank. It was a year or so after that and up to 20 fish or so, when I started losing my stylaphora and birdsnest. The stylaphora had grown huge in that time. Probably 12" across. It was doing great, then suddenly branch by branch died. I took cuttings in an effort to save a branch at least. But even the cuttings died. So, I sent in for an ICP test, thinking that maybe copper or a screw or something toxic fell into the sump somehow. I'm really careful about that stuff, but I don't know maybe something did.
The ICP results were... Eye opening. The culprit was nothing more than the age old issue of nutrients. All of the major elements were 0 or undetectable (other than what should be there) My trace elements were undetectable as well - a whole other issue.
My phosphates were .56. I ordered a ULR PHosphate Hana tester then, and tested a week later and phosphates had climbed to .66.
I was starting to lose my massive chalice in that time too. Flesh just started pealing off it. I started dosing phosphate -e (Lanthinum Chloride) starting out with extremely small doses. And each week upped the ml per day to two to three times a day. After 3 months My phosphates dropped down to .1 and my chalice had grown back new flesh and thrived again and the rest of my corals looked so much better. I didn't know they could look that good!
My stylpora and birds nest were both lost. But the rest thrived once I got it under control. Then, I made some changes and continued to monitor, with the goal of stopping dosing phosphate-e. I upped my ATS to running 24 /7 (had been shutting the lights off for 8 hours a day.). I continued doing larger water changes for another 3-4 months to get the phosphates out of the rocks and/or sand bed. I switched to reef crystals salt.
I continued monitoring. Now, my phosphates are stable between .04 to .08 and I only test once every other week. No Phosphate -e. I did switch to dosing trace elements and am dosing vodka as now as well. Converted my cannister water polisher to a denitrator with matrix rock. And upped my vodka dosing to control nitrates as well as phosphates.
I did another ICP test about a year apart. And all trace elements were well within where I needed them and my phosphates came back within a margin of error of my Hanna checker. confirming I was doing right!
If I had continued oblivious of my phosphates I would have lost many more corals. I didn't believe in the test kits, jaded by the color tests I had done previously which are ridiculously inaccurate to try to determine shades of pink and green. I thought my phosphates were a little high at .12 to .16. Not .66.....
