Got my ATI ICP test in

[Mattrg02]

So I’ve dropped my alkalinity a smidge, down to around 8.5dkh, it was actually around 9dkh.

I’m torn at what to do at this point. My nitrates and phosphate are up there, yet my corals all look washed out. 8ppm nitrates and 0.1ppm phosphate isn’t low by any stretch. Shouldn’t my acros be browned out?

If it were you, would you start upping the lighting, slowly of course, risking an all out bleaching of what’s left, would you decrease lighting, or would you hope or the best and leave them be?

I’d say my acros are in the 200PAR range, considering what the par charts show for the hydra26hd. I could lower the lights as well as up the channels?

 

[silvernblackr35]

Matt have you tried the iodide? Your issues literally sound like they are coming out of my mouth months ago when I was having issues, my iodine was 13.97 µg/l. I thought my issue was everything but the kitchen sink pretty much, spent almost a year slowly losing sps off and on while a few had no issues. I'm not saying it's a miracle or that your issues couldn't be possibly what others are saying, but it's worth a shot.. the seachem iodide is dirt cheap.

 

[Mattrg02]

Matt have you tried the iodide? Your issues literally sound like they are coming out of my mouth months ago when I was having issues, my iodine was 13.97 µg/l. I thought my issue was everything but the kitchen sink pretty much, spent almost a year slowly losing sps off and on while a few had no issues. I'm not saying it's a miracle or that your issues couldn't be possibly what others are saying, but it's worth a shot.. the seachem iodide is dirt cheap.

I haven’t. I’ll swing by my LFS tomorrow and see if he’s got anything special for dosing iodine. Can lugols work if I can’t find anything meant for dosing with?

 

[silvernblackr35]

Yeah a lot of people use it. I just know it doesn't take much compared to the potassium iodide solutions, not sure what the recommended dose would be though.

 

[Mattrg02]

Yeah a lot of people use it. I just know it doesn't take much compared to the potassium iodide solutions, not sure what the recommended dose would be though.

That’ll be first on my list tomorrow. I came home to another white bright, so even frustrated more if that’s possible. All of my corals look like they are starving for nutrients when my tank is nutrients rich.

 

[silvernblackr35]

My trials led me to the same guess so I took my refugium down and things didn't improve, then that led me to my icp test and the recommendation for iodine. I had a lot of red macros in my pretty large refugium that sucked up iodine like crazy, they stopped growing as well. I never had to clean my glass even after taking it down and having detectable nutrients again, so lack of iodine definitely inhibits any algae growth in my experience 100%, I'm still not sure how corals themselves use it but like I said it turned my tank around.

 

[Mattrg02]

My trials led me to the same guess so I took my refugium down and things didn't improve, then that led me to my icp test and the recommendation for iodine. I had a lot of red macros in my pretty large refugium that sucked up iodine like crazy, they stopped growing as well. I never had to clean my glass even after taking it down and having detectable nutrients again, so lack of iodine definitely inhibits any algae growth in my experience 100%, I'm still not sure how corals themselves use it but like I said it turned my tank around.

I have zero algea in my tank aside from corralline algea that exploded in growth, a month ago, only to completely halt.

How soon did you see a turn around?

 

[silvernblackr35]

I have zero algea in my tank aside from corralline algea that exploded in growth, a month ago, only to completely halt.

How soon did you see a turn around?

2 weeks for a few pieces, I'd say a month overall, including algae growth.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I had the same problems. Acros look good for 4-6 weeks then they’d either stn or look dried up and then gone. I have a 50 gallon cube that had a single hydra 52 hd. But I couldn’t stop messing with the settings. So I decided to get another 52 hd turn up the Violet settings but turn the Uv way down to 20 and got an apogee 510 par meter. I also did a 10 day dose of Brightwell koral recover. I had an hour long conversation with the owner of Brightwell and told me the koral recover will stop stn. So far it has. After the 10 days and now with the proper par and better spread everything is looking much better. The BRS ab+ Hydra UV is way too high and I don’t think a single hydra 26 hd would provide enough par/spread to adequately light sps in an 43 gallon tank. You might want to get another 26. I’ll be happy to get you par readings if you need some help.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I also believe I had my vortech way too high in one direction. I turned it way down and put it in the gyre mode

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Long story short, I went through everything you’re going through. I upgraded from a 15 year old smaller tank, I had perfect stable parameters, and I had the brs ab+ schedule. You should either get another 26 hd or take JDAs advice and get the t5 hybrid. But definitely turn down that UV setting and get some koral recover. I received this frogskin from a live sale and it had rtn all over out of the bag. And now after the koral recover most of the rtn is feeling in 2 weeks later.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I also started adding a couple drops of prime per gallon to my RO water for top off and water changes.

 

[Mattrg02]

What’s in Koral recover? This seems like a possible option after the fact. I want to stop my corals from getting to this point, period.

The thing about lighting: Can anyone answer whether or not insufficient light can cause a coral to wash out or bleach? I thought it was the opposite, corals brown out.

Today I will get some iodine and see how things go. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try some other things.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

What’s in Koral recover? This seems like a possible option after the fact. I want to stop my corals from getting to this point, period.

The thing about lighting: Can anyone answer whether or not insufficient light can cause a coral to wash out or bleach? I thought it was the opposite, corals brown out.

Today I will get some iodine and see how things go. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try some other things.

The high uv from the hydra is stressing the acros
When my par meter came it showed there was only a couple spots on the top that I could get effective par for acros with the 1 fixture. The majority of acros energy/nutrition comes from lighting, not nutrients. If the lighting is poor, their health will be poor. That’s why the look dried and starved. The koral recover is an all natural/botanical in tank treatment. It’s awesome, but you need to get better lighting. I don’t think the iodine will do much if anything. Trust me. Your struggles are like dejavu for me, and we both have hydras. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

 

[Mattrg02]

These problems didn’t start with the upgraded tank, they have been around since the old 17g tank. That is why I’m having a hard time with upgrading my lights.

I am running the ab+ program, so UV may be an issue. I’ll crank that down today as well.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Look familiar
Starts with poor PE?

 

[Mattrg02]

Look familiar
Starts with poor PE?

Mine lose all color, turn tan, then rtn takes em out.

 

[Mattrg02]

Ok, my LFS is awesome and sent me home with a par meter. Bout to get to the bottom of this ish.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Mine lose all color, turn tan, then rtn takes em out.

Some of mine would do that too. I had a lot of rtn. Once you play with the par meter and dial that in, start doing 25-30% water changes spaced 3-4 days apart. Then I would recommend 3 products. Koral Recover from Brightwell, KZ’s A Balance and RTN Destroyer from ReefGrow.
http://www.reefgrow.com/products/rtn-destroyer/

 

[Mattrg02]

So guess what? My par was way way way too low. 80-100 on top and like, 30 on the bottom. I now have it up to 300-400 on top, middle, 200 on top out to the side, and 100 on the bottom. I’m doing a 25% acclimation for two weeks so as to not spook everyone.