ICP results in my SPS tank

[drawman]

Hi All,
I have been having issues in my SPS tank that I mostly attribute to low nutrients (and am correcting). I don't carbon dose or do anything specifically to aim for low nutrients I've just realized that my Siporax media alone is way too efficient for this smaller tank so I will be swapping it out for live rock in an attempt to stop denitrification. Also I understand that my PO4 is very high in this test - that's because at the time I had been dosing PO4 to stave off depletion. Also FWIW I was only dosing Ca, Mg, Alk at that time and still am.

Anyways I did pull a Triton test a month or two ago when things were really in decline so I'm curious what others think.

 

[glb]

How big is the tank?

 

[drawman]

How big is the tank?

This one is a small one 30 gallons

 

[glb]

This one is a small one 30 gallons

I have a 40g breeder, so I get smaller tank issues. I have about 50lbs live rock in the tank and it does a good job with nutrients. Could you run GFO to lower the PO4? I dose Nopox for nitrates. Right now my fowlr tank runs at 0.03 po4 and 10ppm nitrates (nitrates going down after a fish died and I couldn’t find it). What were your numbers when the tank was thriving?

 

[drawman]

I have a 40g breeder, so I get smaller tank issues. I have about 50lbs live rock in the tank and it does a good job with nutrients. Could you run GFO to lower the PO4? I dose Nopox for nitrates. Right now my fowlr tank runs at 0.03 po4 and 10ppm nitrates (nitrates going down after a fish died and I couldn’t find it). What were your numbers when the tank was thriving?

So my problem has actually been the opposite (and I know it's confusing because the test shows high PO4). I was getting 0 PO4 from my Hanna checker so in response I was regularly dosing PO4 right before this triton test. I was actually surprised at how high it showed the PO4 to be. But without dosing PO4 does not stay high and NO3 has been pretty much undetectable.

When acros were thriving NO3 was in the range of 5-10ppm and I wasn't routinely testing PO4. I think after many months my Siporax built up higher levels of denitrifying bacteria and NO3 depleted. I have dosed NO3 as well but it seems like the acros responded poorly from it (could have been from low PO4 as well or an impurity). So my goal here will be to swap out the Siporax for rock in the hopes that the rock is less efficient at denitrifying and NO3 and PO4 levels can rise naturally without dosing (which I am no longer doing of course). I love Siporax but I think it's too much for this tank.

Oddly enough, my acros have maintained pretty good coloration but they are not very resilient and have been undergoing STN and there is no noticeable growth.

 

[glb]

So my problem has actually been the opposite (and I know it's confusing because the test shows high PO4). I was getting 0 PO4 from my Hanna checker so in response I was regularly dosing PO4 right before this triton test. I was actually surprised at how high it showed the PO4 to be. But without dosing PO4 does not stay high and NO3 has been pretty much undetectable.

When acros were thriving NO3 was in the range of 5-10ppm and I wasn't routinely testing PO4. I think after many months my Siporax built up higher levels of denitrifying bacteria and NO3 depleted. I have dosed NO3 as well but it seems like the acros responded poorly from it (could have been from low PO4 as well or an impurity). So my goal here will be to swap out the Siporax for rock in the hopes that the rock is less efficient at denitrifying and NO3 and PO4 levels can rise naturally without dosing (which I am no longer doing of course).

Oddly enough, my acros have maintained pretty good coloration but they are not very resilient and have been undergoing STN and there is no noticeable growth.

Sounds like a good plan.