I'm at a complete loss here.
The phosphates are off the scale on my Hanna ULR flashing .90 every time and I have absolutely no idea why. All fish and inverts accounted for. Vacuumed the sand bed to the point where virtually no silt is sucked up. Cleaned the sump of all detrius (wasn't much to start with) and removed 1/2 the macro down there as well. Filter sock swapped out daily and running aggressive skimming. I have changed the batteries in my tester as well as got new reagent for it and same result. I then tried a Nyos kit and got similar results, off the chart in both it and the Hanna with deep blue colors. Tested my source water and the PO4 is virtually undetectable with clear for Nyos and a .01 on 1 of 4 tests with the Hanna. I'm using Red Sea Pro salt and do get a consistent .01 on the Hanna after mixing. The only time I have been able to get it below a flashing .9 is when I treated the tank with Phosphate Rx twice a day for a week straight. Only then did the Phosphates come down to a .25 on the Hanna where I stopped dosing. Within three days they shot back up to over .90. That's when I started aggressive water changes doing 50% changes every other day for a week now and so far no impact to the numbers at all. I also have gone to targeted feeding to minimize uneaten food in the tank. I have also lost about 1/3 of the corals in the tank over the duration of this what appears to be a long duration crash event. I have had multiple LPS corals are bail out, or peel back away from their skeletons, while others are completely un-phased with no change in color or polyp extension. I have also lost some SPS colonies yet others show no losses. I have also lost most of my zoas to the aptasia outbreak. Tried dipping some of the zoas frags I could remove and no hint of any types of parasites that could cause this this sort of loss. How ever I can also go 2-3 days in between glass cleanings.
Food is a mix of frozen rinsed mysis shrimp, frozen rinsed blood worms, and marine cuisine once a day.
I have also torn down my mixing station and scrubbed it and the pump clean of any organic build up that happens from using the Red Sea Pro salt.
I am not dosing with any forms of bacteria, NoPox, or any other carbon dosing methods.
As for the rest of the numbers they are as follows:
Water temp 77.3-5 stable
Salinity 1.026
Alk: 9.5
PH: 8.4
Cal: 410
Mg: 1400
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates 1
Phosphates .90+ PPM Flashing (Hanna ULR)
1.0+ with the Nyos kit
I'm nearly at my whit's end with all this and it's tearing me up watching my my reef slowly whither and die.
Any help would be very deeply appreciated.
What it looked like before..
And now
It looks much worse in person...
The phosphates are off the scale on my Hanna ULR flashing .90 every time and I have absolutely no idea why. All fish and inverts accounted for. Vacuumed the sand bed to the point where virtually no silt is sucked up. Cleaned the sump of all detrius (wasn't much to start with) and removed 1/2 the macro down there as well. Filter sock swapped out daily and running aggressive skimming. I have changed the batteries in my tester as well as got new reagent for it and same result. I then tried a Nyos kit and got similar results, off the chart in both it and the Hanna with deep blue colors. Tested my source water and the PO4 is virtually undetectable with clear for Nyos and a .01 on 1 of 4 tests with the Hanna. I'm using Red Sea Pro salt and do get a consistent .01 on the Hanna after mixing. The only time I have been able to get it below a flashing .9 is when I treated the tank with Phosphate Rx twice a day for a week straight. Only then did the Phosphates come down to a .25 on the Hanna where I stopped dosing. Within three days they shot back up to over .90. That's when I started aggressive water changes doing 50% changes every other day for a week now and so far no impact to the numbers at all. I also have gone to targeted feeding to minimize uneaten food in the tank. I have also lost about 1/3 of the corals in the tank over the duration of this what appears to be a long duration crash event. I have had multiple LPS corals are bail out, or peel back away from their skeletons, while others are completely un-phased with no change in color or polyp extension. I have also lost some SPS colonies yet others show no losses. I have also lost most of my zoas to the aptasia outbreak. Tried dipping some of the zoas frags I could remove and no hint of any types of parasites that could cause this this sort of loss. How ever I can also go 2-3 days in between glass cleanings.
Food is a mix of frozen rinsed mysis shrimp, frozen rinsed blood worms, and marine cuisine once a day.
I have also torn down my mixing station and scrubbed it and the pump clean of any organic build up that happens from using the Red Sea Pro salt.
I am not dosing with any forms of bacteria, NoPox, or any other carbon dosing methods.
As for the rest of the numbers they are as follows:
Water temp 77.3-5 stable
Salinity 1.026
Alk: 9.5
PH: 8.4
Cal: 410
Mg: 1400
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates 1
Phosphates .90+ PPM Flashing (Hanna ULR)
1.0+ with the Nyos kit
I'm nearly at my whit's end with all this and it's tearing me up watching my my reef slowly whither and die.
Any help would be very deeply appreciated.
What it looked like before..
And now
It looks much worse in person...