Don't really have a positive update unfortunately. I did end up dosing a little more Iodion last week. Maybe some of my zoas are opening more but they're still not extending their polyps and looking happy yet. Still no improvement on the SPS that have withdrawn their polyps. My toadstool has kinda opened halfway today for the first time in weeks and my Kenya Trees with some imagination might be looking slightly better. That said, a group of zoas off by themselves, Gobstoppers, Sunny Ds, and Peachy Kings, which so far had seemed unaffected by whatever is going on, started closing up and shrinking on Saturday. Totally bummed me out.
I did check my Hanna checkers with calibration standards last week. Phosphate read high. My phosphates have always been high so for them to be lower than they really are doesn't explain what's going on. Alk was right on. No smoking gun with my Hanna checkers. I did order 3 ICP tests to help me dial in my Iodine. I also sent off a Spot Check to SaltwaterAquarium.com today to back up the results from the Triton ICP test from 2 weeks ago and also make sure my other tests kits aren't out of whack.
I'm going to up my water change frequency to 25% every other day for a week starting tomorrow and see what that does. If that doesn't show favorable signs my next step is to start dosing Iodide per instructions and also add some Brightwell Purit which is a combo of charcoal and DI resin. So the thought there is I might have some sort of contaminate not showing up on an ICP test.
The last thing I still haven't tried is the peroxide dip. I have several other different types of corals also affected by whatever this is so I wasn't completely sold on this helping completely but I will now give it a try. I know I could've used a toothbrush but I finally acquired some disposable spoolies this evening so I will start with the easily removed zoa colonies and begin doing their dips tomorrow. Many of my colonies have really established themselves on the rockwork. I may just have to remove what I can with the original frag plug and not worry about what remains behind. Sucks.
Okay, there is one bit of good news. My Inferno BTA split again tonight. It split for the first time about month and a half ago. I got a little freaked out tonight when I was looking at the momma. She was looking all small and mostly withdrawn. Her tentacles where still inflated a little bit though but then I realized she was looking like that because she split! YAAYYY!! One of the splits had hidden itself under the other anemone that was the split last time so I didn't see it at first. It took so long for it to split the first time (6 months) that this split totally caught me by surprise. Sometimes, it's the little things.
Summary of my next steps:
- Quit the hobby
- Okay, just kidding on the first one
- Zoa Peroxide dip
- 25% water changes every other day for at least a week
- Dial in my Iodine with ICP testing
- Brightwell Purit
Any other thoughts would be hugely welcomed at this point. This is getting ridiculous. I know this hobby can be frustrating and challenging at times, but
in a hat this one is TOUGH!!
Oh yeah, last thing. My 400 green mushrooms have not been affected by this AT ALL. Hahaha. Sigh.