Oh Naesco you never got the joke. I usually argue with her. You know you the saying when pigs fly?

Well thanks to Denny, I know my Elos Alk test is way out. He had my Alk over 11. Also my nitrates are over 25, but phosphates are good. This would explain why my Ca has been so hard to get inline. I have stopped dosing Alk and water changes are going to be a regular event for the next week.

That's likely causing your coral issues. Having tests that far out scares me.

And I'm with Kien on the pellet front. I've had them running in my tank since day one, and I wouldn't ever think of removing them. I also run GFO as my phosphates can get as high as 0.09 while nitrates will stay undetectable.

Different strokes for different folks though. They caused a cyano bloom the likes of which I had never seen in my last tank, but that was adding them to a high nutrient, year old, tap water tank.

Scary my Elos kits have always been consistent even across old to new. It was t expired or more than a year since first use?

How can your nitrates be so high if you are using pellets?

not enough pellets? not enough skimming?

Quite simple really, we don't know how high his nitrates were before today, also starting very low in ml will take longer to have a positive effect.

I don't think the high nitrates are the cause but the very high alk is a big concern for me, on the Hanna it came out to 11 .7 twice and his calcium was under 350ppm we don't know if it fluctuates either.

This can cause problems when running pellets or any carbon dosing really.

It expires June of 2013

I ran my Hanna kit and my alk is reading 9.8 now. Going in the right direction at least

Okay,

Let me know if this sounds right.

SPS Analysis

1) High nitrates led to a small algae bloom.
2) High Alk combined with the introduction of Bio Pellets led to burnt tips on my SPS.
3) The algae then formed on the dead tips and slowly stressed the SPS; hence some RTN and some STN

LPS Analysis

1) Introduced Bio Pellet Reactor which increase CO2
2) Winter has an affect of increasing CO2 as our houses are all sealed up during this time
3) These both lead to a decrease in my tanks pH
4) LPS typically are stressed from decreases in pH which resulted in a lot of them deciding to drop their heads.

Does this pretty much sum up what happened to me?
Does any of my logic not flow properly? Also, would the heads dropping off also lead to my increased nitrates if they were not removed from the tank?

Oh and I guess my most recent LPS die off was a result of me stopping my Alk dosing which also lead to a further dip in my pH. I love how everything ties together.