Thank you Titus. As far as I know BioPellets is removing NO3 and not PO4. GFO removes PO4. I am running refugium and BioBellets for short time, as I was witing for Pellets to kick off. These 2 are overlaping - agree, but I plan to remove Refugium from my system and have just Pellets and GFO with Carbon, Pellets are skimmed. Kein can chime on this as he is more professional.

IMO carbon and gfo don't work together. Its a balance for the bacteria to remove both no3 and po4. And with gfo stripping the po4 first the bacteria never really acomplish its job.

Biopellets does remove po4. But you need a balanced ratio. Po4 will take longer but once the ratio is balanced out they will both drop. If you don't have a balance the the bacteria could stall not removing its potential

But ask kien

ok. Lights ar on and I took some pictures. Actually looks a bit better - not so cloudy today:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8510/8...1cc7c0f5_b.jpg

Upset Green Pocci:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8383/8...d7868833_b.jpg

Lost color Acro:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8372/8...c4ac2597_b.jpg

Red Planet RTN:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8373/8...929c0756_b.jpg

What would be best approach to save these frags?

So your recommendation is to remove GFO and refugium, and leave BioPellets and Carbon with Skimmer? My intention was to shut down the refugium after 2 months once BioPellets will kick off. Should I feed heavily?

I would remove gfo to allow for Biopellets to work at the intended potential. And macro shortly after. The bacteria culture cannot mature without nutrient for it to feed on. You may have a small spike in po4 but it will soon deminish. Also a WC during that time will help.
Once you remove macro more rubble in sump will also be benificial


Albert dao turned me on to hydroton in a reactor. With low flow and darkness you can achive a cryptic zone for sponge to grow also filterin water

And only feed what you need. Any more is just waste and nutrients. Also consider doseing micro bacter 7. Others on here can chime in to that but apparently its benificial to use with pellets

Titus do you droton? Never heard about, have a link for with more info on this hydroton? How to build and benefit? For now I will run Pellets, Carbon and Skimmer will see what happens. I don't want to shut down pellets as it's been about a month running. I just opened it to clean some debris on cap of Pellets reactor. Hope that would not disturb the process :) Thank you guys for info. I will draw on your epertize if something goes wrong side.

You won't find info about hydroton in a reef tank. But u will find info on cryptic zones

Not related to you issue but since you may have a m t reactor:

Hydrton is small expanded Clay marble that are used in the hydrponics industry. Hydroton is inert and very porus. Making it a great material for natural biological filtration. It would be the same as live rock rubble in sump. But if you can keep it dark and have relitivly low flow you will create a breeding ground for sponges and small feather dusters to grow filtering out water. As you said you want to create a low nutrient system

I started this after ditching gfo and have had no negative affects. If you want more info ask Albert dao.He Is a pretty good guy

Good to see things are clearing up. I wouldn't stop feeding fish. If you are concerned about it then maybe reduce feeding to once a day?

Also, if you take your GFO off line be sure to check your phosphate reading regularly as you may find it climbing. BioPellets do not strip out phosphates all that well. They take out nitrate and phosphate in proportion to the "redfield ratio". In other words, lots of nitrate but not a as much phosphate. This is why a lot of people (myself included) run GFO in combination with bioPellets.

A few people do dose microbactor 7 with BioPellets but since you are currently having issues I would not add another variable. That is unless you are already dosing it :-). I have never dosed it myself so can't speak on its effectiveness (or lack of).

As for saving the red planet, I would first observe it. It could easily stabilize and start re-encrusting once it is happy again. If you're really paranoid or if it continues to lose tissue you can frag its tips. This is not always a guarantee though. Often times if it is sick the whole colony is sick even if you frag it :-(

So day 2:

NO3 <0.25ppm RedSea Test
PO3 0.08 Red Sea Test and 0.08 Milwakee test
Ca 423ppm Hanna Test
Alk 8.7 Hanna Test
PH 7.8 Digital Milwakee Test (mrning)

As I can judge I have close to 0 NO3 but elevated PO3, which means my NO3 export is overkilling but PO3 stil persist. The water is better but still not crystl lear as used to be.
I m going to turn on GFO and change the media GFO and Carbon.
Still waiting for water test result from Denny to cross check. The plan is to chek all these measurements daily over a week and see dynamic.

Target to lower Alk to 8 and keep Ca at 420-450, To control PO3 nd PH within 7.8-8.2

My issue is SPS coloration and STN or RTN.

Any feedback and comments how to solve the issue? Thx