[asylumdown]

Hey guys,

I know i posted about this in another thread, but I'm absolutely beside myself. My coral has been dying for weeks now, but I went out of town on Wednesday until yesterday and came home to 40-50% coral loss. I can't figure out what's happening. Fish and inverts are all fine.

The coral damage began when I fixed a malfunctioning biopellet reactor, and switched GFO and calcium brands My alk spiked, which I thought was the initial cause, but now I'm thinking the alk spike was a symptom of the corals all ceasing to grow. What started out as burnt tips has devolved to full out colony loss in many cases, and nothing is the right colour.

Has anyone in Calgary experienced problems with coral after a switch in GFO or calcium brands recently? Can nitrogen deficiency cause this? My tank has always had biopellets, it's just working better now than it has in the past. I have a cluster of halimeda growing in the tank and macro algae is still growing in the overflows where my fish can't get to it, so there's obviously enough nutrients to support them.

Randomly, a couple of millepora colonies are still growing, while their next door neighbours almost completely dead.

With a complete stop in most coral growth, my levels are obviously not exactly where they should be, I can't seem to adjust the dosing rate enough. Alk is still around 8, when I'd ideally like it to be 7.5.

If I can't figure out a way to solve this, I don't think I'm going to stick with the hobby. In the past two weeks I've watched 2 years worth of work and several thousand dollars in previously vital coral disintegrate. On top of it I'm at a critical point in my thesis and I'm working 17 hours a day to try and finish it. I barely have enough time to feed my fish every day.

Basically this is the lowest I've been in my reefing career.