The only other thing I can think is alk. While I was doing the water changes and re-setting everything it got as low as 5.5, then over the course of 2 weeks I got it up very slowly back in to the 7-7.5 range. Things started recovering the fastest when it was around 6. I haven't tested it since last weekend, but today it's 8.5. Like last time I'm not sure if the spike was because the corals have stopped growing or if it slowly crept up and caused damage. In any case I turned off the dosing pump to get it to come back down in to the 7s.
My tank is no where near low nutrient at this point though, so even with (a very small amount of ) biopellets on the system, I just can't accept that an alk of 8.5 would cause so much damage.
Params:
Alk: 8.5
Calcium: 415
Mag: 1260
Nitrate: about 2ppm
PO4: 0.11
I hadn't been running GFO for the past two weeks as the pellets weren't kicking in with PO4 levels of 0.008ppm, which is where they sit with the reactor running. The nitrates are finally starting to fall from a high of about 5ppm. Anyone think those numbers would indicate coral damage?
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