Quote:
Originally Posted by ALBERTA REEF
Your tank looks great.
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Thank you, I'm glad you like it.
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My tank is suffering zero nutrients again...
SG 35 ppt (calibrated with 35 ppt solution)
Cal 405 ppm (new Salifert kit), 390 ppm (end of an Elos kit) <--- this is usually 400-410 ppm
Alk 6.8 dKH (new Hanna reagent), 6.85 (new Salifert kit) <--- this is usually 7.0-7.2 dKH
Mg 1240 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
NO3 0 ppm (Salifert), 0 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
PO4 0 ppb (Hanna)
Dosing kalk, and needs a bump up I see.
A few weeks ago I was getting a whiff of nutrients and the tank was looking better. Now the nutrients are gone, and everything is uber pale again. I do have some fluffy brown algae growth everywhere that I'm not sure what it is. It's particularly growing on the powerheads and back glass. It starts by looking like diatoms, but then gets fluffy if I don't scrape it off. It comes off super easy like diatoms. I added some more clean up crew to try to help: 6 Ring Cowries (2 weeks ago), 3 small Turbos, Peppermint Shrimp (had a couple tiny Aiptasia and he got em), 1 small female Emerald Crab (bubble algae is getting out of hand too).
Another thing that I hesitate to mention is pH. Ever since day one with this tank, I haven't a reading over pH 7.7. I am using a calibrated handheld meter. It's probably a decade old, maybe more. Every time I calibrate it I read the solutions with the meter first and they always read 7.0 and 10.0. Then I calibrate and they again read the solutions at 7.0 and 10.0. Today pH just before the white light cycle is 7.6. I've tried messing around with opening windows, and that doesn't help. I want to do with pH test with outside air, but it's been really cold here (-30C), so the water will freeze before the 1 hour aeration is done. Today it's only (-6C) so I'll see what I can do to get it done today. I'll use a big jug of water and put it in a cooler with a heat pack maybe.
The skimmer has been driving me nuts overflowing lately, so I put a couple sheets of eggcrate under it to prop it up a bit. It was in 8 5/8" of water, and now it's in 7 7/8" water.
I cleaned the back glass and powerheads 2 weeks ago, and this is what they look like now:
Here are some of the worst affected pale corals:
Here's that nice wild Aussie Acro, and it's paled as well. It has a little nubbin growing where I took a frag off and the colors are looking quite nice, though still pale. Right now the tips of the corallites are looking neon yellow in person.
