I believe my tank has stabilized and the corals that survived have coloured up and are starting to grow.
The following corals did not make it:
Pearlberry
Highlighter
Red Planet
purple bonsai
Blue millipora
Most of the corals that have survived are now much more colourful. then before I started this experiment.
My initial plan to try to get my nitrates to 2ppm is not attainable. In raising up my nitrates I caused my phosphates to crash which almost wiped out all my corals. I started adding phosphates to help balance the nitrates, however I found that the amounts I needed to add of nitrate and phosphate to get desirable numbers was way too labour intensive.
I am now not focusing on my nitrate numbers only my phosphate numbers. I add enough nitrates to maintain phosphates at between .005 to .08ppm phosphorus.
In order to maintain this number I am adding 1.5ml of KNO3 and .5ml of KH2PO4 every day. I am checking my phosphate levels (hanna ULR) every second day and adjusting the amounts accordingly.
I tried feeding heavily for a while to help increase my phosphate and nitrates but ended up stopping that when my vermetid snail populations grew exponentially.
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