New 73 gallon tank setup

[Frogger]

I thought I would provide an update for anyone following my plight.
I has been over 3 weeks since I screwed things up and let my phosphates drop quickly to zero. I am hoping things are stabilizing. I have been adding my nitrate and phosphate solutions daily to keep the phosphates between .01 and .04 and to keep my nitrates around 1ppm.

Growth has been stunted on all sps, the zoas seem to be completely unaffected and are definitely doing better since starting to add nitrates. Some of the SPS are starting to grow again.

The following corals were hit hard (keeping fingers crossed):
Highlighter acro (might not make it)
Shades of fall acro (might not make it)
Pearlberry acro
Red Dragon acro

The following corals were moderately hit (hopeful will survive):
Cali Blue Tort
Toxic yellow acro
Purple bonsai acro. I have spares in my 40 gallon that were not affected.
Needle in the haystack acro
Hawkins enchinata
Red Planet acro (tip dieback although is starting to colour up nicely)

The following corals are not affected other than lack of growth: Some of these are actually looking better.
Birdsnest
Pocillopora
Green slimmer acro
Green hulk acro
Blue matrix acro
blue Formosa acro
Glowstick acro
Pink Lemonaide acro
blue millipora acro
Pink prostrata acro
Tri colour acro

My three montiporas were unaffected by the phosphates but are currently at war with monitopora nudibranches. This is a war I do not think the monti's can win.

Will provided pictures once the final outcome has been determined.

[gregzz4]

Thought I would add my results;
I stopped dosing Nitrogen back in January of this year. My corals slowly recovered with only 4 fish. I added 7 more fish at the end of April. Since then I've been feeding pellets daily for lunch, and either flakes or frozen for dinner. All daily. There's enough food sometimes to make a small snow storm and I'm still getting zero NO3. PO4 is still hovering between zero and 0.03

I'm hesitant right now to start tinkering with dosing Phosphorus and Nitrogen.
I'd like to get my NO3 up some to help my corals.

I'll need to have a slow time in my life to focus on it ...

[Frogger]

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.

[Frogger]

I am attaching a picture of 1 coral in particular from December (colours pale) to 1 week after I started adding nitrates colour better, After crash and the current colour as of 2 weeks ago.[

ATTACH]15985[/ATTACH]

[Frogger]

My tank seems to have settled down and the colors have started to return to my corals. I have temperature and nutrient problems but everything seems to be OK for now.

I am trying to upload pictures from Flickr this is my first time so let me know if it works.

[Frogger]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/167567...posted-public/

Not sure why I can only post links not images
https://www.flickr.com/photos/167567...n/photostream/