Reef nutrition

Alex’s IM 150 EXT

derek_SR said:
Btw do you listen to “Beyond the Reef” podcast? Your boy Claude Schumacher was a guest on a recent episode. Very interesting. Lou from Tropic Marin was also on recently, and they get asked a lot of the same questions.

Very similar responses in many ways, not all. Thought you might appreciate. Both worth a listen IMO.
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Did not know about this podcast, thanks for letting me know. I am not a big fan of Lou anymore though, even though I spoke to him in person last year and he was pretty nice and all, His knowledge seems far more superficial than e.g. Claude’s IMO, and I am not sure about the value of many of the TM products. The only one I am still using is their salt and will stop this and switch to Reef blueprint or Fauna Marin after I run it of it.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Agree. But the silicate dosing is apparently known to throw off the Hanna accuracy, and the suggestion is to use the Salifert or RedSea test kits in the interim.

So my assumption is that the nano tank still had a higher amount of silicates in the water due to previous dosing when this tank had dinos last (12 months ago) which led to the potentially inaccurate results for phosphates throughout. I do not have another explanation really how phosphates stayed at the same level even after a 50% water change.

More interesting though is the accuracy of the phosphates in the IM 150. Tested again this morning with Salifert and still seems to read 0. I also do not like the color tests but this seems rather straightforward here? Could still be a testing error, but 10ml, 4 drops and gently mix for 10 sec, then 1 level scoop and gently mix for 30 secs, seems hard to to do wrong actually.

Interesting though, nitrates are at 16 now (Hanna).

Time for reef roids (?).


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I have been using this test kit for years and I never thought to put the sample over the color box. I feel really dumb.
 
grizfyrfyter said:
I have been using this test kit for years and I never thought to put the sample over the color box. I feel really dumb.
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I am not sure if this was meant to be irony :), but it gives me an opportunity to correct my previous post :). I was dumb in doing it the way I showed it on the picture as it misleads the results, so it should not be done this way. And I do understand now why people struggle with the color coding. Anyway, I have to use the salifert test due to silicates, and I have actually now also ordered the Fauna Marin test hoping the color coding is easier to read. Will post when I tried it.
 
I needed an alternative Phosphate test kit since the Hanna does not work with elevated silicate (apparantly false readings), and the Salifert test kist was not helpful to my eyes.

I have used the RedSea Phosphate Pro test kit in the past but remembered it was annoying to handle due to the use of a pipette which I found difficult.

So I have ordered the Fauna Marin test kit from Premium Aquatics and testing is very easy and colors are easy to identify. Main disadvantage is that you need 15 ml twice which is more than my 10 ml lab pipette can do, so have to adjust it, but more a minor inconvenience.

Test kit cost 37 USD, refill is 13 USD, so definitely on the more pricier side. Easy testing and read out. Phosphate is at 0.3. Nitrate at 21.

Last water change was two months ago on Feb 7.

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I used a CO2 scrubber in my nano tank and never felt the results were too convincing (i.e., impact on PH), so I did not implement this in my current tank. But since my PH has been hovering between 8.05 and 8.15 max, despite continous airing the house and measuring CO2, and alk around 8 dkh, I wanted to try this again (I am calibrating the probes regularly, both the APEX probe and the Milwaukee MW102 Pro+).

Results have been incredible almost immediately, which I did not expect, and I am already getting 8.4 now (probably peaking). I assume my lackluster results previously were due to the Red Sea skimmer which does not pull in air properly giving the connection to the scrubber (which can be fixed actually).

Main concern will now be how long the media will last.

Picture 1 (pre use of CO2 scrubber)

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Picture 2 (post use of CO2 scrubber)

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Kensington Reefer said:
Are there any gadgets and wingdings that ya don’t have?!
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Valid question/statement Erin . To my defense on the gadget front, I am running this tank with two lights and two MP40s at the moment and would claim I am in the lowest tertile compared to others here when it comes to expensive equipment.

Also, the scrubber costs 30 USD plus media, which is why I love the impact of this rather inexpensive addition.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Valid question/statement Erin . To my defense on the gadget front, I am running this tank with two lights and two MP40s at the moment and would claim I am in the lowest tertile compared to others here when it comes to expensive equipment.

Also, the scrubber costs 30 USD plus media, which is why I love the impact of this rather inexpensive addition.
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We’re here to help
 
I assume many/most know this but I did not put the pieces of information I had together properly.

Since adding the scrubber, and the initial PH spike, PH continued to drop until today (still around 8.1). I have observed this and initially thought the media would get weaker and I was disappointed how quickly this happened, but the media still shows its ‘effective’ color, so I thought more about other reasons for the drop.

There is a need to add one teaspoon of water to the bottom of the scrubber to keep the humidity higher which the media needs to work properly. This evaportated by now so I replaced this and added a reminder to check this every four days for now. However, since I like 'wingdings', as KReefer stated above, I had already ordered a 3d printed cover for my skimmer from Premium Aquatics to lead the humid tank/skimmer air back to the scrubber which is supposed to make the media last longer. Has not arrived yet so need to manage this 'manually' for now.

Still, I did not think the lack of one teaspoon of water would make such a drastic difference - drastic meaning 0.1 PH decline or slightly more compared to a few days ago, all things equal (relatively).

So I gave this more thought and checked alkalinity one day earlier than my weekly check. Yes, I check this only weekly if I feel it is relatively stable and switch to every 3-4 days if I am making changes and see how they play out. I know you would say why did you not check alk immediately, and the answer is that my alk had been (slightly) higher than my target alk for many weeks now, and I had it dialed in so it would be pretty much around where I wanted it but slighly higher. Also, I have been dosing daily 3 ml of Sodium Silicate (for Dinos) so I thought that an alk decline would not be my issue (rather the opposite).

Turns out that Alk was at 7.4 (Hanna), down from 8.6, 6 days ago. The single largest drop of alk in a week for a long time or ever since I am measuring alk (would be good to have an APEX to measure this daily...haha). As per the last two ICP tests from Fauna Marin ICP Total, Hanna appears to overstate alk by exactly 0.6 for both ICP measurements 30 days apart. Could be my testing, but as previously mentioned, I try to do this very properly. Regardless, my measurement (or Hanna's) overstates alk by 0.6, so I would be at around 6.8 actual alk right now, which I assume would explain the PH drop.

So what has been driving the larger alk drop? I would say two things: I lowered the daily Kalkwasser addition by about 10% last week as I wanted to slowly and slightly reduce my higher calcium levels, but I was also hoping that the other explanation is that the higher PH drove up alk consumption (and growth?).

Adding this all in here for my own record but also for other insights and commentary, probably an easy explanation that higher PH leads to higher alk consumption but I did not know, specifically in the context of using a CO2 scrubber.
 
Darkxerox said:
That drop of about 0.4 meq/L would translate to a drop of like 0.1 units in pH. Assuming no change in CO2. https://reefs.com/magazine/chemistry-and-the-aquarium-the-relationship-between-alkalinity-and-ph/

The Hanna is like +/- 0.3 dkH according to their website too. What are the CO2 levels in your house?
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Oh, I did not check their accuracy range. This would partially support the ICP results then. And yes, I should have added my CO2 levels which are currently approx 520 to 550, given the lower temps in past couple of days, and us not keeping the windows open all the time. I was thinking though that the scrubber would not be impacted by this, it would just need to work ‘harder’, use up media more?
 
Looks like I was able to beat LCA dinos, as per today’s sand bed sample which only showed a couple of LCA per slide.

Sodium silicate, no water change, and daily phytoplankton were the primary actions I took. The price for this is now a diatom bloom, which looks terrible, and I had to take a video for the record. I will reduce Sodium silicate this week and again next week, and then stop and start cleaning the sand bed weekly and slowly. There is probably a risk for it to return, but it is not difficult to beat, but I admit it was easier than prorocentrum, although the method is the same.

 
Alexander1312 said:
Looks like I was able to beat LCA dinos, as per today’s sand bed sample which only showed a couple of LCA per slide.

Sodium silicate, no water change, and daily phytoplankton were the primary actions I took. The price for this is now a diatom bloom, which looks terrible, and I had to take a video for the record. I will reduce Sodium silicate this week and again next week, and then stop and start cleaning the sand bed weekly and slowly. There is probably a risk for it to return, but it is not difficult to beat, but I admit it was easier than prorocentrum, although the method is the same.

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Looks like a buffet for copepods!
 
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