rygh
Guest
Yep, the fear factor is actually why I used the chemical names.
If you say "put stump remover in your tank," people tend to look at you funny.
Biocube 29
- Thread starter James Oh
- Start date
Yep, the fear factor is actually why I used the chemical names.
If you say "put stump remover in your tank," people tend to look at you funny.
James Oh
Guest
Hahah your absolutely right. Both my gf and I started a tank around the same time and when we went to go buy it she was looked at me like I had lost it.
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James Oh
Guest
Another update!
So since dosing the nitrate my phosphorus has dipped down to 185 hurray! This is possibly the lowest I've seen them. Decided to move the zoas to my gf's tank because they were looking real bad and the first set of zoas I moved to her tank fully opened and are loving it over there (not gonna lie I am very jealous that the zoas like her tank and not mine =/) but while my tank takes some time to recover from the diatom outbreak (probably a couple months) I'll just keep the zoas over there. Oddly enough my acan, favia and hammer dont seem to be having issues and if anything they are growing? Anyways I'm hoping to stop dosing as soon as my phosphates get in line and will probably stop running the gfo reactor when my phosphorus hits around 10 - 30ish. Thinking to hold my nitrates around 5 ppm and phosphorus around 10 - 30 (.01 - .03 phosphates). On a side note I'm looking to capture the domino damsel in my tank so I can put in new fish (hoping for a clown pair and a goby) and from what I remember when I moved him from my gf tank to mine we had to take out all the rocks to catch him.... I feel like this is gonna be a pain..
Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
So since dosing the nitrate my phosphorus has dipped down to 185 hurray! This is possibly the lowest I've seen them. Decided to move the zoas to my gf's tank because they were looking real bad and the first set of zoas I moved to her tank fully opened and are loving it over there (not gonna lie I am very jealous that the zoas like her tank and not mine =/) but while my tank takes some time to recover from the diatom outbreak (probably a couple months) I'll just keep the zoas over there. Oddly enough my acan, favia and hammer dont seem to be having issues and if anything they are growing? Anyways I'm hoping to stop dosing as soon as my phosphates get in line and will probably stop running the gfo reactor when my phosphorus hits around 10 - 30ish. Thinking to hold my nitrates around 5 ppm and phosphorus around 10 - 30 (.01 - .03 phosphates). On a side note I'm looking to capture the domino damsel in my tank so I can put in new fish (hoping for a clown pair and a goby) and from what I remember when I moved him from my gf tank to mine we had to take out all the rocks to catch him.... I feel like this is gonna be a pain..
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James Oh
Guest
Yah it was a Fowler tank then she went and got an anenome.... then a birdnest... then a frogspawn.... she ended up buying an AI Prime to replace her old lighting.
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James Oh
Guest
Another update!
Looks like my phosphorus is steadily dropping. It was down to 52 but went back up to 68 when nitrates fell down to 1ppm. Something came up when I moved my zaos over to my gf tank for a couple days. The brown bloom I am having in my tank has seem to spread to my gf tank when I moved my Zoas over to her tank and now is spreading like wild fire in her tank. Is this something that happens with diatoms? Also the brown stuff is getting a bit "hairy"... still just keeping up with the usual of dosing nitrates to 5ppm and running the gfo to try and keep phophates down. Just a bit worried that the brown stuff is now effecting her tank as well.
Edit: forgot to mention found a guy online with a similar setup as mine (bc29 with hydra 26hd) and he gave some average par reading of the center of his tank at diff spectrums he was running. I believe for the LPS and zoas I have in the tank I may have been running my lights way too high. Ended up lowering the values of my lights down because some of the zoas skirts were over extending.
Looks like my phosphorus is steadily dropping. It was down to 52 but went back up to 68 when nitrates fell down to 1ppm. Something came up when I moved my zaos over to my gf tank for a couple days. The brown bloom I am having in my tank has seem to spread to my gf tank when I moved my Zoas over to her tank and now is spreading like wild fire in her tank. Is this something that happens with diatoms? Also the brown stuff is getting a bit "hairy"... still just keeping up with the usual of dosing nitrates to 5ppm and running the gfo to try and keep phophates down. Just a bit worried that the brown stuff is now effecting her tank as well.
Edit: forgot to mention found a guy online with a similar setup as mine (bc29 with hydra 26hd) and he gave some average par reading of the center of his tank at diff spectrums he was running. I believe for the LPS and zoas I have in the tank I may have been running my lights way too high. Ended up lowering the values of my lights down because some of the zoas skirts were over extending.
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Coral reefer
Past President
What's your settings?
Coral reefer
Past President
That's a weird program with all the ups and downs... why?
I'd run a little less of the royal blue and blue, maybe half that much red, and maybe even a little less white.
I'd run a little less of the royal blue and blue, maybe half that much red, and maybe even a little less white.
Coral reefer
Past President
I think the fact that your tank isn't very deep and you don't have any high light corals means you don't need much light. How high is the light mounted?
James Oh
Guest
It was a setting that I pulled from some one else. Something about emulating clouds that cover the sun.
At the moment the numbers are toned down 70%. So it is really only running 30% of those numbers shown on the graph. Its weird I know, but it was the easiest way for me schedule something with out having to manually entering every thing lol. I will probably go back and reprogram my own I'll be sure to reduce the royals, blues, red, and cw. The light is mounted 8 in. from the surface of the water.
James Oh
Guest
Well it looks like I may have found out why my snails have been dying? So I have been using Red Sea Coral Pro Salt for the past couple weeks and had always found it odd that my magnesium was a tad low (1100 - 1200ish) even though the box states 1340 mg. Well it looks like I was doing the magnesium test all wrong. When I read the instructions I must have confused the wording up and thought I stop titrating when it first changes colors (pink to purple). Well... I just watched the instructional video from red sea and they meant wait for the first color change from PURPLE to BLUE. To make matters worse I dosed magnesium yesterday in an attempt to get it to 1350. Well after figuring this all out I retested the tank the correct way and it looks like I am sitting at 1560... I am not sure if this is what has been killing all my snails but from what I have been reading high magnesium makes snails lethargic and could possibly kill them in the long run.
Another odd thing is it seems over the last month my PH and dKH have been dropping slowly. PH has gone from 8.3 down to 7.9 and dKH from 8.5 to 7.8. Both PH and ALK are tested via digital meters (handheld meter and hanna checker). Also in the last month I went from having 2 zoas to having 9 zoas frags, 2 acan frags, a favia frag, GSP, hammer frag and blastos frag over the span of a month. My assumption is that due to adding more coral they are consuming more ALK which in turn is making my PH fall? I was hoping doing weekly 5g water changes was going to be enough to keep parameters up (alk and calc) because they were just frags but calcium is going no where (stays in the range of 460ish) while ALK and PH are slowing declining.
Another odd thing is it seems over the last month my PH and dKH have been dropping slowly. PH has gone from 8.3 down to 7.9 and dKH from 8.5 to 7.8. Both PH and ALK are tested via digital meters (handheld meter and hanna checker). Also in the last month I went from having 2 zoas to having 9 zoas frags, 2 acan frags, a favia frag, GSP, hammer frag and blastos frag over the span of a month. My assumption is that due to adding more coral they are consuming more ALK which in turn is making my PH fall? I was hoping doing weekly 5g water changes was going to be enough to keep parameters up (alk and calc) because they were just frags but calcium is going no where (stays in the range of 460ish) while ALK and PH are slowing declining.
RandyC
Supporting Member
Mg of 1560 is nothing to worry about.
Alk is getting sucked up because of the addition of more stony corals that are growing more sketelon.
Did you test the pH when the lights were out? The drop could have been because once the lights are out, respiration takes over and corals produce co2 at that point. pH of 7.8 isn't that big of a deal...my tank used to routinely run between 7.8 and 8. If you don't have good gas exchange or you house is sealed up tightly, it could be the cause of that pH level.
James Oh
Guest
This is great news to hear. I'll probably just keep up with normal water changes and leave mag testing down to once every couple weeks.
This is what I was assuming as well. The question really is should I bother dosing ALK? I think my step is going to be is to test for ALK AFTER I do my weekly water change and see how high it is going after a water change then prob test ALK daily after the water change to see what the consumption is. I guess the questions really is from what I understand ALK swings are not good for the tank. So what is considered a bad ALK swing? How many points or fractions of a point per day drop do most people experience? And from that consideration if I am having major ALK dropping in short periods of time I guess I should be dosing if that happens. Once again I am unsure what a major ALK swing is so I will probably do some research on that.
I think i'll have to get back to you on the PH thing. I didn't really realize it but I guess I am not consistently testing PH at the same time every time. I'll be sure to test the tank around the same time every time I test so I can get a more accurate reading. As far as gas exchange goes IN the tank I run the small biocube skimmer 2-3 days of the week and have 2mp10 running different modes all day. The return pump was upgraded to a mj1200 pointing up. I duno if this effects gas exchange by keeping the water surface fluctuating. I'll also have to do more research on that as well. I normally keep my windows open 90% of the time. The only time the window closes is when it gets too hot outside which is rarely. (Live in Noe Valley rarely does it get hot)
Coral reefer
Past President
Check ph at the same times, as well as alk. If you stick to lps only water changes can likely keep up with alk demands, but with sps I wouldn't expect great results. The more stability the better. A cheap brs dosing pump on a timer works great. Could do two so you have alk and ca covered for maybe $100 I think.
James Oh
Guest
Nice! I am unsure if I really want SPS atm (I do have one birds nest frag), not to mention I really want a zoa and Acan dominated tank. (I say this but I keep spending money on new corals every week. Don't know how anyone keeps this hobby in the long run LOL) Hopefully water changes will be enough but I will definitely try and test the waters on a stricter schedule so I can get a better read out on what is going on in my tank. If the swings are really high and the corals are more demanding i'll definitely pick up a doser.
Coral reefer
Past President
You'll have to stop spending soon as you'll run out of room...it's the only real check on new corals that I've ever found. If you want to come by and see if I have anything you want feel free, I'm in excelsior. Didn't realize you were so close by.
James Oh
Guest
Oh haha yah didn't realize you lived over there nice I appreciate the offer will definitely take a look when I get some time! BTW when you run out of room you just upgrade to a bigger tank right?
