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Bolick's 55gal mixed reef

Coral reefer said:
Looking good. Don’t let the kh drop lower and don’t let the phosphate climb more.
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Absolutely. Doing a 20% WC today and may need to increase frequency to >1x/week. For the PO4, I'm feeding less, and hoping the skimmer & chaeto will help. Does it make sense to add Kalk to the ATO at this point to help with KH? Calcium seems good, so I'm not sure it's a good idea.
 
There are lots of ways to deal with phosphate and alk. Personally I like to use gfo or rowaphos and a peristaltic pump for dosing soda ash. The kamoer x1 pump is pretty cheap and solid in my opinion.
 
Bolicks said:
Absolutely. Doing a 20% WC today and may need to increase frequency to >1x/week. For the PO4, I'm feeding less, and hoping the skimmer & chaeto will help. Does it make sense to add Kalk to the ATO at this point to help with KH? Calcium seems good, so I'm not sure it's a good idea.
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If you still plan to come by this weekend, I can share some of my bulk soda ash for you to experiment with dosing alk. I am also happy to chat dosing theory and application.
 
H2OPlayar said:
If you still plan to come by this weekend, I can share some of my bulk soda ash for you to experiment with dosing alk. I am also happy to chat dosing theory and application.
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Sorry if I lost track of this - I had said I was coming by? Soda ash makes sense, may have to get that and a doser.
 
Bolicks said:
Sorry if I lost track of this - I had said I was coming by? Soda ash makes sense, may have to get that and a doser.
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Oops, I am confusing members with "B" in their name, my mistake. Offer still applies though if you want to come through Sunnyvale! I can start you with a cup of high capacity gfo too.
 
I am actually going through a similar phenomenon where I am using much for alk than ca right now. I don't really understand it, but I am using at a 4:1 ratio when usually they track together. That is why kalk is so popular as an entry dosing agent as it does both ca and alk in equal parts together, but I like the flexibility of tuning the knobs independently.
 
H2OPlayar said:
I am actually going through a similar phenomenon where I am using much for alk than ca right now. I don't really understand it, but I am using at a 4:1 ratio when usually they track together. That is why kalk is so popular as an entry dosing agent as it does both ca and alk in equal parts together, but I like the flexibility of tuning the knobs independently.
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Agreed - perhaps the imbalance implies use of Alk by acid-producing microorganisms, rather than coral consumption, while Ca consumption is coral based?
 
Bolicks said:
Agreed - perhaps the imbalance implies use of Alk by acid-producing microorganisms, rather than coral consumption, while Ca consumption is coral based?
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My guess is that there are large buffers of each in the rocks and sand that get turned up every so often. I have not heard of acid producing micro-organisms as a reason of alk consumption before.
 
H2OPlayar said:
My guess is that there are large buffers of each in the rocks and sand that get turned up every so often. I have not heard of acid producing micro-organisms as a reason of alk consumption before.
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Just my speculation :) I wonder what lifeforms are responsible for the majority of KH neutralization...
 
Got an Orphek lens kit, and liking it quite a bit. Which filters do people tend to use? These are with the 1500k ones, the closeups with the 1500k and macro lens. Featuring the Hammer and Torch I bought from AquaSD, Purple Stylo (@Coral reefer) and green digitata (@ashburn2k). Both seem to be doing well?

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Started manually dosing soda ash - 0.2 dKH per day. Has anyone had luck running an airstone in a dosing container before? I'd like to mix soda ash and homegrown phyto, and dose that automatically while keeping it in suspension with the air stone.

Edit: BRS calculator was quite off, ended up raising dKH by 0.8 (2mL stock solution) instead. pH went up by ~0.1. Ruh roh...
 
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Bolicks said:
Started manually dosing soda ash - 0.2 dKH per day. Has anyone had luck running an airstone in a dosing container before? I'd like to mix soda ash and homegrown phyto, and dose that automatically while keeping it in suspension with the air stone.

Edit: BRS calculator was quite off, ended up raising dKH by 0.8 instead. pH went up by ~0.1. Ruh roh...
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That's not too bad, just write down what you did and change your dosing amount. The difference between screwing around, and science, is writing it down! My personal opinion is track dKh without worrying about ph. I didn't ever measure ph in my tank until I got a probe after 2 years, and even then, I don't react to it.

I wanted to say yesterday but forgot, break whatever dose it says into 3 or 4 parts, then add one part, wait 30 minuites, and measure. Did your dkh move 1/4 to 1/3 what you expected? Great, keep going with the broken up parts as to not shock anything.

.8 dkh swing isn't terrible, it isn't like you went from 8 to 11, just keep your eye on it, start testing daily until you get a handle on it, and dose slowly.
 
Got sick of working in the tiny back area of the biocube, and wanted some more space to expand my livestock selection, so I picked up an old 55 gallon Truvu setup for a REALLY good price. Came with reinforced stand, 25g sump and skimmer, old ai sols, apex jr, powerheads, heaters, ~100lb pukani rock and sand.

It seems like a lot of old-school equipment, but was filled and running when I got it. Probably going to toss the sand, keep the rocks and maybe break them to aquascape. The pukani is gorgeous though!

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Needs some serious cleaning, and my next step is to black out the back panel by bonding a thin black acrylic sheet to it. Anyone had experience bonding acrylics? Here, I just want to get some 0 opacity black sheeting and get it bonded as well as possible. Seems like weld-on 3 is what people use.

The AI sols came with their controller, but I find it kind of finnicky - has anyone here used an Apex VDM or other controller for them? Ideal scenario would be to control them through the Apex JR, which seems possible?

Has anyone used AI HMS mounting rails on eurobrace? This came with a canopy, but I really don't like the look of it - would rather mount my lights to a rail.

Would also love some aquascape inspiration for long and fairly tall tanks - dimensions are 48x13x20. Currently thinking of rock islands, but not sure.
 
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