Kessil

Derek's 225g - Magnifica / SPS Reef

derek_SR said:
Woke up this morning and tested my Alk w/ Hanna and it was 4.9dkh!
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Well damn! I honestly like the ease of the Hanna, but it has been off for me at times. Not sure what the inconsistency is in my procedure is to give me drastically different readings. From 0.5 - 1.0 difference. And the fact they charge so much for a reagent that cost pennies to make, kind of pisses me off. A lot of their reagents cost is absurd actually.

I honestly prefer the slightly more involved Salifert test. Far less expensive per test. I find it to be more accurate and reliable, which also checks out with the many opinions I've gathered from other reefers.

I will also admit to using another generic, literally called "Generic" Alkalinity tester and it has been great for quick tests and very close to my salifert results.
 
derek_SR said:
Woke up this morning and tested my Alk w/ Hanna and it was 4.9dkh! I've been in the 5.5 range before but never this low, and I think it's been low for at least a couple of weeks.

I started dosing Vodka about a month ago to combat very high nitrates (75+, beyond the range of my Hanna). This was only partly to lower nitrates and mostly to see if I noticed any difference w/ the bacteria that supposedly feeds corals as a result, and the high nitrates were just the space I needed to do it.

I immediately noticed an increase in Alk...which apparently is a function of nitrate being consumed, so I chalked it up to the carbon dosing and started lowering my alk dosing accordingly. These weird alk readings continued and I dramatically cut back on dosing. To make a long story short, my Alkatronic has been having issues and giving bad readings, so I've significantly under-dosed Alk the last few weeks and here we are at 4.9.

Haven't noticed a single thing with the tank...other than the steady loss of PH, which is now also explained. Alkatronic is now giving a Code3 error (something to do with the reagent/reagent pump) so I need to investigate that. First real issues I've had with it in 2-3 years.
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Ouch, have you noticed any changes in sps? Mine dropped like that many months back ago and I lost some sps.

I would hope your sps would be ok in your case of alk slowly droping down and wasn't any type of rapid drop like mine was following a water change.

What’s your planned method to bring it up?
 
ReyDeFarts said:
Well damn! I honestly like the ease of the Hanna, but it has been off for me at times. Not sure what the inconsistency is in my procedure is to give me drastically different readings. From 0.5 - 1.0 difference. And the fact they charge so much for a reagent that cost pennies to make, kind of pisses me off. A lot of their reagents cost is absurd actually.

I honestly prefer the slightly more involved Salifert test. Far less expensive per test. I find it to be more accurate and reliable, which also checks out with the many opinions I've gathered from other reefers.

I will also admit to using another generic, literally called "Generic" Alkalinity tester and it has been great for quick tests and very close to my salifert results.
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I only use the Hanna every few weeks to double check the alkatronic, so the price of the reagent isn’t all that big of a deal.

MichaelB said:
Ouch, have you noticed any changes in sps? Mine dropped like that many months back ago and I lost some sps.

I would hope your sps would be ok in your case of alk slowly droping down and wasn't any type of rapid drop like mine was following a water change.

What’s your planned method to bring it up?
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Haven’t noticed a single negative thing with a single coral. Wouldn’t have known anything was even wrong if my alkatronic hadn’t thrown an error and triggered me to test with the Hanna.

My plan is to dump a bunch of alkalinity back in the tank over the next 48hrs or so until it’s around 7.5 again.
 
Woke up to a bunch of Acros RTNing this morning :(


Jk everything is fine. Alk back up to 7ish now. For any alkatronic owners - Code 3 indicates an issue with the C pump (the reagent one). In my case the middle hose (the one that runs along the case to pump C) had cracked and was sucking air instead of reagent. Got 3 years out of the hose which isn’t bad, so I replaced it and recalibrated and it’s testing normally again. This hose is 1.6MM ID, FYI.
 
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derek_SR said:
My parameters these days:

Alk: 8.0
NO3: 25
PO4: .45

Temp: 76-78
PH: 8.0-8.2

I don't test for much else and do 20% water changes every 2-3 weeks. The only thing I struggle with is phosphate - but I also struggle with whether or not to care. It got as high as .7 before I started to make efforts to get it down (feed a little less, did a couple more frequent WCs). It's slowly creeping up again.

I know this is one of those highly polarized topics - I read a study that gets thrown around a lot that showed coral grew the fastest at around .5, albeit with weaker skeletons. A lot of other folks in the hobby (Rich, Sanjay, Kenny, etc) run really high po4 with no issues. Many coral farmers and other successful folks insist on much lower levels.
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I had my po4 at .9 and my no3 at 72 lol I couldn't believe it. I stopped testing my water for a long time. The way I did it to get it down is did 50% water change and i did it in a way i wouldn't have to temp match or uncover any corals or rock. So it makes it more difficult for a system to get stressed. After i did that i started using micro bacter 7 and carbon dosing every day. Those work wonders but 1 day I got frustrated that it shot back up by 15 no3 and I didnt know why. So 2-3 weeks later after the first 50% water change in did another 50% water change. That will help you and I know they say don't vacuum the sand bed but I vacuumed that thing very well. Say hello to another nitrogen cycle. Hope this helps
 
mpokerdonk said:
Is this a old post? I dig this tank but dunno if I could ever go acrylic. My pops had a acrylic and i didn't like the bowing out look. I'm not sure if that was only his tank
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Every post on the forum has a date :) This thread is about a year and a half old and I make regular updates.

mpokerdonk said:
I had my po4 at .9 and my no3 at 72 lol I couldn't believe it. I stopped testing my water for a long time. The way I did it to get it down is did 50% water change and i did it in a way i wouldn't have to temp match or uncover any corals or rock. So it makes it more difficult for a system to get stressed. After i did that i started using micro bacter 7 and carbon dosing every day. Those work wonders but 1 day I got frustrated that it shot back up by 15 no3 and I didnt know why. So 2-3 weeks later after the first 50% water change in did another 50% water change. That will help you and I know they say don't vacuum the sand bed but I vacuumed that thing very well. Say hello to another nitrogen cycle. Hope this helps
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Thanks for the advice, but I'm not too worried about it :) . Here's my tank this morning, nearly 2 years old now:

RH5A2763.jpg
 
psidriven said:
Properly made acrylic tank won’t bow. Main con is how easy it is to scratch.
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If that tank bowed, the acrylic was too thin
I’ve got a 20 year old 30” tall 300...slight bow and made with 1/2”
I also have a 450 that’s 30” tall...1” thick, no bow
Yes acrylic scratches....BE CAREFUL (work from top down to avoid sand grains)
 
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