Jestersix

First Reefing adventure.. 65G AIO

Alk = 8.6 now, 8.4 before WC
Nitrate = ~2ppm now, before 0 (DT have 5-10ppm Nitrate)
Ammonia =0 before and after


BRS messed up my Hanna Phosphate checker order. Reorder and have to wait ~1 week.
 
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Ok salinity drop from 1.025 to 1.024. I’ll raised it back

being a small tank without ato is tough to keep the salinity constant. I really don’t want more gadgets!
 
@Coral reefer May i ask what is the name of this coral? I got this from you.
 

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Shout out to @H2OPlayar . Visited him yesterday. Wow, he have a great tank. mature colony in a beautiful setup. I hope one day, my coral will look half as nice as his! He passed me quite a few frags. Dip and went straight to DT. My coral QT is not up to standard and hate bleaching healthy coral like i did previously. A few pods comes out during the dip, nothing really anything i should worry about.


On a separate topic, had a "Ops moment" today

Did a weekly water change.

1. Fill the container with RODI - check
2. Add salt - check
3. Turn on pump - check

** water in the DT start turning cloudy **

WTF. I accidently have the valve set to pump water from the mixing container to DT. Ops.. I'm glad only small amount of un-mix salt get to the DT. Not measurable salinity change. I know this is not good for the fish and coral, but hey its accident and shit happens.



Alk: 7.7 (hanna) used to be in the 8.4 range..
Ca - 420 (salifert)
Mg - 1360 (salifert)
Nitrates = 5-10 (redsea)


I just change the salt to Fritz. Need to measure the new saltwater parameters before adding to tank.


I should look into dosing. But first off, is it normal for Alk to drop but Ca and Mg hold steady? I have been reading up on Carbocalcium & bio-Magnesium by Tropic Marine. The ingredient of the popular All For Reef, minus the trace elements. Either that or Kalk.

More research later.
 
Finally got my phosphate reading . Hanna showing 0.02 . I think I should be okay with overall water parameters for now. Bought the liquid version of tropic marine carbo calcium. Plan to manually dose if alk continue to drop.

will keep an eye on calcium.

diamtoms seems be disappearing but cyno is slowing increasing. Nothing out of control yet. I don’t think any cuc eat cyno, right? No sign of Caroline algae.

corals seems to be doing okay. Besides the 2 frags that got totally bleach in qt, the rest seems to be ok. Purple stylo slowing getting its color back. The healthiest seems to be the orange digitata. Sunset monti is coloring up and polyps extensions nicely.

going to stop adding coral for the next month or so. Want to ensure the current batch is doing well.

love the chalice coral look. Are they good for encrusting the bottom glass? If yea, I’ll need to butter up coral_reefer since he have the largest chalice collection. Haha
 
Finally can take decent pic (using orange and yellow filter)
 

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Haven't update this thread for a while. Looking at the last post on May 5th, the corals have grown quite a bit.

Nitrate drop to 0, but otherwise parameters have been stable. I'm currently dosing carbo-calcium and will start dosing Sodium Nitrate.
 

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Tank is looking great! Is the frag in the pic below that I circled May Janes Zoas? If so where did you find that at? I ended up having to order mine online
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Tank not doing too well. Now i know how hard is it to keep parameter stable. As the coral grows and increase consumption, the parameters can drop non-linearly. On top of that, work have been crazy last several weeks and i only have been testing weekly.

Alk ranges from 7-8+
NItrates swing from 0-10+
Mg, Ca seems stable

Currently dosing All For Reef and Sodium Nitrate.

Instead of messing around with changing dosing volume, i increase water change frequency and that seems to work as a short term bandage.


Couple of corals start bleaching (especially bird nest, and plating monti). others seems to be doing just fine.

Once work slows down, i'll need to fine tune the dosing amount. Due to the delay reaction of the Alk increase from All For Reef, tuning in the right amount need a lot of patient.

Nitrate is another mystery to me and i cannot seem to find the sweet spot. It sure seems that it have a non-linear relationship with the volume of sodium nitrate i add versus the actual measureable increase in the tank.

Going from a everything growing well, to 'just hanging there' tank is a bummer.


I should add the pods population is healthy, and i see a handful of baby trochus! the tank is definitely more "alive"
 
Haven't update this thread for a while. Tank pretty stable now and i added more corals a month or so ago.

Alk - 8.6-8.8
Nitrate 2-5
Mg 1360
Ca 420

Some algae but manageable. Manual removal every week.
 

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