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Ryan’s 40G first reef

Still keeping the Alk higher than needed eh?
I know it’s been said, but all for reef isn’t your friend, and keeping all at 10 doesn’t really make sense to me.
To each their own
 
Coral reefer said:
Still keeping the Alk higher than needed eh?
I know it’s been said, but all for reef isn’t your friend, and keeping all at 10 doesn’t really make sense to me.
To each their own
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I’m going to switch to a lower alk salt! I was funds limited to reef crystals for a while. I’m thinking about Aquaforest Reef Salt. I like calc around 450 and mag above 1350 but I’d like to aim for 8 dkh. My lack of action isn’t a dismissal of the great help I’ve gotten on BAR.
I use AFR to free up 2 other dosing heads for nitrate and aminos. It also is carbon dosing and keeping my nitrates very low without water changes. I'd rather precisely dose nitrate than have it perpetually climb until a WC.
 
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H2OPlayar said:
Why carbon dose and dose nitrates? Don't those fight each other?
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I'm not carbon dosing on purpose! AFR just happens to and I'd rather not switch. I have to counteract some of its carbon dosing effects with dosed nitrates to maintain 5-10ppm. So yes technically they do fight each other but the alternative is 0 nitrate.
 
RIP to the first and only acro I’ve ever had encrust and color up. Urchin knocked it into some other sps which stung it to death.
I was so happy that I was able to color up a “high end” sps and keep it alive for months with good PE.
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All has not been well in my tank over the last few weeks. Cloudy water despite doing WC and always running carbon. I either have Dinos or weird cyano (I think it’s dinos). So my sand looks terrible and my corals are mad. I’m calling it and returning my OG bounce because it never seemed happy in my tank (medium to low flow, 100-150 par). My clownfish still refuse to pair up but at least I rarely see aggression.
I need to get my dinos ID’d but I’ve been busier.
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Cyano for sure. Raise the nitrates, add a rock with live copepods from someone or get some from Reef Nutrition. It's more unsightly than bad and low nutrients let it outcompete other things.
 
Params:
sG: 1.026 (Amazon finally delivered a not leaking 35ppt reference fluid so I could calibrate my cheap refractometer)
pH: untested
Alk: 11.5 (Not sure why its so high. My corals have seemed unhappy so maybe theyre growing slower and consuming less? I turned off my doser for the next few days until it drops to 9.5)
Calc: 390
Mag: 1400
No3: 3.1 (I dose 5ml a day but it must not be able to keep up at that level)
Po4: 0.265 (???? I dont dose phosphate. The only recent change is dosing RN phyto)
 
richiev said:
The brs videos of the tank tests cover cyano pretty well. The answer is pods based on their research.
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Darkxerox said:
Cyano for sure. Raise the nitrates, add a rock with live copepods from someone or get some from Reef Nutrition. It's more unsightly than bad and low nutrients let it outcompete other things.
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Coral reefer said:
Sure looks a lot like cyano from here
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Thank you all! I've ordered a blend of pods and live phyto. So far, since it has become a problem the red stuff has only gotten worse. For several months I have always seen a little cyano on my pump's nem guards. Should I try chemiclean or just wait for it to go away by adding pods?
 
AFR dosing was stopped for a whole week (by accident) and it only dropped my alk from 11.5 to 9.0. My daily consumption rate was at least 0.5 prior to my tank taking a nose dive so I'm interpreting this as my corals are much less happy. Alk only got up to 11.5 due to lower consumption, not increased dosing.
Any ideas?
 
Params:
sG: 1.026
pH: untested
Alk: 9
Calc: 410
Mag: 1450 (IDK how it can climb without dosing lol, damn red sea test kit)
No3: 15.5 (Still dosing and its climbing so time to turn down the dosing)
Po4: 0.012 (I stopped dosing RN phyto this week but I'm unsure how it can drop from 0.265 to 0.012)
 
rdriggett said:
Params:
sG: 1.026
pH: untested
Alk: 9
Calc: 410
Mag: 1450 (IDK how it can climb without dosing lol, damn red sea test kit)
No3: 15.5 (Still dosing and its climbing so time to turn down the dosing)
Po4: 0.012 (I stopped dosing RN phyto this week but I'm unsure how it can drop from 0.265 to 0.012)
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I know the Salifert Ca kit has cross interactions with Mg when it gets too high, so maybe your kit does too, plus test variability for a visual titration is going to be 5% or so I'd guess. So stop dosing Mg for a long time since your consumption of Ca seems to not have moved in a week. Also Ca and Mg are present in a much higher ratio than alkalinity, so you wouldn't see much of a dive even if there was enough growth to drop in that time. Phosphate could still be getting consumed by algae, corals, bacteria, then skimmed etc. This old article is a good background into what's happening for the major things you measure: https://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php
 
Got an ID by Mac's reef on FB (it's a Dino support group). Looks like I have large cell amphidinium, if not also other types. I dosed 2 large bottles of mixed pods, am holding nitrate 5-15, have detectable phosphates, and I will start dosing sodium silicate to cause a prolonged diatom bloom to outcompete the dinos.
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Good old benthic succession. Keep it going, raise that phosphate a bit too to help fight the cyano and dinos and promote competition from other organisms. Best way to do that is extra feeding of pellet/dry foods. Your fish will like you more too!
 
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