Go slow with the phosphate reduction, it's very easy to over strip the water and more sensitive corals can react poorly or lead to a dinoflagellate bloom.
Tom's upcoming Waterbox Marine 90.3 Mixed reef
- Thread starter t0mmy108
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tribbitt
Supporting Member
This.
I overdid carbon dosing, PO4 bottomed out, and I got dinos. I actually didn’t realize for a week or two, but then i solved it in a week by broadcasting reef roids daily.
I hear it’s often much much harder than that so beware
t0mmy108
Supporting Member
Ahh, yes. My phosphates have been high because I’ve been feeding Reefroids every other day. I’ll need to figure out a balance between feeding and phosphate control. I’m in the camp of heavy feeding with protein skimming and more frequent water changes. Back in the day I was using the Zeovit system with Probidio and shaking up the rocks once a week to feed the tank. The calcium reactor took care of the rest. I still run a sump with live rock and cheato. But now I’ll try doing monthly ICP to see what’s changing and try to dose accordingly
tribbitt
Supporting Member
My macro seems to bottom phosphate out when I don’t feed reef roids to some degree
t0mmy108
Supporting Member
I ended up getting these from Zayne’s Reef Co. Bean Bag Doughboy Yuma mushroom and Stratosphere Zoas
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t0mmy108
Supporting Member
I was curious how well my iPhone 15 would do underwater without a filter 
This month, I lost a few acros and a double head Indo gold torch due to a water change using RPM Pro (red box) which caused an Alk spike. I think I'm going to stick with regular old salts that have parameters that more widely match most peoples' tanks and what the stores and vendors use to reduce shock to the animals. Other than that, it's coming along well for a tank that's just a couples days younger than my baby girl (11 weeks old).
This month, I lost a few acros and a double head Indo gold torch due to a water change using RPM Pro (red box) which caused an Alk spike. I think I'm going to stick with regular old salts that have parameters that more widely match most peoples' tanks and what the stores and vendors use to reduce shock to the animals. Other than that, it's coming along well for a tank that's just a couples days younger than my baby girl (11 weeks old).
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tribbitt
Supporting Member
I was curious how well my iPhone 15 would do underwater without a filter
This month, O lost a few acros and a double head Indo gold torch due to a water change using RPM Pro (red box) which caused an Alk spike. I think I'm going to stick with regular old salts that have parameters that more widely match most peoples' tanks and what the stores and vendors use to reduce shock to the animals. Other than that, it's coming along well for a tank that's just a couples days younger than my baby girl (11 weeks old).
The angles were pretty cool, but be careful using iphone underwater, even though it’s water resistant it is very much not waterproof.
As the phone goes into the water, the air inside compresses, and water enters. You can model this by lowering a clear bulb pipette into your tank a foot or so. no air leaves, but a few mL water def enters. Saltwater corrodes stuff like crazy
Congrats on your daughter, a few years down the line it’s gonna be cool that they’re the same age lol
t0mmy108
Supporting Member
No worries. I was kinda joking. I have an underwater housing for it that I use for scuba dives.
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tribbitt
Supporting Member
oh perfect.
That makes a lot more sense lol
Any pics from dives that you could share?
t0mmy108
Supporting Member
My Fauna Marine Reef ICP Total came back just in case anyone wanted to know what these test results looked like before they buy it. It took about a week to get the results back mailing it Priority Mail USPS. Postage ran $14.00 which I regret. Next time, I'm using the chaepest First Class mail rate. I need a water change and stop dosing All-For-Reef. I also keep overshooting these trace elements. https://lab.faunamarin.de/en/share/analysis/169422
t0mmy108
Supporting Member
All spiked right after I did a 20 gallon water change using a different salt mix (RPM pro red box) which advertises 12dkh. I should’ve tested the batch before putting it in the tank. I’m not going to be using it anymore. The box before that was Fauna Marin’s salt. I lost 3 acros from that water change.
tribbitt
Supporting Member
18.6dkH…. Quick back of the envelope math suggests that the RPM must have mixed at 46dkH (!!) for 20g wc in 90g tank to spike 10dkH to 18dkH
Sounds crazy to me - at that level, I imagine stuff would precipitate out like crazy (calcium would be low, and it’s not), and a company cannot be selling salt like that.
Before you write off the whole box of salt, test a new batch. I’m very curious what’s up
Did you leave your kalk ato on again during the wc?
Sounds crazy to me - at that level, I imagine stuff would precipitate out like crazy (calcium would be low, and it’s not), and a company cannot be selling salt like that.
Before you write off the whole box of salt, test a new batch. I’m very curious what’s up
Did you leave your kalk ato on again during the wc?
t0mmy108
Supporting Member
I stopped dosing Alk and Kalk by itself. The ATO is pure RO water now. The only thing my Hydro doser was putting in was All-For-Reef at 70 mL/day but I turned that off since the water water change. So today, I mixed a 10 gallon batch of Nyos salt at 1.020 to see if I can slowly levels things out. Salinity only dropped to 1.024 from 1.025 after.
derek_SR
Supporting Member
Dude….dude.
70ml per day is a shit load of AFR. Warned you about that a couple months ago. That’s what skyrocketed your alk and trace almost certainly. You’ve got a young tank and are already nearing the max dosage even suggested by TM.
t0mmy108
Supporting Member
I know. I feel like I went through a drug addiction/abuse stage with dosing. Going too fast and too furious. Luckily most of the animals have been adjusting well and only the most sensitive acros have been affected.....that I can see.......mostly. I'm surprised that the LPS and softies actaully seem to be happy with these parameters. SPS from the frag swap have been okay. Probably due to their acclimation to our captive systems and may have seen some fluctuations in their lifetime. Still changing out 10% daily without any dosing until I get it leveled out. Sending in another test this coming Monday. Let's see
derek_SR
Supporting Member
I know. I feel like I went through a drug addiction/abuse stage with dosing. Going too fast and too furious. Luckily most of the animals have been adjusting well and only the most sensitive acros have been affected.....that I can see.......mostly. I'm surprised that the LPS and softies actaully seem to be happy with these parameters. SPS from the frag swap have been okay. Probably due to their acclimation to our captive systems and may have seen some fluctuations in their lifetime. Still changing out 10% daily without any dosing until I get it leveled out. Sending in another test this coming Monday. Let's see
Yeah at least it's an easy problem to fix - water changes like you're doing. AFR can be tricky because of the delay in when the alkalinity actually shows up. TM has a calculator on their website somewhere if you plan to continue using it. Just go slow!
What was in your ATO besides just RODI water?
So thinking about it again, I think I figured out why your CO2 and alk numbers were insane and not measuring on your kits. The AFR in the tube you sent in likely metabolized by the bacteria in the sample until they ran out of oxygen, and any remaining AFR (calcium formate) got burned up in the mass spec showing as "alkalinity".
Interesting, I wonder for us AFR users, if we should take water samples for ICP at least a few hours after the last dose of AFR to ensure it gets fully metabolized?