My 400 g build

OK, I took some more measurments last night.

PH 8.2
Calc 460
ALk 10 Dkh

So in 3 days, my calc dropped 10 ppm and my Alk droped 2 Dkh. Does that sound about right for a low load?

SO I'm going to start adding some calc and alk today, take some more measurments and then measure again in a few days to see how my dosage is doing.

Since I don't have a lot of corals right now, I'm thing just a small dose one a week will be fine. We'll see how things work out.

I didn't think alk could drop that quickly with a low load.

I did a water change this weekend, 50 G of IO, and took measurments later that night. I haven't added anything to the tank except some of the reef food stuff I got from Brightwell that is supposed to be a replacement for the Vodka dosing. I also made a little Alk paste to put on my monster apstia but that didn't work.

Last night when I took measurments again, the only thing that had dropped was my Alk. Calc was still the same. Does this sound unusual? What would make the alk drop but not the calk? Caclk is at 460. Alk dropped from 13 DKH to 11.5. I don't want to add anything as I'm waiting for my Alk to get down to 10 Dkh before I start dosing.

On the flip side, my corals are looking good. Full poylop extension on my LPS.

What tests are you using for each parameter

API.

I know you say teh are off, but since I am using the same test kit each time, it at least shows a change.

Mabey but that is not alwayse true. I would say before you add abything or change anything to get a better test kit so you can know for sure where your levels are at

OK, who's got a PH, Calc, Alk test kit I can borrow to compare to?

i have alk, i can try to bring it with tomorrow. Send me a text tonight and I will put it in my tank bag

it would helpful, if you list the manufacturer for each test ie...

Alk (salifert)
Ca (Hannna)
Phosphate (API)
NItrate (Red Sea) etc....

I don't know if API is consistently inconsistent meaning that if you get Ca at 480ppm and then next time its 460ppm. Is each tes consistently off equally +- 20% etc

I can bring cal alk and mag to the meeting (salifert)

All three test are API. I measured again last night with no changes.

crusty, brought my alk into work, swing by...

Love the avatar. I am in Oxnard and have a Hannah alk and ca tester.

Let me know - besides I would love to see the two live.

OK, Derrick let me borrow his Hanna ALk tester Friday. I ran the test at about the same time I always do.

Hanna meter showd 10.976 Dkh
API started changing color at 11 drops which is 11 Dkh. The next drop, 12, was a complete color change or 12 Dkh. So it was in the ballpark.

No for some interesting observations.

I did a 50 G water change about 2 weeks ago. I haven't added any Alk opr Calc since then. I use RO for my top off. BUT I bypass the RO and just use a 5 micron filter and 3 carbon filters when need water for mixing salt. I run a 2 micron carbon filter in my sump for water polishing and my water seems clerer since I started doing this, about 3 weeks now. I did 2 doses for Dr. Tims sludge remover. I started adding Bright Well Aquatics reef bio fuel, about ever day, and their Micro Bacter 7 once a week. My skimmer is pulling the usual stuff, just seems a little thincker now.

Here's the weird part, my Alk has slowely dropped, but not down to where I want it at 10 Dkh. I'm at about 10.5 right now. However, my Calicum seems to be going up every time I measure it. It was at 450 and when I measured it yesterday it was at 480.

My corals are doing fine though.

So how is my Calicum rising when I'm not adding any to the tank? Is my sand slowely breaking down and replinishing my calicum?

For some strange reason, I pulled out my refractometer last night and measured my salinity. It measured a little low at 32 ppm rather than the normal 35 where I keep it at. So I'm adding some salt to raise it back up. bad part is, I'm afraid it will also raise up my calc and alk. And I'm trying to get them to go down some. I want to run them at 440 calc and 10 alk.

What salt are you going to put in? Maybe use instant ocean, that should have a lower ALK/CAL then reef crystals.

Truthfully i wouldent be to worried about getting your cal and all at the right level. They will drip down eventually to the correct levels.

IO is all I've been using for about a year now. And that's my other problem, I can't get my calc and alk to go down where I want them. Seems like every time I do a water change, they go back up. I haven't added anything in over a week and my Alk barley dropped to 10.5 after a weel. My calc seems to be going up, again with no addations.

Add more coral! That will use up some alk and cal

I got a red and a grenn monti cap from FISH KILLER Mike yesterday.

grenn monti? Is that some new LE Tryee deepwater rainbow monti?

YEP.

It was a lime grenn when I put it in the tank last night. we'll see if it stays that light or not.


As for me using API test kits. Just read a thread on RC that says they are accurate, just not as tight of a resoulution. So I'm not sure where you who are saying they are bad got their info from.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=20770489#post20770489

I never had a problem with api I just wanted more scientifical kits you know make me feel like a mad scientist and crap

Aragonite sand? How long has the tank been set up?

I know without calcium dependant corals in my tank I did not see much movement on alk or ca. 440 and 10 is fairly balanced - I don't have any IO around anymore but on the bag/bucket it should list what level of ca, alk and mag you get at different levels of salinity. Have you tested magnesium? If it is too low, your ca/alk are somewhat ineffective. If you want higher ca, you should keep your mg at 3x your calcium target - 440 ca and 1320 mg. low mg means the ca can't be "used" and therefore doesn't really go anywhere.

There's a whole bunch of sites I read a while back that can give you the scientific reasoning behind all of it. Alk/ca/mg are all relative to each other and when balanced appropriately gets you the best results. At 10 alk, it should be about 432 ca and right around 1300 mg.

I use this calculator as it seems to be accurate for my dosing needs.

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

Hope this helps.

Blawson,
Thatks for the refresher.

The tank is 11 + years old now. I've had it for the last 7. It has Hawaii beach sand in the main tank and aragonite sand in the sump. Not sure exactly what the Hawaii sand is. You can buy it at Home depot in Hawaii which is where it came from. The sump sand is only about 6 years old.

I'll check my IO when I mix some up this weekend. I run my tanks at 35 ppm, same at the ocean. My Mag kit is old and I need to replace it so I haven't measure it in some time. Normally I use NSW but since UCSB shut down it's spigot, I'm stuck with mixing salt and so trying to recalculate my needs for dosing and stablizing the system. I'm in a rebuild mode thanks to the club coming back around.

I buy the 200G box of IO. I'll check and see if it has the info on it. I know the buckets do but don't thing the box does.

I have a mag kit. Let me know and I can bring it Monday. The sand could be the culprit but I doubt it.

If your coming to the meeting, then sure. We can test it then.

Im bringing my salifert calc alk and mag

WOW.

Are we having a test off here to see who as the more accurate test kits?

Im just being nice! Good reef karma.

Ha! No worries on my end. I will bring it and if we don use it, no big deal.

Well I think I've found one of my problems. I mixed up some IO this weekend for doing a water change. I used filtered water, not RO, like I've been doing for several months now.

Mixed water at 35 ppt measured:
PH 8.2
Calc 480 ppm
Alk 16.8 Dkh

So I went back and got some of my filtered water and measured it.
general hardness 9 Gh

I knew I had some hard water but not that bad. So I guess I'm going back to using RO water for mixing. So much for that experiment.

You should look into a kati ani system like paul has. It cleans the water just as hood as an rodi but there are no filters to replace and it dosent waste water at all

Crusty Old Shellback wrote:Well I think I've found one of my problems. I mixed up some IO this weekend for doing a water change. I used filtered water, not RO, like I've been doing for several months now.

Mixed water at 35 ppt measured:
PH 8.2
Calc 480 ppm
Alk 16.8 Dkh

So I went back and got some of my filtered water and measured it.
general hardness 9 Gh

I knew I had some hard water but not that bad. So I guess I'm going back to using RO water for mixing. So much for that experiment.

Man more people need that kind of water for top off. You would only need to dose CA!

.

Crusty Old Shellback wrote: I'm going back to using RO water for mixing

Do you mean RODI or just RO?

clownfish14 wrote:You should look into a kati ani system like paul has. It cleans the water just as hood as an rodi but there are no filters to replace and it dosent waste water at all

I remember Ernie saying something to the fact that oxnard has chloramines in the water and it needs the ro membrane to remove it

Great looking tank Ray! I defiantly have some birds nest frags for you and a couple of montipora frags you can have.

Thanks Cory. I hope you had a good time.

Did you kill the frags I gave you

Not yet. The green one is doing good. The red one has a few spots on it but seems OK. Now that I know what's going on with my water, I can easily remedy the problem and get the tank back on track.

OK, after some discussion at the meeting, I did some more measuring last night.

My whole house water filtration system:
PH 7.2
Gh 8.5

My RO
PH Less than 7.2. I have a high range PH test that only goes down to 7.2. I know 7 is nutral and that's probably where it's at.
Gh was undetected so I'm saying it's 0.

So until I get the chance to look into the resins like Paul uses, it's back to RO water for now for mixing up my salt. I know for most of you it's no big deal. But when your making 200G of RO water, that's a lot of waste water. I'm going to cut back though to 50G water changes as well and see how the tank does.

Ya id say definatly look at the kati ani systems. You will save lots of water.

I bet you will see easier balance. It was great seeing the tank in person! Thanks for hosting!

Glad you enjoyed it.

The tank is actually starting to look good now. I've been adding the reef bio fuel and micro bacter 7 from Brightwell Aquatics for about a month. I also did a bottle of Dr. Tims sludge remover. The water is now clear and I don't have the green tinge I used to when looking long ways down the tank. I did throw in 10 turbo snails and I know they were eating the alage off the back glass, but none has grown back and I do beleive that a lot of it died off. Also I'm not seeing the growth on the front anymore like I used to.

My Calc and Alk are starting to come down now. I've noticed that my Alk seems to drop faster than my Calc. I'm keeping an eye on it and going to start a simple dosing regem and see how things go.

My corals are starting to look better. My LPS are open more than they have been in the past. Maybe time to start adding more corals.

Could you top off with your house water to maintian alk instead of dosing?

Unfortunatly the 60 PSI of house water overcomes the float valve. The RO unit's output does not reach 60 PSI but for a small moment and the valve opens and relives the pressure, but it dosen't overfill the sump.

How much quicker? I don't remember the exact numbers from a usage perspective but it something like 2.7 dkh to 20ppm ca usage. And as long as you are within reason (9-12dkh and 375-450 ca) you should be ok. I try to keep it a little closer (8-10 and 400 - 430 respectively.)

I thought it was more like 1 Dkh to 20 ppm ca. I know that for my seachem dosage, I dose twice as much Calc as I do Alk. I.e 1Kg of alk will treat 1600Gallons while 2 Kg of Calc will do the same.

Yesterday I measured 10.5 Dkh and 460 ppm Calc. So I'm getting back down to my target numbers of 10 and 400.

I have to dig up the site. I think it's 1meq per 20ppm. Higher for dkh

Was out with the Wife in Monrovia yesterday doing some shopping and found a little LFS near where we were. So we stopped in to look around. I wound up coming home with a pair of these.



They are getting used to the tank now. I'll get some actual pictures of them when I can.

I made up some RO water and mixed up IO for a water change. Numbers came out at :

PH 8.3
calc 340
Alk 9

So the numbers are a bit low of where I want to run and that's fine. My tank numbers have been slowley coming down. About 20 ppm of calc and 1 Dkh of alk every 5 days. I'm now down to 440 ppm cac and 10 Dkh Kal. so I'm getting really close to where I want to run the tank at 400 and 10.

Funny part is some of my SPS are doing great, some are bleached and some are doing so so. My LPS are doing fine though. Time will tell what happens.

Is that a reef safe angel? Its a good looking fish!