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Bschowa's current build thread (1 Viewer)

While I wait for the algae to clear up I have been trying to get my dosing dialed in to the point where I can auto pilot it. The strange thing is for my Alk it was dropping aprox .26-.31dkh per day and my calcium was dropping 5-10 ppm per day

mg has stayed pretty steady around 1390 so I haven't touched that.

The thing I get confused on is I will have two days in a row where the numbers are super low that I need to add like alk needing to be .15-.18 dkh and then it goes back to normal dosing and then a day or two later it's around .47-.51 dkh

Calcium also jumps to insane amounts right now my tank is running 490 calcium and not dropping for some reason

I am shooting for the following

Alk 8.2
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1200-1400ish

I guess my big question would be since it seems like I kind of have numbers that seem to be repeating themselves over the last couple weeks should I just ignore the variations and set my pumps and test weekly/bi weekly or should I continue to test and dose daily until things stable out further
 
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I am using brs two part and will make a judgement call when those run out as I won them in a raffle about a year back.

As for tests I am using Hanna checker for alk and Nyos for mg and calcium

For a backup If things seem way off I have a Red Sea test kit for each of those as well that I use which usually seems to be about the same but I can't seem to get consistent tests with the Red Sea so which is why I don't use those as my main tests
 
Those are very low amounts that you are adding. If you mixed it up according to BRS, that amount shouldn't be doing anything to that volume of water.

If you aren't already, be sure to be testing at close to the same time of day.
Of course, there will be some test to test variability as well.
 
cheezybuda said:
Those are very low amounts that you are adding. If you mixed it up according to BRS, that amount shouldn't be doing anything to that volume of water.

If you aren't already, be sure to be testing at close to the same time of day.
Of course, there will be some test to test variability as well.
Click to expand...

I have been testing at about 7 at night and then occasionally about an hour after it gets dosed and the numbers are right where I want them after the dosing is complete

through trial and error I have found that my tank has 150 gallons of water in the whole system and I have been using the brs calculator to figure out how much to dose

Does this really seem that low? I don't have a huge coral load mainly small frags so there is not a huge loss through the day as of right now
 
When I run their calculator, to go up .5 dkh in 150 gallons you are supposed to add 53 mls of alk. Did you mean to have those decimal points in there?
 
Yea decimal points were there as that is how much the Alk drops and then I must have switched my thinking on calcium I definitely worded that weird thanks I will see if I can re word it
 
If it were me I would stop dosing Ca to see if it drops, and to keep with a consistent dose of alk. I would see what the results trend continues to look like. Basically what you were doing before.

Have you done a vinegar wash or switched vials lately?
 
I washed them out about 2 weeks ago but they are probably due for another wash

The calcium jumped up 3 days ago and I haven't added more, I just checked my notes and yesterday it was 475 while today it was 490 I'm assuming that is testing error as I haven't dosed. I will continue to do what I am doing and manually dose as needed but at what point can I set up my auto dosers. Testing nightly is becoming a bit tedious and I am starting to see the trend that my tank has I was kind of hoping that I would just be able to take the median of all of the numbers I have gathered as to get rid of any bad tests (hope I used that math term right) and dose that daily and check on it every couple days and dial it in further from there.

The big thing is I don't understand why my calcium is going up rather than dropping and why it shot up so fast and is now just holding there.
 
cheezybuda said:
If it were me I would stop dosing Ca to see if it drops, and to keep with a consistent dose of alk. I would see what the results trend continues to look like. Basically what you were doing before.

Have you done a vinegar wash or switched vials lately?
Click to expand...

I appreciate you taking the time to help me as well. Thank you
 
Got some progress today finally hoping to get the rest piped this week but had to empty out the tanks before I could do anything which finally happened today!
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Nice. I had to cut a 2" hole on my bottom tank then pipe it put to have a spout to dump salt into. Going through the top was too annoying
 
I actually thought of that since I had a 3" bulkhead and ball valve laying around but I figured I would try a curved funnel first I was using it previously and with the new setup I dropped the lower tank an extra 2" since I had the room. If that fails I will go with the bulkhead/valve as I'm sure that would be much easier in the long run
 
If you use rc, which it looks like you do, i wa able to cut the whole top off-then wiggle the bag into the 6" hole-invert it and pull it back out from the bottom of the bag. But the hole and standpipe was much easier.
 
I would skip the valve. Just drill the top half-put in bulkhead then a 45° and 6-8" of pipe going straight up. Maybe a loose cap if you are worried about something falling in. But pouring all that granular salt over and through the valve isnt going to make the best of seals.
 
I was more worried about how much gph that pump kicks out that I would have back splash out of the pipe, but I suppose if I were to put a threaded clean out on the top of the pipe that might work as well, that way I just unscrew dump and screw it back in
 
Having some issues with polup extension and loss of color in the last few days, as for algae there is barely any at this point and coralline growing everywhere on the tank/rocks

My levels as of last night were Alk 8.4 Calc 420 magnesium was 1350

Phosphate is undetectable on my Hanna checker (not ULR) and nitrate is 0 on every test kit I own, Api, Nyos, Red Sea

As for nutrient removal I have a reef octopus dcs 200 which removes about 1 gallon of thick nasty skimmate per day. I run the recommended amount for my 150 gallon tank of aio bio pellets (started 2 months ago in a recirculating reactor) I run Rox.08carbon in an avast marine reactor and was running gfo until I realized i bottomed out my numbers a week ago.

I have been trying to get nutrients back up by feeding mass amounts of frozen two times a day for the last week but things just seem to keep getting worse with the levels staying the same.

I wasn't able to keep them
In check with just gfo and carbon so I liked the bio pellets but with the effluent turned down as far as I can go on my massively oversized reactor it still seems to be too much for my tank.

I guess before I start pulling equipment I should wait for advice.

Here is current pictures of the corals that are declining
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If there is a possibility that this is a lighting issue I would be more than willing to go out and buy a par meter to check and see where my tank is at since I keep telling myself I need to do that but I never pull the trigger


As a side note all of my softies are doing great even thriving which seems weird to me because I always thought they did better with dirtier water
 
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Double check CA and ALK on a different test kit, Chris K. was having issues and had a bad CA test kit and CA ended way up there.
 
I will give that a shot tonight. My other rambling thought would be salinity. I am ordering a new calibration solution for both my probes and my refractometer. Can you Calibrate them with rodi in a pinch?

Is it possible that this is caused by a lack of nutrients in my tank or am I just over thinking things here?
 
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