I did a thing…. IM SR-120 incoming (1 Viewer)

[postie1686]

Well I took some time to finish cleaning up the back of the tank a bit. Finished cleaning up some of the wiring and finally fit the cover for that center section where everything is wired to.

Started cleaning up in the cabinet a bit getting ready for extra dosing containers. I’m going to hold off on starting to dose kalk. I’ve done two 12% water changes over the last 2 weeks and after this last one my PH has stayed stable at 8.3. So either the change from reef crystals to coral pro did something. Or maybe my co2 scrubber is finally working….. either way I’m going to watch it s couple weeks and see what happens.

Amazing the transformation in rock color in a couple month time frame!

 

[Sidgjr]

Nice work! I'm inspired by that control board... tanks awesome too.

 

[postie1686]

Haven’t seen the crab for a couple weeks. I feel like he doubled in size from one molt.

The speed at which my Duncan is growing is nice to see!

 

[postie1686]

I think these pineapple sponges are going to become an issue

 

[postie1686]

Got the coral and invert QT ready. This little hygger light is pretty slick!

 

[postie1686]

Got up this morning and went down to look at the tank. Me cleaner shrimp molted last night. My coral banded has been MIA with no signs of him anywhere. He was good size so it hard to believe I can’t find any remains. Guess it maybe time to find a new shrimp

 

[postie1686]

Well I changed some things around and set the stand back up I had for my 32g. Put my coral/invert QT out where I can see it. Picked up a gold body coral banded to replace my one that went mia. This guys pretty small though. Picked up a porcelain crab for $5 cause petco and a Goni for $10 cause petco… they had them labeled wrong I was honest about what they actually were and they still gave them to me at those prices (Goni just got done being dipped so it’s angry)

 

[postie1686]

Well it’s time to add the new fish from quarantine to the display. Going to use the egg crate to start for a few days. Then the night I go to remove it I’ll use the mirror trick. Observation so far is they swim by each other on their sides but I don’t see any aggressive behavior

 

[postie1686]

Well I took the divider out sooner than I thought I would. I had been watching them on camera most of the day and never saw anything that looked aggressive. I watched for about an hour when I got home from work and it looked like nothing but curiosity. I removed the divider and the tang gang started swimming by each other. It’s kind of odd as the powder would kind of chase the mimic in the quarantine tank. In the display it’s like they’re best buds! Hopefully things stay this way!!!

Finished modifying some STL’s to fit the testers I want. So now they each have a holder.

Now to figure out how to get my PH more stable cause the CO2 scrubber not quite enough.

 

[postie1686]

I did some testing tonight. My nitrate is a little higher than I like. The number that confuses me though is the calcium. I ran the Hanna test 2 times and the results were 525 and 528. I then did a test with API… I know not the best but it’s the other option I had. Well it came in at 26 drops which is the max that test goes to and that converts to 520. So I’m guessing it really is that high. I don’t understand why. I don’t dose anything at this point. I was thinking of doing kalk just to help ph but not with numbers that high. Any ideas?

 

[MistakesWereMade]

Test your fresh saltwater bin to see where it aligns with manufacturers listing. It is a starting point.

 

[MistakesWereMade]

I like your Hanna layout. I should really get me some of those to start regularly testing.

 

[postie1686]

Test your fresh saltwater bin to see where it aligns with manufacturers listing. It is a starting point.

I started the tank with reef crystals but switched to black bucket coral pro. I’ve done 5 water changes sense switching so roughly a 50% change over. But neither of those salts have a rating that high.

 

[postie1686]

My new shrimp has already molted so that’s cool. Scooter has started to eat mysis and my corals are finally started to do things! Now if only I could get my goby to stop dropping substrate on everything

 

[postie1686]

Well I made a handful of changes today. I cleaned the back sump area as it was being overrun with sponges. I took the skimmers out of the up flow chambers. I feel like as the filter floss starts filling up the flow rate affects how the skimmers perform. So now the heaters and my ceramic media is in those chambers. The skimmers have been moved to the return pump sections.

I ended up doing about a 25% water change which dropped my nitrates a fair amount but also brought my PH back up. To combat nitrates my refugium light will now be on 18 hours a day. PH is a struggle for me. I built a scrubber but for whatever reason the media never changes color so I don’t think it’s functioning properly. Weekend project I guess!

I have switched away from the media reactor I had made. While it worked I found it would start plugging up in about 2 weeks a greatly restricted the flow. I’ve opted to go back to media bags in the over flow. Should waste less gfo this way. If nitrates continue to be an issue I may look at turning the media reactor into a bio pellets style. But I’ll watch it a few weeks and revisit this.

 

[postie1686]

Well on second thought after doing more research I’m going to vodka dose! I can get all the cheap ( free) vodka I want from work and have a dosing pump already. So I’ll try that method… my fish look stressed they could use a drink

 

[postie1686]

Well I guess the project is not waiting for the weekend! I felt ambitious after work so I got to it.

Removed the media reactor and moved my co2 scrubber out on that bracket. Apparently it has been working! I think it was just hard to tell the color change in the cabinet. The slightly tinted canister probably doesn’t help. Anyway refilled it and we will see if it does the job!

Lastly I decided if I’m going to try vodka dosing my fish deserve the best!

 

[postie1686]

So in less than 24 hours the bottom roughly 1/4 of the media is already changing to white… could there really be that much co2 in my basement?

 

[postie1686]

So I’m a bit stumped. I did about a 25% water change on Tuesday the 20th. My nitrates were in 33ppm range the day before. So I do my big water change and wait a day to test so I test Wednesday results below. I’m tracking nitrates so I can gauge what kind of dosing to do with the vodka. (I haven’t started yet and dose nothing right now) fast forward to today I do the testing again. How do my Mag, Cal, and DKH all increase when I’m doing nothing????

 

[Chris Goetz]

Have/did you test your fresh saltwater that you used for the water change?
It appears the mix levels may be elevated.