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Reef #2 - The Unplanned Upgrade (1 Viewer)

Thanks guys. A couple comments.

1) I’m checking with the KHD 2x times per day and back checking with a Hanna egg. I guess I could try another kit, but those have been so consistent. And my Hanna lines up with the results of the other KHD I have on my DT. So I feel pretty good about it.

2) I don’t notice any obvious white dust on pumps or heaters. And my sand hasn’t turned into a rock. So maybe it is real?

3) I did worry last night that I hadn’t tested magnesium in a month, maybe it was totally crashed. So I did a test after my post, it was 1400ppm, so it’s not that.

4) I did mix up the soda ash from a huge bulk bag (that I got from Ben actually). So it’s possible I screwed that up and what I think is adding 1dkh might be adding less. Is there any way to test potency?

5) I do have a good number of sps frags in there with active growth. But nothing like a full sps dominated tank. The coralline grows like a champion, I don’t know how much that could take up?



Ken, regarding the setosa. I agree it’s unhappy. I don’t think it’s a shading issue given where it went white. So maybe a flow issue?
 
Mix up a new gallon of you’re concerned about the correct potency. Keep in mind that bag was “fatter” than usual and that’s why I gave it away. That leads me to believe it had taken on moisture to fluff up the product so it could in fact be less potent.

I highly recommend a Salifert Alk test as a Backup. It’s been my gold standard and I’ve never had one not read correct in 15+ years.
 
Can’t hurt to have one around to double check. I’ll get one ordered. Thanks Ben.
 
I can also say for the setosa. I've had one lose all flesh and month later spring back... not ideal but hey these are free will animals...)
 
So Ben in your opinion 🤔, saly is the better test than hanna? I use Hana as well but readings on it sometimes make me shrug..
 
@Varig: After going through all of your extensive quarantine procedures, are you sure that it's not some monti eating nudibranch that somehow got into your tank and find your new setosa tasty?? 😝
 
Sure? Never. Think it’s very unlikely? Yes :)
 
Here are pictures of my heater and uv pump (which is in the display). Would you agree they don’t appear to have CaCO3 deposits? Coralline yes. But I feel like the pictures I’ve seen from precipitation are chalky white?

IMG_4737.jpegIMG_4735.jpeg

I did get the salifert test kit ordered, along with an ICP test. I’ve done 10% water changes Weekly in that tank, but with all the growth maybe some other parameter is wonky. There is substantially more than $40 in coral in there, so it’s worth a spot check I think.

I’ll post back when I get the results.
 
Looks normal to me. It’s crazy that with weekly water changes you’re still having to dose that much alk
 
Yea no idea. Again, current leading theory is either:

A) My kalkwasser and/or soda ash aren’t actually full strength. So while it appears as if I’m dosing a lot, I’m not. I feel like this might be confirmed by the fact that my calcium is increasing as expected. To test this I might do a Hanna check. Dose 5mL of soda ash (which should add 0.5dkh), then check again 20 mins later. Enough time to mix in but not enough time to be consumed. Just to see what I get.

B) It’s a small tank volume, but relatively speaking it is “full” of coralline and coral, so it is actually up taking a lot.


Beyond that….Im all ears. :)
 
what are you using for kalk powder. Is it possible that the powder has decreased? Though I’ve read someplace that air can decrease the powder if air sits in the container over time??? Switching from mothers to ESV and now avast. I’m liking the new avast better in my reactor. Seems to be a little more stable and dissolved much better in my k1 reactor.
 
I can say one thing BlindSwordsman and varig. That from experience monti eating nudibranch never touched the setosa.. from day one till the day I retired montis in my tank... 6 mo fallow and they never ate the setosa
 
Dadzilla11 said:
I can say one thing BlindSwordsman and varig. That from experience monti eating nudibranch never touched the setosa.. from day one till the day I retired montis in my tank... 6 mo fallow and they never ate the setosa
Click to expand...
Who knows for David, they'll make an exception?? 🤣🤣🤣
 
Well David if he's right about your exceptional way of finding exceptions...lol yikes
 
So I kept increasing the dose of soda ash and it still wouldn't go above 6.9dkh. I know it didn't seem like it was precipitating, but I decided to stop dosing to just in case that was the issue (apparently you're supposed to stop for 24 hours). Here were the results just prior to stopping dosing and then after:

6.9 - 7am 5/21
6.7 - 7pm 5/21

1716433323421.png

Stopped dosing ~11pm

6.4 - 7am 5/22
5.9 - 7pm 5/22

I did purchase the salifert test kit and tested that just now and got 5.5dkh. So I think the KHD is telling the truth.

So I guess I'm not sure what to make of that. I was dosing 40.8mL of soda ash, which according the the calculator should be adding 4 dkh.... But without dosing it I've only dropped ~0.8dkh. Sooo, maybe it was precipitating? Or maybe the batch of soda ash was/is bad? I didn't stop dosing kalkwasser (I don't know if that was smart or stupid, but I didn't think I'd heard of people getting precipitation with kalkwasser, so I decided to keep it on to hopefully mitigate some of the loss in dkh. Obviously I'm extremely uncomfortable with these levels....

Unless the experts say "DUDE, you need to start dosing immediately or you're doing to kill all your stuff" I guess I'll wait it out one more day to get to 24 hours. Then I think the plan will be to dose 5mL right after a KHD test, let it mix for 30 minutes, and test again. According to the calculator, 5mL should add 0.5dkh. I would think I'd see an uptick with my KHD. If I don't, then maybe the soda ash is bad. If I do, then I'll slowly add back in the dosing and see if I can get it to come up.

Good old reefing fun...
 
I would nudge that alk back up. This is weird and all but 5.9 is getting real low 😬


You could try something like this with a liter of tank water if you want to verify potency of the soda ash:

1716445766486.png
 
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Okay, so I still need some advice, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but obviously I'm dosing 2 part incorrectly. So just to level set again, I'm dosing ~700mL/day of kalkwasser (more or less 95% of the evaporation on the little 14.5 gallon QT tank) and then making up the rest with 2 part (BRS Soda Ash and Calcium Chloride). As you saw above, my alk was crashing (no matter how hard I tried to keep it up) but I was getting my calcium back in line (it was up to 415ppm). So I took a 2 day break from dosing incase it was precipitating. In that time my alk dropped down to the 5.7dkh range (yikes, I know). So then I worked on bringing it bakc up.

My first test was do test alk (KHD) then add a known about of Soda Ash, wait 30 mins, test again. I did that...a bunch. Here were the results:

7:30 - 5.7
7:45 - Dosed 5ml
8:15 - 5.7
8:30 - Dosed 5ml
9:11 - 6.1
13:14 - 6.0
13:25 - Dosed 5mL
14:20 - 6.1
14:50 - Dosed 5mL
16:15 - 6.2
16:25 - Dosed 5mL
18:45 - Dosed 5mL
19:45 - 6.2

For reference, the BRS calculator says that 5mL in 14.2 gallons should increase my alk by 0.5dkh. So at least in those test, that was NOT the case. It was taking at least 10mL, and you see towards the end there (which granted was peak lighting period so I assume corals/coralline were taking up dkH as well), those levels barely kept up.

Fast forward, I turned the doser on for dosing every OTHER hour (still just alkalinity) and left that for a day. The next morning:

7:45 - 6.3
8:20 - Dosed extra 5mL
9:50 - 6.8

Bear in mind in that 2 hour window there was an automatic dose, so it actually added 7.5mL to account for that 0.5 dkh increase. Still not quite working out with the calculator, but I was happy that I was back close to 7. Clearly I'd keep working it back, but I went ahead and turned on the calcium doser as well. Now, you'll recall that when I originally setup the 2part with the kalk this was my dosing schedule:

8am - Kalkwasser
8:20am - Calcium
8:40am - Soda Ash
Repeat every hour

Thinking that maybe 20 minutes was too close together, I switched to:

8am - Kalkwasser
8:30am - Calcium
9am - Kalkwasser
9:30am - Soda ash
Repeat

Again, idea being that the calcium and soda ash individual doses would be a full hour apart. Well, I ran that for 1/2 a day but at 7pm when the KHD tested, the alk was back down at 5.9dkh! Nooooo! :). The only thing that had changed in those 2 days that tanked my alk back down was adding the calcium dose, so I turned it back off to keep trying to get the alk back up. I'm happy to report that today I was up to 7.3dkh, so again, moving the right direction.

UNTIL I tested my calcium. 300ppm. Darnit. So...clearly I need to figure out a way to get my calcium back online. Hence the question.

WHAT am I doing wrong? Shouldn't an hour between the doses be enough? I'm dosing them in a high flow area (right in front a powerhead). The dosing lines are side by side, but I didn't think that would be an issue because of the long time between doses. I watch the soda ash at (because it forms a tiny white trail) vanish instantly. So I think it's getting mixed up. I'm extremely vexed. I have a jug of All for Reef powder, I'm about ready to just mix that up and throw the 2 part in the trash (i.e. keep it for adjustment doses, I'm too cheap to throw stuff away :) ).

Any advice is most appreciated.



Any advice? I'm going to work on getting my calcium up now...
 
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