270 Gallon SPS tank for JBNY

[JB NY]

1/4 tsp into 423 of ro/di is very diluted, wait till you weigh it out and see how much you add of the powder even at 20g.

I started with 15ml a day and after a few days of not seeing N going up I started using 30ml. The numbers I am giving you are ones that work well in my tank based on how much N my tank consumes, but it is still a bit of a guessing game. But I figure as long as you are not dosing to bump you N by 5 or 10 ppt a day any change should be pretty gradual.

I am dosing straight into the tank so I would rather have a concentrated solution that is why I picked 30ml.

Hope it works for you, it has worked very well for me.

 

[maxxII]

I just ordered flasks and stoppers, a scale, and a calibration weight, and KNO3....

My wife already joked about my reef set looking like a meth lab, cant wait for her to see this stuff come in....

She'll start calling me "Heisenberg"....

Sigh


ETA - Thanks for the links and the information Joe.
Green Leaf Aquatics has a calculator on their website as well which worked better for me than the other one.

I'm not a chemistry guru....I'm more Chemistry Challenged than anything else. What little chemistry knowledge I have is more due to this hobby than anything else. Nothing against my teachers, I just didnt "get" chemistry in high school.

 

[JB NY]

I was never a chem person either. The glassware will come in handy a lot. I use it all the time. I think it is one of those accessories that if you are reef keeping for any amount of time you should have, they are very helpful to have.

 

[JB NY]

Here are some results of a triton test on my tank. I took the sample and sent it out on 5/4 and got the results on 5/11 7 days, pretty quick IMO.

The reason for sending this sample out was that I had felt I made turning point in my tank at the beginning of this month. I had switched salts back to IO from RSCP about three weeks prior, and after about 350 gallons of water changes felt the corals were looking better. My issue for the last few month had ben solely around acropora corals. They were slowly fading, getting burnt tips and then RTN. All the other corals LPS, Zoanthids etc looked great. In about three weeks time I was seeing better coloration that I have in a long time and noticed some small axial corallite growth and coloration. So I wanted to stop and get a baseline for what the tank looked like at that moment.

Testing on my own before the sample was sent out
Alk 7.7 dKH Hanna
NO3 2.5 Salifert
PO4 0.01 Hanna
Ca 450 Salifert
Mg 1380 Salifert
SG 1.026 vee-gee refractometer
pH 8.42
B 4 Salifert

The only thing being dosed in the tank is Strontium from Kent, KNO3 and an Fe/Mn supplement for the macro algae. I will stop the Sr for now. A Ca reactor is used for alk/ca/mg.

I think the difference in the Ca and Mg readings might be that I have always stopped the test when the color first changed, however slight it was. Maybe I should let it change more in the future.

 

[maxxII]

I spend some extra time myself making sure the color change in my salifert kits is correct and not close....at the end of the day, I'd rather assume my readings are on the high side vs the low side.

How often are you dosing NO3?

Daily?

 

[JB NY]

I am dosing NO3 everyday

 

[o2manyfish]

Joe,

That's a pretty good looking Triton Result sheet. I think it's the first one I have seen where the Na is over the set point. Mine from last week doesn't look nearly as good as yours, but my corals are happy campers. I'm going to start tweaking a couple of the traces and see if I can get some more color.

If you need some new acro colonies to play with shoot me a PM. I'm sure I have something laying around you might like

Dave B

 

[JB NY]

Joe,

That's a pretty good looking Triton Result sheet. I think it's the first one I have seen where the Na is over the set point. Mine from last week doesn't look nearly as good as yours, but my corals are happy campers. I'm going to start tweaking a couple of the traces and see if I can get some more color.

If you need some new acro colonies to play with shoot me a PM. I'm sure I have something laying around you might like

Dave B

Thanks Dave, I am very happy with those test results. Oh course like you wrote it doesn't matter what the results look like as long as the corals are happy. I am crossing my fingers that my problems are behind me. If they are, I will take you up on your offer and send you a PM.

I am especially happy that two elements Al and Li went down significantly from the last time I had a test done back in December, Al was at 21.91 and Li 498.20, everyone was originally thinking that those were coming in from the salts we are using, but I have been doing a lot of water changes and those numbers are much lower now. So yeah, not bad results for a 7 years old tank.

 

[reefmutt]

Joe, do you find it tricky to balance your ca reactor with your Kalk reactor? And do you think the Kalk plays any significant role in reducing p?
Do you or have you ever played with adding vinegar to the kalkwasser to increase its dosage?

 

[JB NY]

Joe, do you find it tricky to balance your ca reactor with your Kalk reactor? And do you think the Kalk plays any significant role in reducing p?
Do you or have you ever played with adding vinegar to the kalkwasser to increase its dosage?

It is a tricky balance, I think you need to have good calcium demand for it to work well. Right now am I not using the kalk reactor at all, my demand is too low. I have normally have all my top-off water going through my kalk reactor. I tried to use just kalk for my Ca demands and turned off the ca reactor and it was too much, my alk was all over the place. Now I am just using my ca reactor and I have it dialed in so that the alk doesn't move more than 1ppm over a week. It's rock steady!

I only have used straight kalk, I never mixed it with vinegar. I also have never felt it significantly helps in lowering P, I do feel that it helps very much in coloration and growth for SPS, which is why I have been thinking about adding just a little kalk everyday to see if I can get things moving.

 

[JB NY]

Finally, Some pictures of SPS frags that are doing well.

 

[reefmutt]

Hey! Nice! They are looking good.

 

[Mark]

Good stuff Joe!

 

[reefmutt]

Was looking over those test results.. You have a zero reading for iron..
With the ARID reactor going, how much do you care about iron? Sorry if I missed your dosage for it..
Also, now that I'm into chemistry, when using kno3 daily like you do, how does that affect your potassium levels?
And what k test kit do you use at home? They are generally a pain and difficult to read.. Just wondering which you prefer..

 

[Oldude]

Love the new frags

 

[JB NY]

Hey! Nice! They are looking good.

Thanks Matt, These are the good ones, but they have been doing well long enough and I can see growth so I am happy.

Good stuff Joe!

Thanks Mark!

Love the new frags

Thanks Gregg. I had a few really really nice pieces that didn't make it, but all these guys I think will look really great once they grow up a bit. I have one or two others that are pretty beat up looking, but I think they are recovering as well, hopefully I can show them off too!

Was looking over those test results.. You have a zero reading for iron..
With the ARID reactor going, how much do you care about iron? Sorry if I missed your dosage for it..
Also, now that I'm into chemistry, when using kno3 daily like you do, how does that affect your potassium levels?
And what k test kit do you use at home? They are generally a pain and difficult to read.. Just wondering which you prefer..

I am not concerned about the iron reading. Iron is one of those elements I have been told are used up very quickly in the tank, so I expected it to be zero. If it was higher I would have cut down on the dosing. I care only that there is just enough iron in the system for the macro algae to be able to utilize it for growth. I think it is largely a guessing game for how much to dose, I start at the recommended dose and after a while start to reduce it, if I notice the macro not growing as much or some other algae showing up in the main tank I bring it up a little. Basically just enough for the macro to grow and pull out the nutrients that other algae would need to grow. BTW I dose 16 drop a day from their Fe/Mn solution.

I don't measure my K right now, I will eventually pick up a Salifert test kit. I just have not gotten around to it. The K in the KNO3 is only adding a little potassium. I think the solution is 70% NO3 and 30% K (going from memory so it could be different) so it is only putting something like .7 ppm in the tank of K. I think that is low enough not to be an issue.

 

[Chrisrush]

Re: the K in KNO3, I've ready that you will kill your tank with NO3 before you will do any damage from the K.

 

[JB NY]

Current state of the tank. First time trying to put up a video, a little shaky, I'll do better next time.

reboot of the tank 5 months in.

 

[ReefWreak]

Awesome video, thanks for sharing!

 

[reefmutt]

Looking good!
Were your LEDs on for that video? It looks pretty white, or not so typically blue..
Your kno3 supplement, is it from pax bellum? I've been using Seachem nitrogen for fresh water planted tanks. It works quite nicely. A 250ml bottle is around $12..