A quick update on my problems I was having with my Geo Kalk reactor. It turns out that I had a faulty check valve, which was causing the back siphon from the reactor back into my RO/DI reservoir. I replaced the check valve and everything seems to be in working order again. So now that it appears to be working, I am officially dosing something!
Up until now, for the past year on my 90 gal - I have not dosed anything. I have fed the fish and changed water regularly. I can't say that I have had the great color in my corals, buy the growth has always done fairly well.
My major struggle was my ability to keep the pH stable, and at a desired level. Because of my limitations with where the previous tank was located, I was required to do an "in-stand only" set-up which led to extreme limitations with equipment and such. Now, I've got the ability to more or less do what I want, and hopefully the regular dosing of kalkwasser can help out in maintaining a higher pH, and stabilizing it to some degree.
Because the color of my SPS corals has never been anything to get excited about, I've made that my first and foremost priority. Besides the use of kalkwasser, I've also considered vodka dosing and Microbacter7, along with AA. I've used a bit of the MicroBacter7 already, mainly to help with minimizing the likliehood of any type of cycle in the new tank., but now I'm going to begin observing the effects and try to establish a maintenance dose. The same holds true for the vodka, although I don't want to do too much too soon, and add too many variables at once.
I wish there was an easy guide to diagnose what you see in your tank and how to react to it, and in turn know how to adjust things to prevent them from recurring.
Right now, I'm having a bit of an issue with algae on the glass panes, requiring cleaning almost every other day. I'm not doing much now about it until I've had the chance to see how things go after my first few water changes and the tank, sand bed, plumbing, etc. all have a chance to break in some more.
