Blackthunda77's 80 Gal to 195 Gal upgrade!
- Thread starter blackthunda77
- Start date
AquamanE
Active member
Yeah he gets lucky everyone in a e=while with those expensive pieces. :fun4:
John- it looks like 25 to me. Tank is not that old, try WC 's before Carbon dosing, IMHO.
blackthunda77
New member
The one on the left (salifert) looks like 25 to you?
rovster
New member
I pray a lot. Plus, I'm due for some luck, I've been rather unlucky for the past 6 months. That said, I've lost my share of expensive pieces, and fortunately have friends that keep supplying me with replacements.....:hmm6:
Its hard to tell from the pictures what it is. Maybe its the way its photographed. From the side (low range) it looks like 10 or less, but from above it looks like 25 solid. That may be due to shadowing? Usually if its 10 or more on the low range, its pretty obvious. With that kit, I usually have to go to a well lit room and make sure I'm not creating any shadows. Its harder to create shadows from the side but if you are over 10 you have no choice to read from above.
I like this kit because it its not color dependent. Your pictures are contradictory. I'd be inclined to say you are between 10-25 and possibly closer to 10 if there is shadowing in the pics.
Just out of curiosity, what are you observing in your tank? Other than a big number on a test kit, any signs? Whatever it is, it takes time to get those numbers to drop and in my opinion the slower it happens the better. Slow and steady wins the race, at least that's what I'm finding out:wildone:
blackthunda77
New member
About 6 months ago I was dealing with some stubborn hair algea. Even though I acid washed my rocks, after a month or two it tried to come back. I started loading up on the dwarf ceriths I collect, and also a couple astreas and turbos. That with water changes and some carbon and gfo, it looks like it's gone. However when trying to have better husbandry and testing and doing water changes I noticed the elevated nitrates.
The last additions of sps i got from Eddie and Marvin are doing good for the most part, aside from the superman digi and red digi, they started to rtn and then bit the dust. There are two pieces of acros that have browned significantly which would point to elevated nutrients like no3 or phosphates. But then, the Xfactor cap and grape cap have paled significantly which would lead you to belive there are low nutrients. Growing at a pretty good clip, but the Xfactor now has a light beige base with blue polyps. A hammer frag has also become a little transparent. I am also having a hard time growing coraline. On the glass, powerheads, rocks, etc. On my previous tank I would have to clean my glass of coraline algea at least every 3 or 4 days. And in regards to algea now, i havent had to scrape my glass is almost 2 weeks. There is an ever so slight white-ish film.
So in essence, it's almost like my tank is displaying signs of a high nutrient and a low nutrient tank at the same time.
On a side note, for the past 2 weeks i have actually increased my feedings, haven't done a water change and started dosing amminos. Since doing that, it seems as if that is when my nitrates started to drop.
The last additions of sps i got from Eddie and Marvin are doing good for the most part, aside from the superman digi and red digi, they started to rtn and then bit the dust. There are two pieces of acros that have browned significantly which would point to elevated nutrients like no3 or phosphates. But then, the Xfactor cap and grape cap have paled significantly which would lead you to belive there are low nutrients. Growing at a pretty good clip, but the Xfactor now has a light beige base with blue polyps. A hammer frag has also become a little transparent. I am also having a hard time growing coraline. On the glass, powerheads, rocks, etc. On my previous tank I would have to clean my glass of coraline algea at least every 3 or 4 days. And in regards to algea now, i havent had to scrape my glass is almost 2 weeks. There is an ever so slight white-ish film.
So in essence, it's almost like my tank is displaying signs of a high nutrient and a low nutrient tank at the same time.
On a side note, for the past 2 weeks i have actually increased my feedings, haven't done a water change and started dosing amminos. Since doing that, it seems as if that is when my nitrates started to drop.
blackthunda77
New member
I was running gfo, I stopped it since the phosphates were undetectable on my test kit. I didn't want to strip the water even more . Then again I probably should just invest in one of the hanna phosphorus checkers to be sure.
rovster
New member
That's why your nitrates are high and are coming down now that phosphate is not limited
I have the opposite problem, when my nitrate bottoms out my phosphate climbs, I add nitrate and phosphate comes back down. I know sounds crazy but lots of threads on this phenomenon.
Keep the GFO offline and watch that nitrate creep down all by itself. Chew on that for a while
IMHO of course!!!
I have the opposite problem, when my nitrate bottoms out my phosphate climbs, I add nitrate and phosphate comes back down. I know sounds crazy but lots of threads on this phenomenon.
Keep the GFO offline and watch that nitrate creep down all by itself. Chew on that for a while
IMHO of course!!!
blackthunda77
New member
Yea, it's kinda counter intuitive...
Hi! Being reading through your thread to night. Very nice build. Sorry to hear about your crash. But I'm very impressed about how you guys share your frags and help each other out! A lot of plusses for that! I wish we had the same community here in Norway. Keep it up and soon all of you will have TOTM material hope you keep this post active, it is werry interesting.
On the testing side. The salifert po4 test kit is usually not the best. I would go hanna (haven't tried but heard a lot of good things) or the red sea one ( more easy to read
And some pages back I saw you guys was complaining about the cost of cardinals being 10 - 15$ here they cost about 35-40$
Thanks for sharing
Good thoughts from Norway
Kristian
hope you keep this post active, it is werry interesting.On the testing side. The salifert po4 test kit is usually not the best. I would go hanna (haven't tried but heard a lot of good things) or the red sea one ( more easy to read
And some pages back I saw you guys was complaining about the cost of cardinals being 10 - 15$ here they cost about 35-40$
Thanks for sharing
Good thoughts from Norway
Kristian
D
Deep Reef
That's why your nitrates are high and are coming down now that phosphate is not limited
I have the opposite problem, when my nitrate bottoms out my phosphate climbs, I add nitrate and phosphate comes back down. I know sounds crazy but lots of threads on this phenomenon.
Keep the GFO offline and watch that nitrate creep down all by itself. Chew on that for a while
IMHO of course!!!
Sorry for the hijack
I read this and you got me to thinking....I found Richard Ross's YouTube macna talk , very interesting...I was fighting Gha, been using gfo. Now my nitrates are rising and out of whack, dosing carbon..not much of a change. Some gha returning. I'm thinking of stoping all and seeing if the tank levels on its own..
nivram
New member
That's why your nitrates are high and are coming down now that phosphate is not limited
I have the opposite problem, when my nitrate bottoms out my phosphate climbs, I add nitrate and phosphate comes back down. I know sounds crazy but lots of threads on this phenomenon.
Keep the GFO offline and watch that nitrate creep down all by itself. Chew on that for a while
IMHO of course!!!
I believe it's called the Redfield ratio or something like that.
rovster
New member
Redfield is related yes. It's basically about nutrient balance. Ideally you want nitrate slightly higher than phosphate. When one is high and the other low it's bad and the system becomes limited and the ability to process the other diminished. For whatever reason carbon driven systems easily become nitrate limited, so a lot of us resort to dosing nitrate because of this. Now before you ask why would you dose something you want to remove, it's not to increase one nutrient or the other but rather to maintain balance.
When my nitrate bottoms out my phosphate goes up. I dose nitrate and it goes down without any other changes. I still run a small amount of GFO but it's like 1 cup every 4-6 weeks for 120 gal.
Search nitrate dosing and youll find some interesting reads. Some people dose phosphate too!
When my nitrate bottoms out my phosphate goes up. I dose nitrate and it goes down without any other changes. I still run a small amount of GFO but it's like 1 cup every 4-6 weeks for 120 gal.
Search nitrate dosing and youll find some interesting reads. Some people dose phosphate too!
AquamanE
Active member
blackthunda77
New member
The nitrate battle continues...
This comparison is with tests from 3 weeks ago and another a little under 2 weeks ago
This comparison is from the test a little under 2 weeks ago and a test from today. Readings continue to drop it looks like.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
This comparison is with tests from 3 weeks ago and another a little under 2 weeks ago
This comparison is from the test a little under 2 weeks ago and a test from today. Readings continue to drop it looks like.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
blackthunda77
New member
Been meaning to update the thread. Been MIA forever. Tank seemed to have hit its stride. Coraline finally started taking of a couple months ago. Added a biopellet reactor 4 months ago and it's helping with the nitrate levels.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
blackthunda77
New member
Don't forget to watch it in 1080p
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7IKb9FzuqWM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7IKb9FzuqWM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
