Hey everybody. I've been in this hobby about 8 months assembling, stocking, and maintaining a reef tank for a geology museum in the university I'm attending. I have done quite a bit of reading up the subject; recognizing how much I still need to learn. I've looked around the internet at lots of different articles and I'm still having difficulties getting things right so I thought I'd pick the brains of Reef Central's ~200,000 users for some advice. I hope this isn't too lengthy of a post.
I'm running a 125 gal. Indo-Pacific community reef tank. I started working on it in January and got the first critters in mid-April. Everything appears to be doing well; coralline algae has covered the live rock and is growing on the glass and powerheads, soft corals are bursting, inverts are growing, molting, and some even reproducing. My anemone looks happy, and fish are growing pretty fast. I have a red encrusting gonipora (LPS) that looks great, and some other stonies that appear to be doing alright. The diversity is substantial, and things have been progressing faster than I thought possible. Phosphates are not measurable (thanks to RowaPhos in a reverse-flow substrate reactor), NH4 doesn't even register, my chiller and heater keep water temp within 78.5 and 79.0 F, and I keep the SG at 1.025.
As can be expected, the chemistry issues I'm having difficulties with are my Ca, KH, and pH levels. I understand that the most important thing is stability, but right now things are fluctuating more than I would like. The Ca levels have been high for a long time; I tested yesterday and got a reading of ~580 ppm. I turned the Ca reactor off last week to let the Ca-extracting organisms bring the level down a bit (it was even higher). I have been using 2 different Ca tests to measure this (Salifert Ca Profi test and API Reef Master Test Kit). My KH is currently between 7 and 8 dkh, but was around 10 last week. My pH cycle is typically ~8.07 in the morning and ~8.17 in the evening. If possible, I'd like to slowly raise my pH to somewhere in the cycle of 8.2 to 8.3 and shoot for a KH of 10. A refugium to minimize the day/night pH cycle is out of the question; there is no space in the cabinet below my tank sufficient to house a refugium of significant proportions (I got aboard this project after the cabinet had been made and the tank in place, and before we even knew a refugium would be helpful). Yesterday, I followed the advice from an article on advancedaquarist.com and added some washing soda in an attempt to raise my KH. I added enough to raise KH about 1 dkh. This it did, but it also took my pH from 8.12 to 8.32. I was a bit nervous about so quick a jump, but everything seemed to be normal by the time I left the museum around 5:30 last night. When I came in this morning (at 8:00AM), the pH was again down to 8.08. It is currently 8.12 almost 6 hours later. So, it appears the pH is getting back to it's normal diurnal cycle. If this is where the tank wants to be, I guess it would work, but it just seems on the low end of all the suggested pH ranges I've seen on the web.
How can I lower my Ca levels while raising my KH and pH. Is it even something I should worry about? Please let me know what you think. Any advice would be well received. Thanks!
I'm running a 125 gal. Indo-Pacific community reef tank. I started working on it in January and got the first critters in mid-April. Everything appears to be doing well; coralline algae has covered the live rock and is growing on the glass and powerheads, soft corals are bursting, inverts are growing, molting, and some even reproducing. My anemone looks happy, and fish are growing pretty fast. I have a red encrusting gonipora (LPS) that looks great, and some other stonies that appear to be doing alright. The diversity is substantial, and things have been progressing faster than I thought possible. Phosphates are not measurable (thanks to RowaPhos in a reverse-flow substrate reactor), NH4 doesn't even register, my chiller and heater keep water temp within 78.5 and 79.0 F, and I keep the SG at 1.025.
As can be expected, the chemistry issues I'm having difficulties with are my Ca, KH, and pH levels. I understand that the most important thing is stability, but right now things are fluctuating more than I would like. The Ca levels have been high for a long time; I tested yesterday and got a reading of ~580 ppm. I turned the Ca reactor off last week to let the Ca-extracting organisms bring the level down a bit (it was even higher). I have been using 2 different Ca tests to measure this (Salifert Ca Profi test and API Reef Master Test Kit). My KH is currently between 7 and 8 dkh, but was around 10 last week. My pH cycle is typically ~8.07 in the morning and ~8.17 in the evening. If possible, I'd like to slowly raise my pH to somewhere in the cycle of 8.2 to 8.3 and shoot for a KH of 10. A refugium to minimize the day/night pH cycle is out of the question; there is no space in the cabinet below my tank sufficient to house a refugium of significant proportions (I got aboard this project after the cabinet had been made and the tank in place, and before we even knew a refugium would be helpful). Yesterday, I followed the advice from an article on advancedaquarist.com and added some washing soda in an attempt to raise my KH. I added enough to raise KH about 1 dkh. This it did, but it also took my pH from 8.12 to 8.32. I was a bit nervous about so quick a jump, but everything seemed to be normal by the time I left the museum around 5:30 last night. When I came in this morning (at 8:00AM), the pH was again down to 8.08. It is currently 8.12 almost 6 hours later. So, it appears the pH is getting back to it's normal diurnal cycle. If this is where the tank wants to be, I guess it would work, but it just seems on the low end of all the suggested pH ranges I've seen on the web.
How can I lower my Ca levels while raising my KH and pH. Is it even something I should worry about? Please let me know what you think. Any advice would be well received. Thanks!
