DSB problems--HELP!!

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8089377#post8089377 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by labragg1
Thanks Holmie_D_Klown--great info.

Another question--would dosing Kalk or Limewater be a more stable--long term solution?

I've seen people that seem to be really successful with a cheap doser such as the Kent Aquadoser and some pickling lime or kalk.
I've seen the Kent Aquadosers for only around $20, so it doesn't seem very expensive to implement.
Any pros or cons?

I just don't want to do anything to make things worse!:)


The most pure form is Calcium chloride. It is instantly available to your corals etc and can be dumped straight into the sump. No preparation.
 
buzee--my tank is under a year old--around 5-6 months now.

Is there anything else besides vodka that will work just as well?
Not trying to be offensive--but I'm a Christian and don't drink--so frequenting a liquor store is really not an option for me--I hope you understand. :)
Just wandering if there are any other options?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8089734#post8089734 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by buzzee
The most pure form is Calcium chloride. It is instantly available to your corals etc and can be dumped straight into the sump. No preparation.

Can we not confuse things.


Calcium Chloride and Kalk have two completely different uses.


Calcium chloride raises calcium, and only calcium.


Kalk is Calcium Oxide/Calcium Hydroxide depending on what stage its in, and is a BALANCED additive, that raises both Calcium and Alkalinity, in roughly a 20ppm:2.3dkH ratio IIRC.

Dosing just Kalk long term is great. Dosing just CaCl long term is asking for disaster.
 
patients......... ive been doing this 10y plus, i have a little cyano on the SB only and im waiting it out.

theres another guy on this forum who was so impatient he started messing with it and was told not too and ended up killing a bunch of livestock.

patients my friend your doing allot of good things already
 
Dosing Calcium Chloride, Bicarbonate and Magnesium indepedntly gives much more accurate dosing control.

The simple fact is CORALS use Calcium, magnesium and Bicarbonate at different rates. Do you really believe that the Kalkwasser knows the consumation rate of the corals in your tank. I dont think so!

Think about it....

Kalkwasser is a PITA.

I have been running the above system for 2.5 years and my corals are awesome.

http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v238/crackerbuzz/rtankMedium.jpg
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8089760#post8089760 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by labragg1
buzee--my tank is under a year old--around 5-6 months now.

Is there anything else besides vodka that will work just as well?
Not trying to be offensive--but I'm a Christian and don't drink--so frequenting a liquor store is really not an option for me--I hope you understand. :)
Just wandering if there are any other options?


Yes there is!

If you can get hold of PRODIBIO BIODIGEST, then this does the same thing, if not slightly better, however is more expensive.

It is a specially formulated bacteria in a VIAL that you break and administer to your tank, (GERMAN PRODUCT I THINK). The bacteria is designed to boost populations and assist to compete with nuisance algaes etc.

I use this also. Very good product.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8089778#post8089778 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RichConley
Can we not confuse things.


Calcium Chloride and Kalk have two completely different uses.


Calcium chloride raises calcium, and only calcium.


Kalk is Calcium Oxide/Calcium Hydroxide depending on what stage its in, and is a BALANCED additive, that raises both Calcium and Alkalinity, in roughly a 20ppm:2.3dkH ratio IIRC.

Dosing just Kalk long term is great. Dosing just CaCl long term is asking for disaster.

I disagree that they have different uses. Kalkwasser just has a LITTLE amount of buffering additivce, (BICARB), but wont comtrol KH completely.

I run my KH at between 8-12 KH by adding standard "Baking soda" (SODIUM BICARBONATE), once to twice a week.

You wont achieve this with KALK.
 
Its funny, You Americans are petrified of VODKA in your tanks.

(Not meaning you Labragg, you have your reasons!!!)

I say try it before you judge.

I guarantee you will like the results.
 
There are many threads on Vodka dosing. It works well with some, but catastrophic for others. Be very careful! You really have to balance the risk/reward ratio here. There is nothing really wrong with your tank labragg1, so I would not go with such drastic measures.

If you don't know the mechanism, vodka is very similar to sugar dosing or AZ-NO3. From what I understand, it gives the nitrate converting bacteria a carbon source with will greatly increase the nitrate breakdown of your tank. But with this increase in bacterial production comes an increase in oxygen demand. If you water column is depleted of oxygen, many sensitive fish (like tangs) may die.

As for the calcium and alkalinity. If both are low, you want to dose something that will will raise both. In an SPS tank such as yours, you very likely may still have your calcium a little on the low side once your alkalinity is within range. At that point you can add a calcium chloride additive, but only after your alkalinity is up.

I agree with outy, maybe its just your DSB establishing itself.

Don't try to fix what ain't broke.
 
labragg1, you asked about an Aquadose, I use one on my 75 gallon LPS tank. I have about 1500 gallon flow, comes out to about the same turnover as you.

I use the Aquadose to drip kalk. I have been targeting 420 Ca and between 3.5 and 4.0 meq on Alk. I test the levels and adjust my mix rate as the consumption dictates. Currently I add 1.25 tsp of Kent Kalkwasser mix per gallon. The way my tank runs, my Ca consumption is slightly higher so I periodically use TropicMarin Calcium Supplement to boost the CA. I make sure my MG is OK before I adjust the CA. I try to keep the Mg between 1285 and 1300. I use Randy's part 3 additive for the Mg.

I would take another look at your RO/DI and get it to 0. You may be adding something that is contributing to the bloom. You need to remove as many inputs of nutrients as possible. You should also try to out compete the cyano for nutrients. Try adding some macro algae to the system. I don't believe in starving the livestock, but draining the liquid from frozen foods can help.

First of all get the parameters in balance and be patient and it should cycle past this stage.
 
You guys have been very helpful--keep it coming. I've been into reefing for around 2 years now--and it still seems like there is so much to learn!!!

Anyway, to give a little more background---I started my tank with just a 1-2 inch sandbed and nothing in the sump. The typical algae bloom came and seeminly went--and everything seemed to be ok. After a few months back it came and this time with the cyano patches. At this point I started realizing that the SSB wasn't doing anything for filtration and decided to convert my 75gal sump to a fuge with a DSB. I figured that way the DSB could remain undisturbed in the fuge and most likely have a much better chance of doing its job. I also added some chaeto to help in nutrient export.
I also increased the flow on my CL. Between the fuge and increased flow--the cyano patches on the sand don't seem to be getting worse--so I guess that's a good sign.
In fact, today it seemed to be a little better.

Overall I think that the constant disturbing of the SSB to get rid of the cyano in the display tank kept it from doing anything beneficial and probably just made things worse.

As a matter of fact--I have lost a few fish--probably a result. Sucky thing about it was I only seemed to lose the expensive fish--mostly tangs. I have other fish--chromis, cardinals, firefish, flame hawkfish, sand gobies, flame angel, and a number of inverts and corals--that didn't seem to be affected in the least. weird!
Also--I lost a couple of tangs and a trigger--but I can't seem to even kill a yellow tang when I try--not that I have--but you get the drift. :)
That one still has me puzzled. The tangs had small bouts of ick--probably a result of the other stuff happening--but I've always been able to get them over it by feeding garlic and selcon soaked foods. Not so in this case--oh well. :(

I went ahead and got a quarantine tank set up last week--so hopefully I can save any future fish that get sick.

The weird thing about all of this is I haven't lost one coral or invert.

I have a large elegence coral, hammer coral, torch coral, zoos, mushrooms, colt, and a few other softies.
I also have a large green carpet anemone and a sebae.

All the corals and anemones are growing like crazy. This is what puzzles me some as usually carpet anemones and a few of the lps corals tend to be pretty sensitive. Some of them have almost doubled in size in the last couple months.

Anyway--hope that helps give everybody a better picture of what stage my tank is in.

I'll try to get some pics posted soon.

My next step tonight is to get the Kent reactor set up with some carbon. I just received it today--so hopefully it will help.

Again-thanks for all the input guys--keep it coming. I appreciate any and all suggestions and am not afraid to spend a few extra bucks here and there if it will benefit my little saltwater friends! :)
 
There's a lot going on in your tank and it's still fairly new so I'm not surprised by the cyano bloom.

In contrast, I cycled my 75 for 5 months with just rock and a cleanup crew. It has a SSB with no sand in the sump. I wanted to get a really good pod population for my LPS to get some natural food, that's why I cycled so long. I added a few corals at the end of 5 months, and 2 chalk bass at 6 months. I added more corals and a royal gramma over the next few weeks to bring me where I am today, almost 8 months running. I have 2 PJ's and a purple firefish in QT that should move in about 4 weeks from now.

At 6 1/2 months I had two small patches of cyano that lasted about 2 weeks. I do 25% water changes monthly.

I think the best thing you can do at the moment is to stop adding livestock and let things stabilize. I think you mentioned earlier that you are about to start running carbon, that will be a good thing given the mix of corals you have. Make sure you run a good brand of carbon as carbon can be a source of phosphates. And when you get your calcium and alk up and stable, you should see even better growth.
 
I would get rid of the sand sifting star first off. They only eat live things like pods and worms not detritus. Yes it appears he is cleaning but he is just moving it around in search of live food. Your sand will never have all the fauna it needs to be live as long as he is in there, which by the way may not be long until he starves. Add a fighting conch or two and lots of cerith and nassarius snails.
 
AZDesertRat--i have the sand sifting star in the display--not in the fuge DSB--not sure if that makes a difference, but I'm not really using the SSB in the display for growing pods and fauna. It's just for looks, so I thought the sand star would help a little keeping the sand bed nice and white--maybe I'm wrong.

I got about 10 large cerith snails last week--and they really seem to be making some headway churning up the sand--I really like them. THey seem to do more than the nassarious snails do--but they are about 3 times the size so that may be why.

buzzee--I have always used ASW--I'm in the midwest, so NSW is not even an option for me. I don't even want to know how much it would cost to keep a 220gal tank in NSW :)

I got the reactor going this evening with some Marineland carbon. We'll see over the next week or so how that does.

One other question--I have a 36w Coralife UV running on a maxijet 1200. It seems like it hasn't really made much of a difference as in the past my fish got sick anyway. Also it has never seemed to affect the growth of cyano or any other algae for that matter. I have never had any problems with my water getting cloudy from algae blooms--so should I just take the unit off and forget it?
It's just one more piece of equipment to maintain--and so far I haven't really seen an affect on my system good or bad.
Any thoughts?
 
Another thing--should I stick with mostly snails?

I only have about 10 or so red-leg hermits--no other crabs at all.
I have been afraid that too many crabs will start to wipe out my snail population. Is this true?

I do have 2 cleaner shrimp, 2 camel shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp, and 1 fire shrimp. THey seem to scavenge quite a bit, so I wasn't sure if I really needed more hermits?
 
I have a 140G main display with 20G refugium that's been up and running since March this year. Effectively it's been running for longer as I moved everything from an established 70G tank to this tank. It went through a mild cycling process that lasted about a couple of weeks. Anyway to cut a long story short the tank is now quite heavily stocked and I recently started to see some dark green algae on the sanbed as well as some red-brown (possibly cyano?). I measured my nitrates last night and I was surprised to find it at 20ppm. I believe it has built up recently because I have started every second day spot feeding a tubastria and blastomussa that were purchased a month or so ago. I think this increase in total bioload is causing the increase in nitrates and the algae bloom. I have started a series of water changes and will remove the bioballs from refugium as I know that biomedia in a reef tank can lead to elevated nitrates. I left the bioballs in as a safeguard during the initial few months and it's probably time to get rid of them...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8089925#post8089925 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by buzzee
Dosing Calcium Chloride, Bicarbonate and Magnesium indepedntly gives much more accurate dosing control.

The simple fact is CORALS use Calcium, magnesium and Bicarbonate at different rates. Do you really believe that the Kalkwasser knows the consumation rate of the corals in your tank. I dont think so!

Think about it....

Kalkwasser is a PITA.

I have been running the above system for 2.5 years and my corals are awesome.

http://www.photobucket.com/albums/v238/crackerbuzz/rtankMedium.jpg


Actually, they use calcium and bicarbonate at a pretty set ratio, which is pretty damn close to what Kalk is.


Buzzee, you suggested earlier that someone use 6x250wDEs on a 90 GALLON! (check the SPS forum). You also said that SPS can't be kept under T5s. I have a hard time taking your advice seriously,.




As to kalk being a PITA, I have a little scoop. I scoop a scoopful in my topoff resevoir every time I fill it up. How is that a PITA?
 
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