Help please, lookin' for opinions...

[scbadiver]

Ok, I've been fighting water quality problems for the last several months. I thought my algea was the cause but it turns out it is just yet another symptom. On March 18th &19th I took all the rock out and scrubbed all the calcium based algea off them, put them back in and also did a 30 gallon water change. Later the same week I added PhosBan to the system as my Pho4 tested high. I did 3 addt 30 gallon changes in April. On May 1st I did a 120 gal water change and one more 30 gallon change May 10th. So in the last 8 weeks total I've changed out about 270 gallons.
All of my fish and "critters" look fine. My zenia pulses, the leathers are open etc. A few of the fish are actually kinda fat from picking at pods and stuff in the tank as I haven't been feeding much for last few months. Ok, that all said here's the problem and what I want the opinion on.

I have no coraline growth, lots of(read way too much) calcium based algea, and I can't get "the numbers" where they should be. This is a 240 gallon tank but the system holds about 375 gal all together. As of last Friday evening they were as follows;


PH 8.0
Alk 6.4
ca 280
po4 0
Mg 1350
nitrate guess around 12 I don't have a test kit right now but the fine folks at MS have hit it at 12 twice in last 2 weeks so...

No matter what and how I add stuff, buffer, Reef Builder, calcium the calcium drops rapidly and/or the alk crashes. the PH never seems to go up much for more than a day. It usually hangs around 7.9 to 8.0 My thought is I may add a Kalkwasser reactor and drip the 3-4 gal of makeup water of kalk every day. I know this wont hurt anything and will probably help but, will it FIX it?

What is your opinion? And as a side note, does anybody around here have a kalk reactor I can eyeball to get a better idea of how it works and how I might build mine? Thanks folks, I really appreciate any insite on this.

Robbie

 

[Dert42]

what kind of rock do you have?

 

[sirreal63]

Kalk on that large of a system will not fix it, it will help but won't solve the problem. I had the same maddening nightmare of levels not being consumed evenly. My solution...a calcium reactor. My Alk is 9-9.5 and my calcium 400-450 and mag stays at 1500. Your nitrate is a little on the high side but you already knew that.

 

[scbadiver]

About 200 lbs of live rock mostly from the Carribean. I have a deep sand bed in the 'fuge and about a 2 inch sandbed in the tank of southdown.

 

[scbadiver]

I agree on the nitrates but I'm not sure they are really that high. They tested the same per MS before and right after a 120 gallon water change. Makes me wonder a little. Anyway, would I have to invest in some sort of controller with a calcuim reactor too?

 

[sirreal63]

Have to no...should you...definately. it does make it easier to control the effluent and prevent a mush out of the media. I got so sick of dosing and still having my parameters all over the place. I did have to dose Mag once but discovered that my ph controller needed to be recalibrated and that solved that. I have had only that one slight issue since December...and no more dosing.

 

[scbadiver]

Thanks Jack. That sounds great. I tried to make this set up so it would as "maint friendly" as possible and all I've done is water changes, a mouthful of this and cup of that. Can you give me some sorta idea as to the expense of a decent system? I'd rather spend a little more upfront than re-doing it later. Thanks again

Robbie

 

[sirreal63]

Geo has some nice stuff, so does MRC. You are going to want to find out what other people use as well. I have a little MRC that is more than adequate for my 125, it is well built and the service from Andy is unbelievable. I know Griss and Dave and Mark have Geo's stuff so hopefully they will chime in as well. A reactor won't solve all of the issues with a reef but it does help keep you from pulling your hair out.

myreefcreations.com
geosreef.com

The tank you can get locally for under 100 bucks, the controller and media from numerous online places.

On a side note I think water changes are evil. lol The 125 is developing some cyano since I did a couple of 25 gallon water changes the past few weeks, up until then they were just 10 gallon weekly changes and no algae or cyano issues. The only thing that changed was the water change amount.

 

[scbadiver]

Yes, they ARE evil! I only had that Neomeris Anulata algae & Halimeda before I started my marathon water changes now I have hair algae & cyano too!! Very evil-LOL . Thanks Jack. I really appreciate the input.

 

[DrBDC]

Kalk will only help to maintain the ca and alk once those levels are where they should be. As mentioned you should look at a ca reactor long term depending on the calcium demand of the system.

But back to getting the numbers up to a desirable level to even attempt to maintain. I suggest using this formula to make your alk and ca solutions:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

Using this formula you will need to enter the total system volume for corrections using the numbers from here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

You mentioned using Seachem reef calcium and others but on 375 total system volume it would take 4375 ml/148 oz (about 1 gallon) to get the ca up to 420 which is probably more than you thought you would need. And of reefbuilder to raise your alk from 6.4 to 9 would take 51.9 tspns which is 11 oz.

 

[chadfarmer]

what is the phosphate of the make-up water?

what lights are you using and how old are the bulbs?

how old are the test kits?

what salt are you using?

how much are you dosing?

 

[scbadiver]

I knew how much I needed because I already use the reef chem calculator. Thats why I need different solution. Do you know how much that stuff costs in massive amounts like that?? I got the calcium all the way up to 400 ppm over several days just to see fall back to 250 even quicker I figure it's time to try something else, hence this post. I never had any problems like this with my 75 gal. Thats why after thinking about it the only thing I used to do that I don't do now is I used to drip about a gallon a day of kalk for make-up. The strange thing is all this started after I put the lights on the tank. Up to then it was fine. I had coraline growing all over the place and in the sump too, now nothing anyway in the system. I don't have anything but softies and a few fish right now. surely nothing that would suck up calcium that quickly! Seems like the Calcuim reactor is what we're getting to huh?

 

[sirreal63]

Are the softies LPS or shrooms polyps and such? No coraline, no hard corals and only calcarous algae shouldn't be eating up the calcium that quickly. You may need to invest in some Salifert test kits and monitor this situation closer. I see no reason for the loss of calcium and alk. I would bump the mag up to 1500 with epsom salts but 1350 isn't really low enough to cause a problem since you don't have an sps dominated tank. I would be more suspect of the testing.

 

[scbadiver]

Well, I was suspect of the kits too but, I've used 4 different salifert tests, my old one, the new one and the newest one(brand new) and MS did one. They are all always very similar. Now you see my frustration?? For lack of a better description, it just ain't right! I'd be more than happy to buy a beer for a reef doctor who can fix my tank. House calls anyone? I'm truly at my witts end (not that it was a long journey). I have also tried more, lots more, circulation, extra aeration, changing the lighting cycles/times. I'm really pretty much stumped becuase nothing changes unless you count the addition of te hair algea

 

[jdieck]

Well there is a couple of areas to look into:
a) Regarding Calcium and Alkalinity a Calcium Reactor will be a final solution for a tank that size, I would recomend the larger you can find... the reason.. you seem to have PH on the low side, a larger reactor may provide fully saturated effluent at hogher PH thus affecting the tank PH in a smaller proportion.
For the time being if you want to spend less money just get some peladow (Calcium Chloride anhydrous from Dow) about 15.00 for a large bag for maintaining Calcium and baking soda for alkalinity. Use the calculator to maintain your levels. If you stop all additions for 48 hours and test before and after you will know the consumption, then match the daily additions to that consumption.

b) Nitrate: With a deep sand bed in the fuge and Chaeto that shall be a lot lower. Check your feeding regime or type of food. You need to get them down. High nitrates could also be under capacity skimmer so take a look at that too.

c) Low PH: That is mostly due to high CO2 in the system. Check your air around the house, try opening windows more often and increase the aereation in the tank (Again skimmer shall help here) if possible hose fresh air from the outside to your skimmer inlet. Do not use PH buffers, they will only mess up your alkalinity and increase precipitation lowering your levels. Again the best is Calcium Chloride and Baking Soda. If you bake the baking soda it will turn to soda ash (Sodium Carbonate) and it will have a PH increasing effect. Use a mix of 1 to 6 baked to baking soda for a normal PH maintenance.

d) Cyano/nuicance algae: Besides Nitrate, these algae feed on Phosphate (Do not trust a "0" reading, most kits read that at anything below 1ppm. also the alge might be consumming it so you get no reading) and organics (no testing available) for there I fully recomend using Phosban for Phosphate and Purigen for the organics. and of course take again a look at the skimmer capacity.
By the way for a system that size, a phosban reactor is ridiculously under sized, you will need a reactor that handles at leas threee times as much (About two punds of phosban.) use a phosban reactor for th epurigen, do not fluidise it but fully pack it and use fiber floss to keep it in place. as it is spherical in shape there is no issue with water flow channeling.

and by the way, water changes help just need to use the right salt. Oceanic gave me algae blooms besides sending the parameters all over the place, Kent had serious lack of alkalinity problems. so IO, or Tropic Marin will be my recommendations but need to boost the parameters before the change as they all are low in Calcium and Magnesium and Tropic is also low in alkalinity.

 

[DrBDC]

Also, a tank even with NO sps can use 2 dKh per day very easily. On a water volume that large it is a lot of supplement every day which will only get worse with more corals. The ca reactor is probably the only way you'll keep up with it unless you can force 6-7 gallons a day to evaporate and be replaced with saturated kalk. If you can get the evap, then great but it's hard to do.

 

[scbadiver]

I'd say I only evap about 4-5 gallons a day. I accept everything said here without qualms but, why does the tank use calcuim if nothing in there does? There must be an explanation. Jdieck made a good point on the Ph, I do leave my windows open all the time, weather permitting and it does bring the Ph up about .1. Does sheer water volume make that much difference in maintaining levels?

 

[jdieck]

Water volume only makes a difference on the amount of supplement required to maintain the levels and more markedly if the levles have to be increased.
I have a system very similar to yours (225 gal main 330 gal total volume) it is loaded with SPS but to give you an idea I dissolve two pounds a month of reactor media plus 3 gals/day of saturated lime water to maintain the levles.
Without SPS most of the consumption will be to developing coralline and to the growth of calcareous algae like halimeda and halimenia.
In addition heated surfaces like heaters or pump impellers promote abiotic precipitation of Calcium Carbonate same as certain high PH supplements if added too fast or in too large a proportion.
In your case here are some examples.
Assuming 375 gallos and you only consume 0.5 meq/lt of alkalinity which at balanced consumtion will also take 10 ppm of Calcium per day, to keep the levels you will need to add daily either:
a) 8 teaspoons of Calcium Chloride (TurboCalcium) and 9.5 teaspoons of Baking Soda
b) 380 ml (13 floz) of Randy's receipe 1 Calcium and Alkalinity parts ea.
c) 4.6 gallons per day of saturated Kalk water
d) 7 teaspoons of Seachem's Reef Calcium and 9 teaspoons of Seachem's Reef Buffer
e) 240 ml (8 fl Oz) of ESV B-Ionic two part aditive.
f) 65 to 70 ml/min of saturated Ca Reactor effluent at 25 dkH (I use 135 ml/hr)

So as you can see the supplement consumption can be significant even with small Alkalinity and Calcium consumption. This is why Calcium and/or Kalk reactors in large systems make sense.

 

[DrBDC]

The ca based algae will eat a ton of it. And even though you may not have a bunch of coralline going yet it's starting to grow and will be sucking up the ca/alk/mag to get itself going. The volume of water doesn't really help or hurt on these levels since the more area, the more stuff growing and using it. It does usually help on pH and chemical issues i.e. hands in the tank etc. though.

If the tank is 240 and you have 375 total volume, are you using a stock tank sump or just a really big under-the-tank sump? If a stock tank, maybe bungie cord a big box fan over the sump and let it run full blast to increase the evap and thus the kalk replacement can be increased. Maybe even a dehumidifier near the tank or sump. But you will have to bring it up to NSW levels first with a homemade or store bought 2 part.

When using the buffers and builders, did you ever get a "clouding" all over the tank which may have been a precipitation event and caused a bunch of calcium and alk to precipitate followed by the alk dropping?

Many of the builders and buffers contain both ca and alk without clear labeling and then when you add them it can take one of the two components up high enough to precipitate them both out and mess up what you're trying to raise and just make a mess.

If you switch salts and go with IO, bump the ca up by 70 and the mag up by 150 before doing the water changes. The alk is fine.

 

[scbadiver]

WOW, thanks. so you use both, kalk and calcuim reactor huh? I really had no idea that this much precip would occur. I thought that it would be more so based on the tank loading not just the system itself. The only other thing that baffles me is for almost a year I had the same stuff, corals and fish load, all clustered under one 150 watt MH with 2 48 inch NO actinics (on a temporary shop-lite ballast). During that year the Halimeda grew wildly and I had coraline all over. the acrylic in my sump/fuge was all but covered. Last june I finished my hood and now I have 3 250 watt, 10k MH and 4 48 inch VHO actinics. I spread the stuff out through the tank and that is when all this started. Nothing else changed except the lighting. Why would that make such a difference? I dont have a spec of coraline growing anywhere in the sump ot the tank now. Would anything else contribute to this problem? THanks again for all the info. It would appear I'm destined to own a calcium reactor at minimum.