Jonas 3.13, 150G of Miracles fun

Did a test of a fresh batch of saltwater today and the results are interesting.

Fresh mixed water with my IO Reef Crystals:

Alk: 7.0
Ca: 471
Mg: 1200

To me this seems a little strange and might be one reason why I am having such issues. According to the label it should mix with Ca at 450, Mg at 1355. There are no information regarding alkalinity on the box but it seems like most people get somewhere around 10-13dHk with a new batch. Something is definitely off here.

Tested the main tank as well and it came up with the following:

Alk: 8.1
Ca: 393
Mg: 1100

Going the right way slowly and steadily. Changed out the carbon and GFO tonight in order to further reduce the phosphate which still is a little on the high side.
 
Seems like I have both Ca and Alk. in check now. Last nights testing gave the following results:

Alk. 8.4
Ca: 388

Will work on raising Ca to about 440 over the next couple of days. Will also start working on bringing Mg up as well. Think it is about time to hook up my Mg doser from BRS now as the consumption has started to raise.
 
Have you seen any difference out of your SPS since stabilizing things?

I had things stabilized for a couple of weeks and still corals that went through the alk swing randomly are coming up with issues, but last week I added two new frags (strawberry shortcake and a nice millepora) and both are happy and encrusting. I feel pretty good about new additions, just hope I don't lose a large majority of my old pieces.
 
I have not seen any further recession of tissue and it looks like some are not looking as dull as they was. Still low on the magnesium (~1100) so I do not expect to do a full bounce back until I get that in check.

Did add two new SPS recently and they are both doing well still with nice colors.
 
AudiSportB5S4 said:
Beautiful tank setup.. Great job
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Thanks. Hope I will soon be back to previous glory state of the tank.

New tests are in. Still stable so hope it will stay that way. Got Ca where I want it too. Phosphate still a little high but coming down slowly. Will increase magnesium next as well. Mixed up my very first magnesium batch tonight using BRS stuff. Thinking of putting my doser online for it too but the tank does not consume a lot of it yet.

Alk: 8.1
Ca: 433
Mg: 1100
PO4: 0.10
 
Latest testing reveals that I am very stable with my alkalinity. My magnesium is finally up at better levels, 1400 but my calcium is low at 346. I contribute that to the fact that the tank has started to recover and thus use more calcium and to the fact that I probably need to increase my dosing amounts per day. I had Ca lower than my alk. and they should really consume about the same. My SG was also a tad bit low at 1.025 so will raise it back up to 1.026 as well. Things have started to regain some color which is a good sign.
 
Stopped by World Wide Corals in Orlando over the weekend as we went to St. Pete Beach for a mini-vacation. That is one hell of a nice store and good staff. Their display tanks are very nice. Ended up with some nice SPS frags for very little money (relatively speaking). They are in acclimation mode at the bottom as we speak.

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ojonas81 said:
I have not seen any further recession of tissue and it looks like some are not looking as dull as they was. Still low on the magnesium (~1100) so I do not expect to do a full bounce back until I get that in check.

Did add two new SPS recently and they are both doing well still with nice colors.
Click to expand...

I noticed the dullness fading and color coming back to as well be a very good sign. It's almost like every single frag who got hit with the swing receded, dulled, didn't have much P\E, then at some point it stopped, stalled, color is coming back, P\E is better, and at some point I hope growth begins again.

Glad to hear things are on the mend! I picked up four new high end frags myself yesterday and are so far doing great.
 
I have a heck of a bubble algae problem... thinking maybe I should add an emerald as I have never had one in this tank.
 
Cleaned out my reactors (GFO and carbon) last night. They are clogging very quick. found out that one of them has the in-feed grates almost completely clogged due to salt build up. Did not want to come off by just simple scrubbing in hot water so decided to soak them in a strong vinegar solution over night. Hopefully that will do the trick to get them opened again with normal flow. Not the best design out there (or I just have to clean them more often).

As for the parameters, they seem to be in check still. When I added my Mg earlier I added a little too much so hopefully it will come down some over the next days/week. Could contribute the increase to a new test kit I got in that may be more accurate. The old one were just that, old. Very old. So I may have had low test readings all along without knowing it.

Alk: 8.4
Ca: 399
Mg: 1540
Sg: 1.0275

During my last test my salinity was a tad bit too low at 1.025 so I added a little salt to the tank. Seems like I added just a tad bit too much. Will lower it back to 1.026 again over the weekend. That increase may also contribute to the high Mg reading.
 
No. Have no idea on what happened there, only theories. Either the goby was sick and died because of that or he went into the shrimp hole and the shrimp thought it was an intruder and killed him. Overall I have had very little luck with my gobies. So far I only have two that actually made it and that are still alive today, the orange spotted prawn goby and the Hector's goby. The hector's goby does not act like a goby though and swims around all the time instead of finding/building a home under a rock.
 
Time for a well needed status update. A lot has happened lately and have not had time to do any tank updates. Happy to report that the tank itself is recovering slowly but steadily and some of the colors are coming back. Have had a few issues though that has been hardware related. Started to get a lot of issues with my Jebao pumps, mainly the WP-40. They kept stalling due to the ceramic tube got fused somehow to the shaft and in most cases I could not get it off without breaking it. Got so tired of coming home to the tank with all the main circulation pumps disabled that I earlier this week pulled thew trigger on a new MP40 instead. It is slightly louder but much more reliable. What put me over the edge here is that I am having heart valve repair surgery done tomorrow (Thursday) morning and need the tank to run reliable for a numerous of weeks until I can do maintenance on it again. My wife will do the daily checks, feeding etc. but she is not comfortable fixing pumps etc.

Second setback was that my return pump also kept stalling out for various reasons (mainly because of it needed cleaning). So last night I did a thoroughly deep cleaning with vinegar and it runs like new again. The return stopping exposed a flaw in my Apex programming as when that happened my Skimmer kept working. That created a lot of foam in the sump which eventually would have overflown onto the floor. Dosing pumps also kept dosing even though there were no circulation. Added some lines of code to both the skimmer and the dosers to turn off should a float valve be triggered (by the excess water in the sump). Seems to work as intended during simulation tests.

Have also added some new corals and moved a few things around in the tank. Unfortunately I have no new pictures from today but had a lot that were taken earlier in July. Will post them over the next couple of posts.

Another exciting(?) development in the tank is that my clowns have started to lay eggs. Seen two batches now within a week. They eventually all get eaten by my cleaner shrimp but hey, free food right?

This will most likely be the last post for a couple of weeks as I will be in the hospital and then home recovering from the surgery. As soon as I can I will post updates here again.

Stay tuned...

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