More downs than ups but here is the 3 month update.
Lost the mandarin likely because I didn't add more pods after my cat died just stopped all the maintenance
There was a good sale locally so now that I'm back to normal maintenance I added 7 zoas (bringing my total to 10--excessive maybe?), a 12-head microblastomussa ($30 USD!), and a hefty pipe organ coral frag.
I also have a green pavona but it is struggling a bit from falling over in the sand and not getting light. I had used bad epoxy (seachem coralcrete is dry crumbly trash) but once I use the PAR meter I can find the ideal place for it. My PAR ranges from 50-150 in the tank.
My princess peach acro seems to not be dead. Still has flesh and is brown but slightly green now. My voodoo magic had recession from the alk drop. The TSA rainbow sherbert was a discount $19 piece because the frags were losing color. It is hanging in and its color hasn't improved or worsened.
As for the Hanna Marine Master calcium test I bought sterile lab grade water from Amazon. Cheaper than the Hanna RODI lol. I live in an area with hard, calcium-rich water due to limestone in the soil. I read that calcium will not show up on TDS meters and being a larger ion often slips through RODI filters. I figured my local store/source likely was selling RODI with some calcium that the reagent was binding to and giving me false elevated results.
Anyways so my alk was 8.6 dkH (3.016 meq/L) and calcium 533. Per Randy's
article I could dose baked baking soda, but this would require me to either (1) use the calcium-rich RODI or (2) use the expensive sterile lab water. I opted for Red Sea foundation B which seemed like a sodium carbonate source that does not contain Borate which Randy suggested avoiding.
I am unsure why my calcium is so high since I don't dose calcium but I presume the rodi has residual calcium and the water I buy at the store is made with that and thus elevated. That, combined with the amount of stony coral in the tank probably led to consumption of the calcium carbonate compound that makes up the alkalinity so when my alk dropped calcium precipitated in the water column. Used this handy
site to dose and since the red sea box says the max I can do in one day is 1.2 meq/L I figured my goal of increasing by 1 meq/L was safe... I used 9 gallons for my volume, presuming there is less than 10 in here because of the rock/not filling to the top lol. I will test tonight and see. I just added all 8 mL at one time and the coral didn't all immediately shrivel so seems like it wasn't a bad idea. My calcium should drop to respectable levels (430ish?) going to test pH/alk/calcium this evening and see how it went!
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