markalot
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I use TLF C-Balance, bought in the gallon concentrate. Very expensive compared to buying in bulk, but it appears to keep my Mag and Potassium (when I test) at the correct levels.
Mark's 150 (72x18x27)
- Thread starter markalot
- Start date
I use TLF C-Balance, bought in the gallon concentrate. Very expensive compared to buying in bulk, but it appears to keep my Mag and Potassium (when I test) at the correct levels.
markalot
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Hi Andrew,
still having PO4 and NO3 issues. I wish I wasn't chasing numbers but as soon as I let my guard down corals start to suffer and I have to make corrections. It appears I can exhaust 1 1/2 cups of GFO in less than 5 days unless I made a testing mistake. I picked up one of those hanna URL PO4 gadgets and tested .02 on Friday and now .08. I will test again tonight before doing any feeding to make sure I didn't get a false reading.
Visually, a few acros have maintained color, one has browned and experienced some recession, and one has actually colored up a bit. The remaining acros have remained turds. I have no reds at the moment, just greens and a few purple.
This one loves nitrates > 5 and and loses a lot of the purple and green shine when nitrates fall too low.
This one has really improved over the last month, going from brown with a hint of green to green with a hint of purple.
This one has maintained decent coloration, good blue polyp color, and is growing well.
The slimer is the slimer. Never stop, take aim at other corals, try and get out of the tank.
I challenge anyone to grow as healthy brown corals as I have. :debi:
Red Robin
UC Rainbow milli
This one keeps teasing color, but no.
markalot
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Latest FTS
I'm happy to say I was wrong about phosphates (phosphorus). I took a reading when i got home from work, prior to any feeding, and got 7, 10, and 14 pbb in successive measurements. That's around .03. Nitrates are 10 and I'm doing a little below the maintenance dose of NOPOX to keep them from rising too high.
I also noticed what appear to be new branches on the Lokani. Here's a zoomed in shot of the picture I took yesterday.
Finally, last night, the SSC got tough with the invasive mystic sunset monti. :fun2:
I'm happy to say I was wrong about phosphates (phosphorus). I took a reading when i got home from work, prior to any feeding, and got 7, 10, and 14 pbb in successive measurements. That's around .03. Nitrates are 10 and I'm doing a little below the maintenance dose of NOPOX to keep them from rising too high.
I also noticed what appear to be new branches on the Lokani. Here's a zoomed in shot of the picture I took yesterday.
Finally, last night, the SSC got tough with the invasive mystic sunset monti. :fun2:
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
Mark I dont trust those bloody Hanna Meters anymore. The meters work fine when you have a good batch of reagents...however, I've found a few bad batches in the past (there is a thread I contributed to). When I approached Hanna UK with my findings, they promptly replaced the reagents with a different batch. However they never recalled or made reefers aware of the bad batches...very annoying.
I threw the Hanna meter in the cupboard around a couple of years ago and never looked back. I now use the Elos High Resolution PO4 test kit. Its basically the well known (and excellent) Merck PO4 test kit.
Your corals are looking MUCH MUCH better. In fact I am very jealous of your Lokani.
Can you detail how you dose Ca/Alk/Mg?
Is it a calcium reactor? Or 2/3 part? If 2/3 part, which brand are you using?
I threw the Hanna meter in the cupboard around a couple of years ago and never looked back. I now use the Elos High Resolution PO4 test kit. Its basically the well known (and excellent) Merck PO4 test kit.
Your corals are looking MUCH MUCH better. In fact I am very jealous of your Lokani.
Can you detail how you dose Ca/Alk/Mg?
Is it a calcium reactor? Or 2/3 part? If 2/3 part, which brand are you using?
markalot
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Hi Sahin, thanks for stopping by.
I use 2 part, Two Little Fishes C-Balance which has the majors and a few extras in the calcium part. This keeps my Mag generally in line as well though last reading was 1300 down from the usual 1350 (this is over a month) so I had to bump it up a little.
Right now I'm at 50ml daily each part. Alk is dosed on odd hours starting at 1AM, the calcium part on even hours starting at 12AM. KH is right around 8, Calcium around 420.
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
OK, thats fine. I'd just keep things going as they are. Just double check the PO4 with another person/LFS at some point.
If your colours dont improve in another 3 months time, I'd consider switching to ESV B-Ionic. I've always read and have seen very colouration in SPS when this product is used. The B-Ionic seems to have a better range of traces compared to C-Balance...which seems close to the traces supplied in the better quality Balling Lite products supplied in Europe.
markalot
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Excellent, thanks for the advice. I never considered that traces might be an issue, though I'm not sure why. I do try and do a 10 gallon water change every week, which ain't much, but something. Using a mixture of Red Sea Blue Bucket and Reef Crystals which results in a new water KH around 9 - 9.5.
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
IME, if one isnt running a calcium reactor AND using lots of GFO and or GAC, then traces can be pulled low resulting in less colour.
I only advise it because you are going through a LOT of GFO. All that GFO has to be pulling out more than just PO4.
markalot
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Nice looking tank Mark, hope to trade some frags with you in the future.
Hi Josh, thanks. We'll see if I ever have anything worth trading.
I took a few macro shots.
Miami Orchid
Lokani
aggie13reef
Member
Love the macro shots. Everything is looking great!
markalot
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Thanks all, I really appreciate it. I'm not convinced yet though.
7.1 KH (down from 8 over a week ago, slowly increasing dosing but I'd like to stay around 7)
3 NO3 (stopped NOPOX, Bio-pellets still running in a recirc reactor)
20 ppb = .06 PO4 (up from .03 just 3 days ago, keeping GFO off)
Leaving GFO off for now, but you can see it's rising rather fast.
markalot
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PO4 has risen to .08 as of last night so i turned the GFO reactor back on with very little flow going through it. NO3 staying around 3, so the biopellets must be working now, but not keeping PO4 in range.
Visually a pink milli which was just starting to get some pink back lost a bit of color, and a blue tip acro that seems especially sensitive to PO4 is showing some stress again.
I am really liking this hanna ULR meter, though I understand the reagent quality can be sketchy. I did a test using both vials, both with tank water, alternating which bottle I used for C1 and C2. I even added fingerprints to see if I could force a false reading. I was able to get 1ppb with a fingerprint laden bottle used as C2, but otherwise all tests were 0, so I'm pretty comfortable using both vials during the test.
My technique is to fill both with tank water, carefully add the reagent to the second vial, shake and let settle, then test using the 3 minute delay for C2. Once I have that number I run the test 3 more times, this time not using the 3 minute delay.
This last round was 30, 25, 27 ppb.
Color is still not that good, but growth has really picked up in the acros I would expect to grow the quickest. KH is now 7.0 so I'm stable or still slowly falling.
Miami Orchid
Slimer and teal acro both growing rapidly.
Unknown smooth skin
So as you can see, it's still what I would consider a very mediocre SPS tank, with colors just peaking out under a wash of brown. I feel like my biggest challenge now is to keep PO4 low, but not too low, and then hopefully get to a point where whatever is driving the elevated PO4 is exhausted and I can reduce or eliminate GFO usage.
Visually a pink milli which was just starting to get some pink back lost a bit of color, and a blue tip acro that seems especially sensitive to PO4 is showing some stress again.
I am really liking this hanna ULR meter, though I understand the reagent quality can be sketchy. I did a test using both vials, both with tank water, alternating which bottle I used for C1 and C2. I even added fingerprints to see if I could force a false reading. I was able to get 1ppb with a fingerprint laden bottle used as C2, but otherwise all tests were 0, so I'm pretty comfortable using both vials during the test.
My technique is to fill both with tank water, carefully add the reagent to the second vial, shake and let settle, then test using the 3 minute delay for C2. Once I have that number I run the test 3 more times, this time not using the 3 minute delay.
This last round was 30, 25, 27 ppb.
Color is still not that good, but growth has really picked up in the acros I would expect to grow the quickest. KH is now 7.0 so I'm stable or still slowly falling.
Miami Orchid
Slimer and teal acro both growing rapidly.
Unknown smooth skin
So as you can see, it's still what I would consider a very mediocre SPS tank, with colors just peaking out under a wash of brown. I feel like my biggest challenge now is to keep PO4 low, but not too low, and then hopefully get to a point where whatever is driving the elevated PO4 is exhausted and I can reduce or eliminate GFO usage.
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
PO4 has risen to .08 as of last night so i turned the GFO reactor back on with very little flow going through it. NO3 staying around 3, so the biopellets must be working now, but not keeping PO4 in range.
Visually a pink milli which was just starting to get some pink back lost a bit of color, and a blue tip acro that seems especially sensitive to PO4 is showing some stress again.
I am really liking this hanna ULR meter, though I understand the reagent quality can be sketchy. I did a test using both vials, both with tank water, alternating which bottle I used for C1 and C2. I even added fingerprints to see if I could force a false reading. I was able to get 1ppb with a fingerprint laden bottle used as C2, but otherwise all tests were 0, so I'm pretty comfortable using both vials during the test.
My technique is to fill both with tank water, carefully add the reagent to the second vial, shake and let settle, then test using the 3 minute delay for C2. Once I have that number I run the test 3 more times, this time not using the 3 minute delay.
This last round was 30, 25, 27 ppb.
Color is still not that good, but growth has really picked up in the acros I would expect to grow the quickest. KH is now 7.0 so I'm stable or still slowly falling.
Miami Orchid
Slimer and teal acro both growing rapidly.
Unknown smooth skin
So as you can see, it's still what I would consider a very mediocre SPS tank, with colors just peaking out under a wash of brown. I feel like my biggest challenge now is to keep PO4 low, but not too low, and then hopefully get to a point where whatever is driving the elevated PO4 is exhausted and I can reduce or eliminate GFO usage.
Its just so weird...If you ever get round to visiting WorldWideCorals 630G display tank...its amazing.
And they run like 30ppm Nitrates and upto 0.09ppm phosphate. Though they try to keep PO4 around 0.05ppm or thereabouts. Colours are stunning in that tank...
I realise that the tank has loads of BLUE lighting, but a few brits have been to the USA and seen the tank and they say its amazing.
aggie13reef
Member
I might have missed it in a previous post but what is your target phosphate you would like to achieve?
maxxII
Super Housemonkey!
Mark,
I had a long term PO4 issue with my 120 set up.
Like your set up, mine is in the the basement, and I've had to deal with pH issues as well.
I was doing 50 gallon water changes weekly, and running a GFO reactor full time, and burning through ALOT of GFO all to keep PO4 down around 0.05 ppm.
JBNY mentioned using an ARID reactor, and I did some digging on my own.
I wound up purchasing an ARID E 18, (JBNY has the larger C30 model on his system).
My PO4 dropped from 0.08 ppm down to 0.00ppm in 11 days. I've been running it for almost 2 months now and havent had PO4 levels anywhere near what they were 3 months ago.
With your set up being what it is, I do think an ARID would work for you as well. I dont think the ARID is the be all/end all solution for NO3 & PO4 for everyone. But for those who cannot run a refugium or are space limited, its a very good option.
I started a thread about it if you want to look it over:
ARID E18 Phosphate Control
I had a long term PO4 issue with my 120 set up.
Like your set up, mine is in the the basement, and I've had to deal with pH issues as well.
I was doing 50 gallon water changes weekly, and running a GFO reactor full time, and burning through ALOT of GFO all to keep PO4 down around 0.05 ppm.
JBNY mentioned using an ARID reactor, and I did some digging on my own.
I wound up purchasing an ARID E 18, (JBNY has the larger C30 model on his system).
My PO4 dropped from 0.08 ppm down to 0.00ppm in 11 days. I've been running it for almost 2 months now and havent had PO4 levels anywhere near what they were 3 months ago.
With your set up being what it is, I do think an ARID would work for you as well. I dont think the ARID is the be all/end all solution for NO3 & PO4 for everyone. But for those who cannot run a refugium or are space limited, its a very good option.
I started a thread about it if you want to look it over:
ARID E18 Phosphate Control
