Some very interesting developments in the last few days...
I had dialed back my skimmer and pellet reactor output about a week ago and felt like I was seeing some stabilization in the system - Acros were holding or improving, but not anything super dramatic. Sunday I added 3 fairly good sized Anthias and a tiny red Dragonette. This pushed up my BFC to 1.43. I also added the resin bowl with about a half gallon of dead sand and maybe a 1/4 gallon of live sand from the flubber tank.
I had forgot about the extreme foaming that resin sometimes produces when first added, so I had a bunch of overflowing skimmer fun. That slowly died off over the next day or so. In the meantime, I have been feeding maybe a touch more than before to get the new Anthias in the swing of things - but I had been feeding heavily before that as well.
Well yesterday the corals looked better than they have in a long while- polyp extension on the last couple corals that were still not putting polyps out. The skimmer is producing a nice, thick foam and I had to turn down the outlet valve to prevent it from essentially going into full wet skim mode. I took a peek this morning and the corals are looking even better. One additional sign, both bubble tips are looking really good, the one that almost died is recovering nicely.
So the question is, did I finally cross the threshold where i have enough fish poop output to keep the water rich enough, or was this the result of the changes I made last week to slow the skimmer input and BP output down?
One last thing - Ive been checking the KH every couple of days, especially after turning the ALK and Ca output up a bit. Its been staying consistently about 6.8-7. This morning I tested and its at 6.4! The corals are indeed using more Alk. Time to turn up the Alk and Ca again. Nitrate was steady at about 4ppm which is about the same as it has been the last three or 4 times Ive checked.
The nice thing is that I have plenty of capacity in both the skimmer and pellet reactor - I can add more fish and still keep the water clean. Ill keep monitoring and reporting what I find:dance:
Some pics:
Validia Tricolor:
This is one of the corals that just put out polyps. Its a tricolor with light blue normally, right now it is multi color:
Newest bubble tip:
Recovering Bubble tip:
And some flubber for you all
