Pre-water change labs 8/27/16:
Red Sea ph test: 8.1
BRS lab grade PH probe: 7.74 (i think i need to re-calibrate it)
Red Sea Nitrate: 10ppm (up from 5 three days ago)
Phosphate: 0.00 (low range hannah checker, "green one")
Red Sea Alk: 8.5 dKH (down from 10 three days ago)
Calcium: 459 (Hannah checker)
All Red Sea tests were done with the "marine care test kit."
I have stopped my Alk/Ca dosing to trend usage, and I increased my NOPOX to 5ml/day from 4ml/day due to my increasing nitrate. Three days ago i put 3 tsp of BWA Extraxphos in a media bag in my sump, so this may be the reason for the 0.00 phosphate, or it could be the high growth rate of the endogenous macro algae on the KPA live rock.
My green slimer and birdsnest have good polyp extension but have browned somewhat. I have yet to catch the "evil" gorilla crab as my waspfish continues to go into the bottle trap almost imeadiately after i place it in the tank and subsequently "freaks out." I need to construct a trap in a way that will make it so that only the crab can get in. The pair of radial filefish continue to be the "star" of the tank as they continually cruise the rocks and glass hunting for pods, which have had a population explosion over the past few days.
I plan to order a female barbital waspfish after I get back from vacation labor day weekend, assuming there is one on DD.
I also plan to place a KP Aquatics order at the same time, which will include: Pike Blenny, 3-4 different types of gorgonian (my
www.live-plants.com gorgonian order mortality rate is almost 100%), emerald crab, 5 scarlet reef hermits, 1 hairy chiton, 1 red brittle star, micro basket star, 2-3 differs types of ricordia florida, and possible a juvenile jawfish (assuming my artfully acrylic screen top comes in).
The endogenous "curly-cue" anemone has continued to grow, but from my research, they do not seem to breed readily in captivity, so for now I'm going to leave it alone. I did find a couple of pests on the frags i got from a fellow reefer (bryopsis, aptasia, bubble algae, vermatid snails), i removed most of them manually, but ill have to watch for spread....... it kinda ****es me off as I marginally overpaid for them (they were shipped to me so i didn't see them first).
My skimmer is still working wonderfully, pulling 75-100 ml of dark nasty skimmate per day.