Some detailed questions (long read)

Gimplar

Gimplar

New member
i figured i'd ask on this forum becausei know most of you and i trust your opinions. basically i have some general chemistry questions that i've never really been 100% absolutely sure on.

First one being, using activated carbon? i currently dont use it cause i heard it will suck up all the chemicals/elements in a tank. I used to dose with kalkwasser, but i stopped cause with oceanic i run at a steady 450 calcium level. Now im using Salifert test kit for calcium and marineland deluxing chem lab for the basics (NH3, NO 3 and NO 4) I mainly use Quick dip strips ( i understand they arnt accurate to an exact but it gives me a general analysis and its useful cause i have a pretty packed schedule. ) I use Natureef's alkalinity test kits and i keep it at about....15dKH. Besides that im not dosing anything except Iodine. And im using Ocean's blend. Nothing is wrong with my tank, but my xenia is starting to die... when i used to have my 50 gallon reef, it did great and was growing like weeds, but now its slowly dieing off. Now another thing, my temp tends to fluctuate (about 5 degrees usuallyu a litle less) when my MH's are on for more then 3 or 4 hours.

As far as my lighting system i have 4 110watt VHO's 3 actinics 1 10k. and 2 175 watt 14k's. My water is perfect as far as the basic chemistry, except my nitrates are present, but not too high (im actually going to do a water change tonight).

I was just curious on what everyone uses/ tests for. I mainly use iodine for my inverts just incase why you were wondering. cause i know alot o fthe meaty base of inverts is high in iodine (and this is the reason why people are allergic to shellfish, cause they're allergic to iodine)

Thanks and sorry for the long read. Oh heres a pic of my tank, i just took it.




DSC01124edited.jpg






Nelson
 
Did you have a question related to the activated carbon? I see the "?" but I'm not sure what is being asked!

As for use/test...easy answer. Nothing. I don't dose anything and I don't test for anything unless I feel there is a problem, and then the test(s) depend on the problem. I end up adding probably about 12 cups of Tropic Marin Pro salt per month to replenish what's removed from skimmate. Whenever I have tested, everything has been within acceptable ranges.

Are you dosing Iodine in response to a specific problem, or just because you think it will help? I direct you to two articles discussing the testing and dosing of Iodine. They're both written by Randy Holmes-Farley and one of them is just summary information of the other. First, here, search for the Iodine section. The full source article is here.
 
LoL, yeahi guess i did kinda forget to ask the main question, well basically i wanted to know exactly what you said, i was wondering what people dosed, if anything. well back when i use to dose iron and iodine, i noticed that my shrimps molted a little more. Now they dont do it as much, maybe because they are full grown. but now they're molting every 2-3 weeks or so. it used to be every week.


once again my main question is: What do you guys as far as chemical wise and testing.

Thanks for the links ill read them.
 
Gimplar,

I dose Randys Two Part recipe. This is the only items I dose into my tank. I check Alk and Ca with a Salfert test kit about twice a month.

I have do a 5 gallon water change every week using IO salt.

Matt,

You skim out that much salt. WOW.

Chris
 
Maybe slightly less...I skim about 5 gallons a week, so maybe it's closer to 10 cups. Remember I'm running a BB tank and am skimming wet.
 
On the contrary...My understanding is that Xenia's are usually the first ones to go if something is wrong in your tank. For example, i am led to believe that my presence of nitrates is the reason in why they arn't doing too well. Also i've noticed that since ive stopped dosing iodine and iron, that they havnt been doing that well either, but i believe iron isnt really important and iodine shouldnt even really be dosed.

Basically if something were to die first, it'd be xenia. I dunno what's wrong with my tank, It could also be due to the fact that i took my larger skimmer out (for space reasons) and i hooked up a skimmer that cant handle my system, but regardless it skims some, and some is better then nothing.

Okay, well the one thing i do need to do is get an salifert alkalinity test kit, i dont think natureef is doing the job. the test results always give me a different reading everytime. I think the chimcals may be out of date. After all i did get them from petmart...of course, that was a long time ago.
 
for what its worth i dose randy's 2 part daily and add 5 drops of lugols per week.. i add kent mag once a week or my mg falls below 1200. I test with salifert for ca,mg,kh,nitrate, but use a colorimeter for phos. its much more sensitive. I noticed after dosing with randys my mag tends to drop and after dosing the mg my sps and coraline started growing better. I think the most important thing I do is the weekly water changes. I test weekly and never have much variation in parameters as long as I remain consistent with the h2o changes.. my tank is predominantly sps.
 
you make it your self... its easy.... dowflake from pinch a penny and baking soda from anywhere..... Ive had trouble finding the mag flake though.. anybody?
 
A quick search will yield lots of posts pointing to where to find mag flake. Someone local also posted not too long ago that they had some dowflake available, they might also know where to get the mag.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8239300#post8239300 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by poknsnok
you make it your self... its easy.... dowflake from pinch a penny and baking soda from anywhere..... Ive had trouble finding the mag flake though.. anybody?
Click to expand...

You can use Epsom Salt from any CVS instead. Much easier to find. Or you can have someone from up north send you some Magflake after the first snow fall. I guess its used for deicing
 
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