TL;DR: Copepods are visibly thriving on the sandbed. Kalkwasser dialed in at 7.5 dKH. Three new corals arrive Tuesday. Dead snails removed. GFO on hand. Everything is stable.
The Pod Discovery
Yesterday: thousands of copepods visible on the sandbed. Not hiding in the rocks, not microscopic — visibly crawling everywhere under the lights.
Tisbe and Apocyclops from Pod Your Reef are establishing and reproducing. Fed by AB+ dosing every other day. At 79°F in a stable system, they’re in their happy place. Doubling every 2–4 weeks.
Kalkwasser Dialed
The gravity-fed dosing system is working. Here’s the journey:
• Apr 14: 6.9 dKH baseline (corals consuming faster than replacement)
• Apr 15: 6.6 dKH (check valve was blocking drip)
• Apr 16: Removed backflow preventer, opened airline valve
• Apr 17: 7.1 dKH (drip working, added 2-gallon water change)
• Apr 18: 7.5 dKH (stable, holding)
• Apr 19: 6.8 dKH (didn’t refill dosing container yesterday — lesson learned)
• Apr 20, 5:45 AM: 7.5 dKH again (fresh batch + consistent refilling)
The key insight: Kalkwasser systems work, but you have to refill the dosing container daily. Miss a day and the container level drops, flow slows, alk drops. Simple math, but easy to forget.
The evaporation guard tradeoff: Kraken Reef lid is working too well. Less evaporation = fewer ATO cycles = slower kalkwasser delivery. Removing the guard temporarily to increase evaporation and ATO frequency until alk holds consistently. Once parameters stabilize post-corals (week 6–7), putting it back and dialing drip rate accordingly.
This is the real lesson of reef-keeping: every system affects every other system. Installing a lid changes evaporation, which changes ATO firing, which changes kalkwasser delivery, which changes alk stability. It’s a web.
Dead Snails & Ammonia Spike
Found a couple stinky snails in the empties I’d removed during the initial CUC check. They were decomposing and spiked ammonia to 0.25 ppm (API test — false read). Hanna ammonia checker showed 0.07 ppm (trace, normal).
Removed all questionable snails. Ammonia dropping back to zero. This is what an established cycle does — one small ammonia source, the bacteria process it without drama.
Current CUC count: ~60 snails + 1 conch. Quality over quantity.
GFO Arrived
Kolar Labs HC GFO (700g jar) arrived. Phosphate at 0.25 ppm still high (target 0.03–0.1 ppm).
Starting conservative. Gradual phosphate reduction = no coral stress. Going in today after the new corals settle.
Wave 2 Corals — Tuesday
Order placed and arriving:
• Pandora Zoanthids — vibrant, hardy soft coral
• Aussie Teal Duncan — beautiful LPS, branching, low aggression
• LA Lakers Scroll — underrated LPS, unique coloration
All three established vendors.
