randy holmes-farley

I currently have an issue with my water changes. My current salt butch has a KH of 7dkh calcium of 480 and magnesium 1400. My tanks dkh is around 8.5 my calcium is a bit elevated at 490 and my mag around 1450. I do a water change of 50 liters in a 370 liters volume so its about 20%. My problem...

My 3XL900 with my angel fish turned cloudy. I determined it was small bubbles, looked in the sump and saw my skimmer overflowing (like when newly set up). All the fish seem to be breathing way fast, ORP dropped from 293-237 from 10PM-11PM. Only thing I did different tonight was the krill I fed...

I started carbon dosing with homemade No-Pox vinegar, vodka, RODI. Nitrates have come down but phosphates have stayed high. Yesterday I started dosing Phosphate E through an apex DOS. At about 1/4 dose. My question is, do you continue to dose this, or is it more of a one time when needed...

Hey guys and girls. Any experience on using/dosing food grade calcium carbonate capsules mixed in ro di to act as a flocculant, bind all the degraded stuff and then dose some bacteria product to remove them from the system. Any opinions? Do you believe it will have any adverse effects?

Hey guys, i just have a quick question, i would love to here your feedback. I got my icp test and the only concerning thing was the copper levels which test at 6.67 mg per liter. Is that acceptable or should i take action? B) whats the maximum acceptable level? C) my rodi water tested 3.5 mg per...

I've now had a second ICP returned indicating low sodium and hence low PSU, latest 29.30PSU! Last ICP was 30.70, which ended up scrabbling with multiple refractometers and calibration fuilds making me happy my tank was at 35ppt. Mg and K are at the low end, but Ca is normal. These are were I...

I finally have my tank balanced. Thanks for the info on my prior post a few days ago. This one is about seachem reef fusion. I seen a thread from a couple years ago about how it isnt truly balanced when dosing 1:1. Is there any way to maybe add a little less part 1 to match part 2 or vice versa...

Hi ,my reef tank is 9 months old and been dino infested ever since ,my tank is a 18inch nano cube with a 16gal sump,it hold a total of 100 litres of water in total, so ever since my tank was 3-4 month old it have been infested with dinos ,the rock work,sand and glass ,forming thick rusted red...

Hello, fellow reefers, I have made a gradual transition to Tropic Marin and all of their items/programs, but currently still have some Red Sea items in use (NOPOX) on an auto doser. I recently purchased the NP-Bacto-Balance, along with the Tropic Plus-NP, and honestly wanted to know if that is...

Ok so I have a 250 gallon fowler tank I've always had high nitrates tank has been up for 3 years. I started running with a bashsea bio pellet reactor in the middle of October I added 1 cup the first week another cup a week later the 2 more. I haven't seen any drops in nitrates. The tank has been...

This is more of a curiosity question, but one that got me thinking after I got a PH controller and started dosing kalk - is there a chemical link between PH and DKH? Conventional wisdom, in my case, says that as DKH is consumed (along with other chemicals), the PH will drop, in turn telling the...

Hello, Relatively new reefer here and I was hoping you all could help me figure out the best way to bring up my nitrates without messing with my Phosphates. Some background: a few weeks back my phosphates zeroed out. I have subsequently increased my feeding to usually 4x a day, which has helped...

Alright here it goes! I just bought an apex a couple days ago (This is relevant later) I had been dosing/ testing alk with my Hanna checker for a couple weeks. I’ve been dosing 0.2ml after the lights go off and my alk stays at 7.4/7.5. I would like to raise my to around 9 since that’s where my...

Hello friends, So last night I decided to take a look at my Dragon Eye Zoas after lights out and realized I have what looks like brown eggs of some sort all over them. I remember seeing them when I got the frag a month ago but being new to this hobby (and having poor eye sight) thought it was...

Just after Christmas I lost all my fish but a naso tang to velvet maybe ich but I'm sure it was velvet so I have left my tank fallow to eradicate it i purchased all the fish I lost and I have completed the treatment of seachem cupramine at a consistent therapeutic level for 30 days mid way I...

So my tank alkalinity is in the higher range so i decided to reduce it with Sodium bisulfate. But the guy at the chemical shop has given me Sodium Metabisulfite. I didn't notice the error till much later. So i used this and my Alkalinity is about 11 now. it was in 12 range. I'm targeting at 8.5...

Hello. I’m setting up a 1 doser for silicates . I have 1L containers. Should I dilute water glass with rodi water ? How much should I dilute & dose inside a 5 gallon tank (without measuring rock.) I have my rodi water station so my water doesn’t have silicates. Plz don’t ask why. Thanks have a...

Can I use Silica gel to dose silicate In reef tank?

So I'm just getting started with my tank. Still cycling but getting my additive supply stocked up. I plan on keeping SPS & LPS. I want stunning corals (who doesn't) but I really want to focus on dosing some chemails I have not used in the past to help achieve optimal results. I have a 15 gallon...

Hi all, Using Randy’s2 part recipe I can’t find the magnesium chloride hexahydrate sold by the Dead Sea works company. What other options do people use? Thanks!

Na3PO4 Dosing. Can I safely dose the attached? Some background info: I am running a new lightly stocked tank with some small LPS which is +-4 months old. I ran into some nasty issues and discovered Nitrates @ 0 & Phosphate @ 0 several times using a Red Sea test kit. During my journey switched...

Hello Randy, i wanted to ask you about your #2 2Part, since it is in cups and Gallons. i want to make the mix in 2 Liter container i do not have a better opition. how can i do it exactly to have the mixed balanced. and the part of the magnesium how much grams to mix? i am attaching 2 pictures...

Hello y'all, So i got a triton test result back today with high level of SN, so as the tittle says my question is what is SN and how is it affect your tank and how to get rid of that? Thanks

At precisely 2:45 every afternoon I get a sharp dip in ORP & pH as seen on the Apex. I use 2 Dos pumps that dose Calcium and Alkalinity and the other does transition elements and Acro power. None of the pumps are dosing at that time in the day as checked in the apex log. Does anyone have any...

Since my calcium reactor cant seem to keep up with my alkalinity needs, would it be feasible to dump some kalk into my saltwater container? I've implemented automatic water change of about 7500ml/day. Would there be issues like clogging the lines, burning up my DOS, screwing up the chemistry?