Updates on the reef tank have taken a hit, I had planned on changing my sump to something fairly radical and replacing most of the equipment with top of the line royal exclusive gear.
BUT
My gorgeous little miniature dachshund had to go and hurt her back again. She did this 2 years ago and got away with 8 weeks crate rest then, this time it was major surgery. Due the the car sized vet bill, I've had to sell of the equipment I had slowly been acquiring for the sump switch over (and a few other spares I had laying around). Not the end of the world, the tank is rolling along well and probably will benefit by being left alone. Unfortunately it is looking like the surgery will not save the use of my dogs back legs as she is still paralysed four days following the operation, but she is happy and pain free. Now to get to work on building her a sweet little wheelchair so she can get mobile again once she returns home.
Here is the little sweet heart when we visited her
Hopefully get her home soon and get back to reef tank updates :konk:
Sam
Quick update, dog is doing well and recovering slowly but well. Haven't had an opportunity to do much with the tank lately, but it's probably a good thing as it is looking pretty good. Took a quick and nasty video on the go pro today, need to finish building the motor section of my camera slider and remember to shut the curtains to get rid of the reflections next time.
Got my second set of Triton test results back, very happy with the progression. Things that needed adjusting are well on the way and everything else has remained fairly stable. Onto a winner I think!
My thoughts:
1. From the first test I really wanted to address the copper found in the sample, ran a TLF heavy metal absorber and also found a pump that was starting to fail (cheapie that was feeding the UV reactor). Hopefully it would seem that either or both of those measures has resolved that.
2. Calcium and magnesium both came back a little low in January, seems they have been resolved now also.
3. Sulphur has risen a little, possibly due to my sulphur reactor re-circulation pump getting clogged and therefore requiring me to clean it out. That happened right around this test sample being taken, so I'm not going to read too far into that.
4. Lithium has come back down to earth, was high in the last test due to me dosing Kent Tech M to tackle some algae in the tank. Ironically, that algae is coming back so I may up that Lithium again to keep it at bay.
5. Iodine has sky-rocketed. I thought I had this sorted on my syringe doser, but thinking about it now perhaps it had been empty for a while. I will switch this off completely now and see what the next test looks like in 3 months.The syringe doser is only putting in 0.033ml per day, but this is obviously still way too much. I can set it even lower, but tempted to see if it is needed at all from these test results.
6. Barium (what the heck) is up, no idea what it is or why it is up. From some light reading, it is nothing to worry about and it has barely changed between tests anyway.
7. Looks like my phosphates are under control now, bonus!
I have cut and pasted the January and April test results right next to each other to help get a comparison:
Interesting you should say that Matze, I had changed GFO over about a week before this test, so perhaps some of the fine dust released contained Barium?
Have had a couple of much smarter sources than me confirm that the high sulphur reading is due to my Mag chloride/Sulphate mix, will change the ratio on this a bit and see if I can get another "green" indicator on the next test
Very well possible.
Ehsan the owner of Triton talked about GFO releasing Barium a lot of times. That's why they do a monthly change between iron based and aluminium based adsorber.