Dinos?? or Diatoms

[Shirak]

Shouldn’t the rodi system be removing all of that?
Are they measuring TDS coming out of rodi?

Well yes it should. If they were using RODI /facepalm

So for context there are few shops where I am.. ok 3. One is terrible and one only has freshwater, some chain. The other is a petco. This tank I am trying to help with is at the petco. The person in charge of the aquarium department is super nice and wants to fix things with the tank so the frags from ORA don't croak within a few days. One of the employees is great with fresh water but inexperienced with salt water. He is willing to learn and has decided he wants to take on care of this frag tank. He is learning but there is a long way to go and he is working with less than ideal equipment and supplies. I am trying to come up with a way for him to get things under control and simple to maintain to keep things relatively clean and healthy. So right now lots of brainstorming for ideas that will be easy to follow and not a lot of $ since he is working within the store situation here.

Other than the diatoms things are improving.. the bubble and hammer look more inflated and the polyps are out on the leathers. Before I stepped in to assist they managed to kill off 4 frags of pulsing xenia and a punch of other stuff..

 

[ScottB]

Well yes it should. If they were using RODI /facepalm

So for context there are few shops where I am.. ok 3. One is terrible and one only has freshwater, some chain. The other is a petco. This tank I am trying to help with is at the petco. The person in charge of the aquarium department is super nice and wants to fix things with the tank so the frags from ORA don't croak within a few days. One of the employees is great with fresh water but inexperienced with salt water. He is willing to learn and has decided he wants to take on care of this frag tank. He is learning but there is a long way to go and he is working with less than ideal equipment and supplies. I am trying to come up with a way for him to get things under control and simple to maintain to keep things relatively clean and healthy. So right now lots of brainstorming for ideas that will be easy to follow and not a lot of $ since he is working within the store situation here.

Other than the diatoms things are improving.. the bubble and hammer look more inflated and the polyps are out on the leathers. Before I stepped in to assist they managed to kill off 4 frags of pulsing xenia and a punch of other stuff..

Very kind of you to offer assistance as it sounds like they need some. If the water supply is direct glacial melt then you are good to go without RODI. If it is municipal water... IMO it is not going to work out. They put a lot of stuff in there to make drinking water "safe" for us (and our lead pipes) but gradually toxic for marine life. If it is well water, well, who knows.

Without near zero TDS source water, you are fighting with both hands tied. I doubt we are talking about a lot of volume, so a simple 3-4 stage, 50-75 gallon per day RODI will pay for itself in dead frags in no time at all.

 

[Shirak]

Very kind of you to offer assistance as it sounds like they need some. If the water supply is direct glacial melt then you are good to go without RODI. If it is municipal water... IMO it is not going to work out. They put a lot of stuff in there to make drinking water "safe" for us (and our lead pipes) but gradually toxic for marine life. If it is well water, well, who knows.

Without near zero TDS source water, you are fighting with both hands tied. I doubt we are talking about a lot of volume, so a simple 3-4 stage, 50-75 gallon per day RODI will pay for itself in dead frags in no time at all.

I agree completely on the RO system just for this frag tank. Whether or not management will see it that way I don't know. Going to do some tests on their water supply when I have a chance and see if I can learn more on what they are doing. Maybe it is but isn't working properly? Will see what I can find out and assist as best I can.

They sell premixed salt water too so uh....what exactly are people buying???

 

[Shirak]

Looked up the water report from 2018. Water source is the Black River.. so surface water which basically catches everything lol

This is from the report:

"Liquid Alum and a nonionic polymer are added to the water to coagulate and settle out dirt and organic matter through a dosing station upstream of the water plant. The settled water is then pumped to the process complex at 1707 Huntington Street. Polyaluminum chloride and nonionic or cationic polymer are added prior to filtering. Carbon may be added to combat taste and odor. The filtered water is disinfected with chlorine to kill bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms. The water is then treated with sodium silicate for corrosion control and with fluoride to help fight tooth decay. "

sounds delicious yumm

 

[ScottB]

Looked up the water report from 2018. Water source is the Black River.. so surface water which basically catches everything lol

This is from the report:

"Liquid Alum and a nonionic polymer are added to the water to coagulate and settle out dirt and organic matter through a dosing station upstream of the water plant. The settled water is then pumped to the process complex at 1707 Huntington Street. Polyaluminum chloride and nonionic or cationic polymer are added prior to filtering. Carbon may be added to combat taste and odor. The filtered water is disinfected with chlorine to kill bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms. The water is then treated with sodium silicate for corrosion control and with fluoride to help fight tooth decay. "

sounds delicious yumm

This is pretty typical municipal water treatment. The silicate coats the inside of pipes preventing erosion and leaching of lead. If the LFS is selling salt water, they must have a RODI system. But without consistent TDS testing you can't know what is getting through.

 

[Djwhitterz]

What kind of livestock do you guys have? What kind of sand? What kind of salt do you use? What kind of things do you have that eat diatoms, and what kind of algae are you trying to replace it with? When diatoms go what's next gha, dinos, cyano, coralline? If you have chaeto that's eating your nitrates which isnt a bad thing maybe your chaeto is overcoming your bio load?

So I have 2 clowns, royal grammar, purple spot goby, 2 large Mexican turbos, 2 nassi snails, conch and 4 red leg hermits. As well as 4 various lps frags, softies. Plus chaeto (not an awful lot)
My parameters today are:
PH 8.0
Nitrate 0
Calcium 340
Phosphate 0
KH 10
Salinity 1.025
Magnesium 1100.
I added JBL silicate Ex into sump,
Dosing 1ml seachem flourish every other day. My tank is (20gal)
I've removed 80% of any brown coating from sand/rock/glass with air tube tied to a toothbrush.
I'm waiting for silicate test kit(should be bere tommorow)
And I've stopped using natural sea water and gone back to LFS premixed which is apparently 0TDS. I am defo going to get a rodi unit and mix my own salt at some point it's just having a 75l nano its alot easier to get sea water dropped off at your door and plus my corals are looking great despite the brown dust.
I basically just want to see if I've missed anything and any advice to raise nitrate/phos a little faster incase the dinos are already there waiting for the diatoms to burn out and then explode into a real problem.

 

[Djwhitterz]

Easiest easy to increase nitrates and phosphates is to dose them. I dose Loudwolf Sodium Nitrate and Seachem Flourish Phosphorous.

I'm trying the seachem flourish nitrogen and phos. Dosing twice a week at the correct dose but when I measure it at say 5ppm the next day the cheato has brought it right back down again

 

[Djwhitterz]

So I have 2 clowns, royal grammar, purple spot goby, 2 large Mexican turbos, 2 nassi snails, conch and 4 red leg hermits. As well as 4 various lps frags, softies. Plus chaeto (not an awful lot)
My parameters today are:
PH 8.0
Nitrate 0
Calcium 340
Phosphate 0
KH 10
Salinity 1.025
Magnesium 1100.
I am feeding more regularly and slightly more but I didnt want to overdue it.
I added JBL silicate Ex into sump,
Dosing 1ml seachem flourish every other day. My tank is (20gal)
I've removed 80% of any brown coating from sand/rock/glass with air tube tied to a toothbrush.
I'm waiting for silicate test kit(should be bere tommorow)
And I've stopped using natural sea water and gone back to LFS premixed which is apparently 0TDS. I am defo going to get a rodi unit and mix my own salt at some point it's just having a 75l nano its alot easier to get sea water dropped off at your door and plus my corals are looking great despite the brown dust.
I basically just want to see if I've missed anything and any advice to raise nitrate/phos a little faster incase the dinos are already there waiting for the diatoms to burn out and then explode into a real problem.

 

[Djwhitterz]

Not that I am aware of other than exporting the diatoms out of the system and removing the silicates they have incorporated. I plan to have the LFS gravel vac through a filter sock and then put the water back into the system. The sock should collect them. When I tried to test using the coffee filter method they were removed.

That's worth a shot I think I'm going to try something similar maybe with filter floss