Perseverance Reef

[tbrown]

I just tested the water. I got 39 ppb of phosphorus or 0.12 ppm of phosphate. I’m making up some RO/DI water currently. Once I get that done I’ll wait until tomorrow to test again. If my phosphates stay where they are I’ll be adding life to colonize the rock. For now I’ll make a worm trap and leave it in the display. I’ll also add some hermit crabs and maybe an asterina or two. That’ll help things along.

Now that I have a rough estimate of how much phosphate the rock was holding

If you're have any live rock or rubble you can spare, I'd add a chunk or two of that. The bristle worms and such will populate it once you add it to the DT. Seeding it with pods is where I'd focus personally. Just my $0.02. Sounds like you're on the right track though!

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

I think your rock will replenish the water over night. Have you been scrubbing the rock with a strong bristle brush

 

[Fishy888]

I think your rock will replenish the water over night. Have you been scrubbing the rock with a strong bristle brush

I didn’t scrub them last night but I have been scrubbing them and will hopefully do so again today. I think it’s helping.

I have a feeling that the phosphates will reload too. It’s encouraging that two hours after last night’s dose I got the 39 ppb reading. I waited two hours after Tuesday night’s dose and it was over 200 ppb at that point.

 

[Fishy888]

If you're have any live rock or rubble you can spare, I'd add a chunk or two of that. The bristle worms and such will populate it once you add it to the DT. Seeding it with pods is where I'd focus personally. Just my $0.02. Sounds like you're on the right track though!

I thought about doing that too. I do have a rock which is currently in the sump that’s big enough to have brittle stars and the like in it but small enough to not drop my bio filtration much at all.

 

[Fishy888]

As of now I’ve made the RODI water, changed the water out in the bin that had freshwater with saltwater, reinstalled the old light, and topped off the system. I’m feeling somewhat accomplished.

So here comes more maths.

Since 1 ml of phosphat-e drops phosphates by 1 ppm in 4 g of water:

2.5 ml/10 g = 1 ppm
18.75 ml/75g = 1ppm

This rock was in a 75 originally.
I’ve dosed 65 ml so far.

65/18.75 = 3.46

Thus, I’ve dosed enough to drop phosphates by 3.46 ppm in a water volume of 75 gallons. If the prediction I made a couple of posts ago is right, I still need to dose enough LaCl to drop phosphates by another 6.54 ppm relative to a water volume of 75 gallons. So….

10 ppm = 100%
3.46 = 34.6%
65 ml = 34.6% of the total dose needed.
65/34.6 = 1% of the total dose needed.
1.88ml = 1% of the total dose needed so 188 ml = 100% of the total dose needed.

Since I’ve dosed 65 ml already…

188 - 65 = 123 ml left to dose, assuming my prediction is right.

Of course I hope that I already got all the phosphates out of the rock. The LaCl has only been dosed to the bin that’s had saltwater the whole time. The 10 ppm prediction was for all of the rock in both bins. That means there’s a reasonable chance I’ve gotten all the phosphates out of the rock in that bin or I’m close. We’ll know this afternoon.

 

[Fishy888]

I thought about doing that too. I do have a rock which is currently in the sump that’s big enough to have brittle stars and the like in it but small enough to not drop my bio filtration much at all.

I forgot to add, I definitely plan on getting pods established in this rock. I’ll have approximately 120 lbs of rock altogether in the system once it’s all cured so the sump is getting some rock too. That’s where the majority of my isopods and copepods are right now. I have amphipods all in and under the rock in my system.

My plan is to try and clean the sand thoroughly. It’ll get treated with phosphat-e as well. Once the new (to me) sand and rock are ready I’m going to take the rock that’s in the system now and scrub it down real well. Then I’ll place it most of it in the curing bins and dose them with LaCl albeit much slower since there’s life in those rocks already.

I’ll also clean the sand I already have. I won’t treat my established sand however with LaCl. I need SOME phosphates after all. Once the old sand is clean and the new sand is cured I’ll scoop up a decent amount of the old and mix it with the new. I’ll add it to the display. Then the newly cured rock will go into the display. Once that’s done and the old rock is cured it will either go back into the display or it’ll go in the sump.

 

[Fishy888]

One last post early this morning. My animals are all doing well.

My system is due for a major water change. It’ll be a 50% water change minimum.

I’ll be getting more salt, Hanna phosphorus ulr reagent, and phosphat-e in a few days. Once that happens I can get both bins of rock and the sand cured and ready to go. I can’t wait to get that rock and sand in my display.

If the phosphates in the bin that tested at 39 ppb last night is still below 200 ppb when I test it again; I’ll pull a couple of hermit crabs from the display to eat any remaining algae on the rock in said bin. The small rock from the sump will go in the bin too to help seed the rock in there.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Either you get up at an odd time of the early morning, you work nights or you couldn’t sleep. Whatever the case, hope you’re able to get some rest.

 

[Fishy888]

Either you get up at an odd time of the early morning, you work nights or you couldn’t sleep. Whatever the case, hope you’re able to get some rest.

It was the latter.

 

[Fishy888]

It looks like my prediction of there being phosphate levels of 10 ppm in the rock aren’t in any danger of being wrong as of this afternoon. @Lost in the Sauce called it. I knew it was likely there was more but I was hoping not.

I just dosed another 30 ml of phosphat-e. I’m going to scrub the rock down in a few hours. Tomorrow that bin will need to get changed out.

As of now I have 5, maybe 10, ml of phosphat-e and two reagent packets left. Good thing payday cometh. LOL come to think of it I’m running low on salt too.

Despite the yellow color of the water currently my corals and anemone are doing pretty good. It’s certainly brighter in the DT once again. My fish look like gems shimmering in the light again. They will much more so by early next week. Let’s just hope they have salt left by then.

Since I’m curing all this rock I want to get my system back in shape. Now that we’re no longer paying for the front axle repair we had done a couple of months ago I can get the supplies I need. By the time it’s all said and done the rock in the bins should be ready to go. I don’t want to do all this work just to end up adding a bunch of phosphates back to the rock again.

 

[Fishy888]

I dosed the last 12.5 ml of phosphat-e about two hours ago, at least until early to midweek when I get my 1 liter bottle. I’ve dosed 42.5 ml today. That’s enough to bring phosphates down by 2.27 ppm in our theoretical 75 gallon tank. All told now I’ve dosed enough altogether to drop phosphates by 5.73 ppm in said 75 gallon tank.

So here’s how the rock is looking tonight.

This was from Tuesday night.

I harvested some chaeto tonight. The cyano isn’t growing as fast as it was for a while there. Once I do the water change things will get better still.

I also snapped a picture of the display.

 

[Fishy888]

It looks like I’ll be getting my phosphat-e tomorrow. That’ll give me some time to do a water change on both bins and on my system later today. I’ll have to wait until early next week for the phosphorus reagent packets but I still have two left.

 

[Fishy888]

The last time I scrubbed the rock nothing was coming off of it. The water was clear as a bell. It took me about 45 minutes, maybe less, to scrub the rock in both bins. It’s taken me an hour to do just the rock in the bin I’ve been dosing to.

Here’s what the water looks like. Needless to say I’ll be changing the water shortly.

It’s the color of aragonite sand and not the dark brown it looks like, but it IS as cloudy as the pictures show. A few rocks came apart, mainly where long dead coralline has disintegrated. I think most reefers who have never undertaken a project like this don’t know how true it is that coralline is the cement of the reef. There are a few spots where my biggest rocks may disintegrate where coralline looks like it’ll disintegrate.

It is interesting that the rocks that broke up actually appear to have been separate rocks at one point as I can see the patterns of corallites and the rock was surprisingly smooth where the breaks occurred.

 

[Fishy888]

I finally got the water changed about an hour ago. Even though some of the rock broke into pieces a lot of what’s likely calcium phosphate and lanthanum phosphate crumbles are now out and off of the rock.

I have a feeling that more pieces will break apart as the phosphate gets pulled out of the rock. That said the rock was already somewhat brittle when I got it on Sunday (I can’t believe how quickly the week has passed). Hopefully the larger pieces won’t fall apart but if they do I’ll get some J. B. Waterweld and glue them back together that way. I’ll also take some rubble and intentionally crush it. That way, if and when I have to glue the rock back together, I can coat the epoxy with the powder and small shards of rock.

I’ve been thinking about the sand. I’m not sure how much phosphate is in it but at this point I likely won’t use it. I will however keep the rubble rock that’s in the sand and cure it too. I want to conduct an experiment with the sand though. I’ll take a 4 oz measuring cup worth of sand and put it in a bucket with 3 gallons of saltwater and test it for phosphates. I bet my checker will be blinking at me.

I want to see how much LaCl it would take to bind the phosphates in the 4 oz of sand and calculate how much LaCl it would take to drop the phosphates in the entire bin of sand to 0.0 ppm. I’d bet it would take at least a liter of LaCl to do the whole bin, which is why I probably won’t be using the sand. One other goal of the sand experiment is to see if the sand breaks apart like the rock did or if the phosphates come out without weakening the “grains” (I use CaribSea Special Grade).

I’m going to be making lots of RO/DI water tomorrow. I used my last two buckets worth to make new saltwater for the bin that I scrubbed the rocks in. I’ll need enough RO/DI to change out the water in the other bin and then both bins will be changed out. I also have a large water change to perform on my system. I didn’t get to make the water yesterday but it’ll get it made today since I don’t have to go anywhere.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Remember to flush your membrane.

 

[Fishy888]

Remember to flush your membrane.

I shall. I usually do so every other use. I’ll definitely flush it today.

 

[Fishy888]

My phosphat-e came about an hour ago. The first bin, the bin I’ve been dosing all along, got another 30 ml dose. The second bin got its first dose ever. That bin also got a 30 ml dose.

I flushed the membrane and reconnected the DI resin. I’m letting it run for about an hour which is how long it takes to make 5 gallons. Once that’s done I’ll be making gallons and gallons of RO/DI water.

 

[Fishy888]

All told I’ve dosed 137.5 ml of phosphat-e to the first bin. I’ve also dosed 30 ml to the second bin altogether. In the first bin I’ve dosed enough to bring phosphates down by 7.43 ppm in a 75 gallon volume of water. That’s one hekuva phosphate issue! Could you imagine starting a reef tank with rock this loaded with phosphates? Wowsa!

Edit: Since I’ll probably forget if I don’t post this here, I’ve now dosed 197.5 ml and 90 ml to bins one and two altogether, respectively. I’m going to test bin number one before I dose anymore to it.

 

[Fishy888]

As of now I just made 30 gallons of saltwater for the water change I’m getting ready to do. I still need to make another 30 gallons but I’ve stayed up late enough for one night.

Next month I really need to get a 32 gallon brute trash can so I could just start the RO/DI unit, go to sleep, throw some salt in there upon waking up, and wait for the water to heat up and mix thoroughly.

I’ve now dosed enough LaCl to reduce phosphates in bin number one by 10.53 ppm in 75 gallons of water. As I said in the edit to my last post I’ll test the water. I’ll either scrub the rock again today or tomorrow at the latest.

 

[Fishy888]

It’s been not quite 11 hours since I dose the last dose of LaCl in either bin. I just tested bin number 1 and I got a reading of 32 ppb of phosphorus or 0.98 ppm of phosphates. Needless to say I won’t be dosing anymore to bin number one. I’m going to wait until midnight or so and test it again just to make sure but I think I finally got it done.

The last time I thought I was done I only waited two hours to test. About 8 hours later the water was replenished with phosphates. This time I waited nearly 12 hours. I’ve also changed the water several times and scrubbed the rock like nobody’s business since then. I’ve also dosed enough LaCl to bring phosphates in a 75 gallon water volume down by 10.53 ppm.

Assuming I’m done with bin number one phosphate wise I have a little ways to go yet with bin number two. I’ll dose the second bin in a bit, then I’ll scrub the rock. Now that I know approximately how much LaCl it’ll take to get bin number two squared away I might well have that bin done in a few days too.