Hello everyone. I am going to give as much info as I can about my system in hopes that some of you can provide me with some advise. I am new to reefing so please bare with me. Any advise will be greatly greatly appreciated.
I have a new tank that is a little over 3 months old. I set it up with dry rock and dry sand. I did a fishless cycle using Dr. Tim's kit. Everything is going great. I have 6 fish, 3 hermit crabs, a cleaner shrimp, about 20 small frags and a couple small/medium sized euphyllia corals in the tank. The tank is a 54 gallon Red Sea Reefer 250 with an 11 gallon sump (65 total gallons). I have been running the tank with auto water changes since day one changing 1 gallon per day which is about 10%-11% water change per week. I've been using the Fritz RPM blue box salt. I've been testing Calcium, Magnesium, Nitrate, Phosphate once per week and Alkalinity every day. I use Hanna checkers for Cal, Alk, Phosphate. I use Salifert for Mag and Nyos for Nitrate. My current perimeters are as follows:
Calcium 455
Alkalinity 5.1
Magniesium 1425
Nitrate 5
Phosphate 0.05
I have a couple fish quarantine tanks running and also a coral QT as well that I have been pulling water from the DT to put into the QT's between medication treatments. I then replace the DT water with freshly mixed saltwater. So this is obviously additional water changes on top of my daily auto water change system. I only do these QT water changes once a month between medications, usually about 15 gallons over a few days. This would bring my Alkalinity back up to about 6.5 however every day the Alkalinty drops by 0.5 at least. Once I'm done doing water changes in the QT's the Alk will steadily drop over a week down to about 5 where is seems to level out. I tried dosing by hand Sodium Bicarbonate for one week by hand at 20ml in the morning and 20ml at night to try to keep the Alk up. Every day I would test before dosing and the Alk would drop at least 0.5 within 12 hours. I am logging all of my testing and dosing in my Apex and the Alk graph in Apex Fusion looks like a roller coaster during the dosing period! While I had my Alkalinity up a few of the corals looked much better. More colorful and fluffy. When the Alk is low the few corals look downright bad. I want to try and keep the Alk up closer to the level of my salt mix of 8.5. I'd even be happy if I could maintain it around 7. Alot of the research that I've done says that Alkalinity and Calcium get absorbed in equal amounts but that most definitely isn't the case with my system. Where is the Alkalinty being absorbed?
Here are a few things that I have on hand but just don't know which path to take if any:
BRS Sodium Bicarbonate
BRS Soda Ash
BRS Calcium
BRS Magnisium
BRS Kalkwasser
Avast Kalkwasser reactor
BRS 1.01ml per minute dosing pump
Kamoer X1 Pro dosing pump
So here are some of my questions/concerns:
I have this dosing pump, should I start dosing either the Sodium Bicarbonate or Soda Ash to keep the Alk up? Some of my research has said that I shouldn't dose Alkalinity without dosing Calcium. However my Calcium levels are fine...
I have a saltwater mixing station with a 30 gallon Brute can that I keep saltwater for the auto water change system. I thought about maybe adding the Sodium Bicarbonate to the newly mixed saltwater to bring the Alkalinity in the bin to say about 12 and let the auto water change system basically dose the tank and hopefully equalize the Alk level in the display tank to a higher level, hopefully around 7 or more. I'm just not sure if this is a normal practice or if it would cause excessive precipitant in my mixing bin.
I also thought about switching to the Fritz RPM Red Box which is basically the same salt with a higher Alk level of 12.... small problem is I just bought a brand new box of the RPM Blue Box...
I also thought about dosing Sodium bicarbonate slowly over about a week to bring the Alkalinity up to around the 8 mark and then fire up this kalkwasser stirrer. I'm just not sure if the kalkwasser with then in turn elevate my calcium to an undesired level...?
Please help guys! I really don't know what path to take if any. Should I just leave it alone? Where is all of this Alkalinity going?! Let me know if I left out any info about my system.
Thanks for any guidance.
I have a new tank that is a little over 3 months old. I set it up with dry rock and dry sand. I did a fishless cycle using Dr. Tim's kit. Everything is going great. I have 6 fish, 3 hermit crabs, a cleaner shrimp, about 20 small frags and a couple small/medium sized euphyllia corals in the tank. The tank is a 54 gallon Red Sea Reefer 250 with an 11 gallon sump (65 total gallons). I have been running the tank with auto water changes since day one changing 1 gallon per day which is about 10%-11% water change per week. I've been using the Fritz RPM blue box salt. I've been testing Calcium, Magnesium, Nitrate, Phosphate once per week and Alkalinity every day. I use Hanna checkers for Cal, Alk, Phosphate. I use Salifert for Mag and Nyos for Nitrate. My current perimeters are as follows:
Calcium 455
Alkalinity 5.1
Magniesium 1425
Nitrate 5
Phosphate 0.05
I have a couple fish quarantine tanks running and also a coral QT as well that I have been pulling water from the DT to put into the QT's between medication treatments. I then replace the DT water with freshly mixed saltwater. So this is obviously additional water changes on top of my daily auto water change system. I only do these QT water changes once a month between medications, usually about 15 gallons over a few days. This would bring my Alkalinity back up to about 6.5 however every day the Alkalinty drops by 0.5 at least. Once I'm done doing water changes in the QT's the Alk will steadily drop over a week down to about 5 where is seems to level out. I tried dosing by hand Sodium Bicarbonate for one week by hand at 20ml in the morning and 20ml at night to try to keep the Alk up. Every day I would test before dosing and the Alk would drop at least 0.5 within 12 hours. I am logging all of my testing and dosing in my Apex and the Alk graph in Apex Fusion looks like a roller coaster during the dosing period! While I had my Alkalinity up a few of the corals looked much better. More colorful and fluffy. When the Alk is low the few corals look downright bad. I want to try and keep the Alk up closer to the level of my salt mix of 8.5. I'd even be happy if I could maintain it around 7. Alot of the research that I've done says that Alkalinity and Calcium get absorbed in equal amounts but that most definitely isn't the case with my system. Where is the Alkalinty being absorbed?
Here are a few things that I have on hand but just don't know which path to take if any:
BRS Sodium Bicarbonate
BRS Soda Ash
BRS Calcium
BRS Magnisium
BRS Kalkwasser
Avast Kalkwasser reactor
BRS 1.01ml per minute dosing pump
Kamoer X1 Pro dosing pump
So here are some of my questions/concerns:
I have this dosing pump, should I start dosing either the Sodium Bicarbonate or Soda Ash to keep the Alk up? Some of my research has said that I shouldn't dose Alkalinity without dosing Calcium. However my Calcium levels are fine...
I have a saltwater mixing station with a 30 gallon Brute can that I keep saltwater for the auto water change system. I thought about maybe adding the Sodium Bicarbonate to the newly mixed saltwater to bring the Alkalinity in the bin to say about 12 and let the auto water change system basically dose the tank and hopefully equalize the Alk level in the display tank to a higher level, hopefully around 7 or more. I'm just not sure if this is a normal practice or if it would cause excessive precipitant in my mixing bin.
I also thought about switching to the Fritz RPM Red Box which is basically the same salt with a higher Alk level of 12.... small problem is I just bought a brand new box of the RPM Blue Box...
I also thought about dosing Sodium bicarbonate slowly over about a week to bring the Alkalinity up to around the 8 mark and then fire up this kalkwasser stirrer. I'm just not sure if the kalkwasser with then in turn elevate my calcium to an undesired level...?
Please help guys! I really don't know what path to take if any. Should I just leave it alone? Where is all of this Alkalinity going?! Let me know if I left out any info about my system.
Thanks for any guidance.