TheDryReef - Nano Edition

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I was using this cube as a pest tank for about a year. Every time I would find a pest, I dumped it in here and let battle royal take hold. Frankly, I don’t know what it is or exactly what size it is. When this guy got too big and I guess ate almost everyone one else in the pest tank I thought perhaps I should move him. Then, he ate through the weir and started climbing into the rear chamber and destroying it. It was time to evict him:



So I took some stuff out of “storage” and put it in here. I added some SPS recently, and that might become a headache. The tank is now consuming 1 dKH a day. For kicks I tested then tested again and said “hmmmmmm”

My maintenance is simple - 5 gallon weekly water change. Scrape the glass and once a month put new chemipure in the back while ringing out the foam filter. I put 1 drop a day of Cativ8 MT in it.

Now, I’m afraid I may have to dose daily to compensate for consumption. Not sure what I should do.

I could:
A) nothing and just let the weekly 5g water changes sort it out. But one miss could be really bad..?
B) Put 2 part on a dose
C) drip Kalk on a Doser. This would also likely help as I am the ATO when I remember to look.




Thoughts?

 

[revhtree]

Is your 5g water change replenishing your Cal, Alk etc?

 

[X-37B]

I dose 2 part, with kamoers, in my 15. 20% WC 2× a month. Also run a Tunze ato, floss, and carbon
In my 13g hospital/qt tank dosing 2 part manually.
Both do not have enough demand to drip kalk 24/7.
A4R could be an option on a kamoer.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Very nice!

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Is your 5g water change replenishing your Cal, Alk etc?

It was. Or I lie to myself by saying it was. My 5G water change are keeping this up and running, but then I had the great idea to test my DKH 3 days in a row. Right now it is depleting 0.9 of alkalinity a day, consistently. I bring my mixing bin to 9.0 when I make 250g’s. I use Fritz Blue and lately it is barely coming in at 7 dKH, yup freaking 7. So if I have been doing a 5g water change in what I think is an 8g tank, and let’s assume that the 3g left after my water change was at 9, that means the day I do my water change my DKH could read 2.3. Doesn’t sound right.

8 gallons of water water w/ 9dkh. 7 days x .9 less 9dkh is 2.3. Doesn’t make sense as it’s working. That’s not taking displacement. I would bet that I have 1 to 1.25 displaced.

So @revhtree I did a water change last night. I have ESV that I am going to use tonight to bring this up to 9. I’m going to test every day for 6 days and see what it says. I really do not want to have to set up a doser and I am not going to do manual doses. Simply doing water changes has been working. But, perhaps the tank could be knocking on a crash too. So, I’m not sure how this actually plays out.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Is your 5g water change replenishing your Cal, Alk etc?

Well, here is an example of my water change. Bucket on right, far side, is coming out. Water same color as what’s going in. But, but, but - in such a small tank one thing is all it takes. Something set the yellow/green acro of in the back right. It started to RTN that triggered the space invader to go to war and I am guessing it was the green pallys as ultimately both the Acro and the space invader rtn’d in less then a day. Did an antibiotic dip - no saving them. There is a ton of carbon in the back chamber. I thought it would have done the job if a war broke out. Interestingly - nothing and I mean nothing else was impacted. The goni’s could care less.