. I just upped my kalk dosing and it is gradually raising the alk in the 180. The 330 it still staying right at 10.6 and the 180 is now 10.1 so I'm comfortable moving coral with that difference. I normally run around 8dKH but will worry about dialing that in once I get all the coral over and calculate my consumption then decide how I will maintain levels. I like the simplicity of dripping kalk but don't want a big container up stairs. I may just drill a small hole in the floor and pull from the basement. I have another tank I started using all for reef on a few months ago and it is working surprisingly well and keeping alk very stable. I may try that but haven't decided. I have the powder and stirrer but kalk has been working well and pennies to use. My main concern is that I'm dosing close to my evaporation rate already and I'm not sure I want to get into dosing a slurry. I won a tunze calcium reactor here in a photo bomb contest last year and haven't set it up. I've kicked that idea around but the set up cost with regulator and such is high and I'm not sure I have the smarts to set one up. Gives me something to think about.
Update 4/14/24
Added a few more mouths to feed to help raise NO3.
Added a Midas blenny. I've never had one before. I have a tail spot and lawn mower in other tanks and I really like the blenny personality. I couldn't get good shots as he swam away and mostly hid as soon as it hit the water.
I also added 2 more Talbot damsels. I wanted to try a group of 5 but two was all they had left. Maybe I'll get a pair out of them. Time will tell.
A vlamingii tang is the only fish my Gal has ever picked out for any tank. We lost ours in a velvet outbreak a few years back at about 8 inches. They had a little one at the lfs so I picked it up. It ate right away. Our last one was super mellow so hopefully this one will be similar. They are not the most beautiful tang but if my Gal likes it I can live with it. I'm not an easy person to put up with on a daily basis so she deserves a little something special and nothing says I love you more than a new fish right?
The little yellow with popeye seems to be doing better. It was out swimming and eating with the others yesterday. I was able to get a video of it. It almost looks like an injury but I'm not sure. Its like it's head is dented and maybe bruised but maybe the popeye is causing this affect. I'll keep an eye on it and update. I'm just glad it's out and swimming and eating rather than hiding like it was.
I pulled the 200 micron socks I was running and replaced them with mesh socks. I'll most likey remove them at some point if NO3 stays low. I'm starting to get some settlement in the cryptic zone and will probably get more with no socks. I don't like a neat tidy sump. The sump in the 180 has a thick layer of nasty muck in the fuge chamber, I belive it's called mulm? It is full of life forms including those dreaded bristle worms I love. I'm hoping to replicate that in the bottom cryptic zone on the 330.
I started dosing 60ml of MB7 daily. Figure it should give the good bacteria a boost.
I'm going to hold off turning on the lights and bringing coral over until I get nitrates up. The 180 is running 20 plus and I have a hunch coral wouldn't be happy being dropped onto water with less than 2ppm.
I rethought (?) the idea of using water changes and adding the 180 water removed to the 330 to equalize the alk. It was another dumb idea. I promise they'll be more
Yeah the controllers now are crazy. I dont know code, good lord! I had a reefkeeper back in the day, plug and play what happened to that? It was nice to look at a little lcd screen and see your ph and temp. With a push of a button see what your calc reactor ph was.
Got money, hate math? Buy a deltec reactor. They set up different. My understanding is all you set is the effluent rate.
pH on all tanks has been around 8.2 when tested so I'm good with that. I tend to change things when I get bored, a bad habbit I inherited from my father. If I were to start monitoring pH I would most likely try tweaking something and screw stuff up. This is me
Aww a bumper sticker once that said: if it ain't broke, fix it till it is.
My pH is always low. Between 7.95 and 8.1. funny thing is, as soon as it reaches 8.1 it looks like it hits a ceiling and will be flat. Flat. I don't know what the limiting factor is.To be honest I'm trying to avoid even paying attention to pH. I drip 7200 ml of kalk daily in my 180 and whenever I test pH with Hanna it is identical to all my other tanks that do not get kalk so I don't understand the pH bump everyone talks about. Maybe if I monitored I would see a difference
So is your cryptic zone just a section in your sump?One of the little tangs has developed popeye. It looked like one eye yesterday but both today. I haven't decided a course of action. I'm tempted to just let it go and see what happens. I'm afraid I'll do more harm than good chasing it around trying to catch it to move it to a hospital tank. Everything I've read has treatment being hit or miss. I have treated an orange shoulder tang successfully once only to wake up to it dead in the display a month later with no known cause of death. They have a large vlamingii at a lfs that has had it for a few years and while ugly it doesn't seem to bother the fish. Its always something in this hobby but I'm getting used to the set backs. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not
I feel bad for the poor fish even though they say it isn't painful.
Its the lightest colored and smallest of the three so maybe it didn't get the quite nutrition it needed when it was younger, I dunno.
The other two.
I'm going to start adding MB7 today to try and help the bacteria along.
My PO4 is staying a bit high at 0.28. All speculation on my part from reading and such but I'm thinking the dry rock may be the cause. It was high from the beginning so my thoughts are to try and lower it with some GFO and see if I can get it to stay lower after running the GFO for a while. I'm hoping the rocks will release the excess but again more speculation. I'm not much of a science guy. I'd like to see if I can get it to stay below 0.1 before I start moving stuff over. I run high P04 in the 180 but feed a lot and this tank is getting very little food so that shouldn't drive the PO4 up. I don't fret over numbers and the 180 has pegged the Hanna ulr before with a flashing 0.9 and everything looks fine. I just don't want to start off with an elevated level. NO3 was 3.5 so I'm good there. Alk is staying rock solid at 10.7 dKH since there is no consumption at this point and calcium is 420. I haven't tested mag yet. I may at some point. I typically don't worry about magnesium. pH I couldn't care less about. I've tested a few times over the years and was always over 8. With four tanks running the last thing I want to do is start chasing my tail trying to obtain some magical number.
Corals in the 180 are looking better than ever making the task of pulling it all out something I'm not looking forward to. It will happen tho. I'm sick and tired of listening to those hob overflows gurgling. I can stand next to the 330 and hear nothing but those hobs lol.
I had me a little helper for a couple of days this week. He is explaining the purpose of the "toilet paper" roll in the sump. I'm not a goal oriented person but I have a goal of teaching this guy how to clean glass while he is young enough to think it's fun. My Gal already quit even after I offered her $5 a tank
Looking for worms to feed the fish. My CBB sucks them up like spaghetti.
I put a trap in the 180 last night and caught one of the big peppermint shrimp and put it in the 330.
I'm trying to catch some of the smaller fish and shrimp and have been plucking out hermit crabs and snails and moving them to the 330. I'll wait until I'm pulling rocks and coral to catch the big fish.
The cryptic zone is showing more life.
And the ATS is still growing gha. It will be interesting to see how things go in the display when I turn the lights on.
What would be the fun of that. Nothing like coming home drunk in the dark and sitting down only to find out the couch has been moved. Change is good
I love that they can keep the piece but not be aggressive. I had ours with the large naso that I currently have and they were fine. I'm hoping since the vlamingii is small they will be fine together. I think they will, the naso is pretty mellow.
Good info, thanks. Po was the same today after adding the gfo yesterday. I didn't add a lot, been there done that. My gut says just roll with it at 0.25, It's where the 180 is at now and corals have never looked better. It's almost like they are saying "leave me here don't rip me out". I think I need to get something else to focus on. Memory isn't great but I think this is the second time I strayed down this path. Thank you.
