testing\monitoring levels of things we should test for?

[Rsmolik]

Do a google search for algae scrubber. My integration has almost eliminated water changes and I have taken my skimmer and phos reactor offline! Side benefit tons of pods!!

[Deckoz2302]

Yea its definitely interesting. Soooo roberto wanna print me some boards haha...and did you get the controller back yet? I never heard if you did or not

[tkeracer619]

Yeah I am not going to begin arguing that stuff on this forum. On RC I am much more stubborn .

Nice tank. Is your black sand magnetic? Ever run a magnet through it?

Something you might consider is a calcium reactor vs dosing to keep you going. This should effectively allow easy monitoring of both Alk and Ca in a round about sorta way.

I use a MRC CR2 Dual Calcium Reactor. It is fed water by a Cole-Parmer Digital Peristaltic Pump and gets its CO2 from a aquariumplants.com electronic regulator. The PH is dead stable with a setup like this because water flow and gas rate never change based on media consumption. The ratio stays the same and the controller does nothing other then monitors the PH should something go wrong. With a setup like this my levels do not fluctuate and the reactor needs no adjustments other then once every couple of months as the tanks demand increases or decreases. If my feed pump fails my ph will go way down as CO2 is pumped in. If my regulator fails or I run out of gas my ph will swing to tank level. If the PH does not change, then I have no legitimate reason to believe alk or calcium have substantially changed. I work out of state (a lot) and require my setup to be 100% self stable for more then 10 days at a time, all the time. Magnesium is easy, keep it higher then 3x your calcium and your good. I usually go about 100ppm above 3x for a little headroom. There really should be no need to dose it daily. You can put some in your calcium reactor if your tank needs it. I dose it maybe once a month on a fully stocked 360. If your having to dose it daily I would be very suspicious that you are actually precipitating it.

Look at the flat ph level that this setup gives without any on/off action by the controller. If this changes, I know 100% that something is wrong. I still test 2x a month (when I am home) and so far so good. I have been running this tank this way for over 4 years with little variance of parameters.



Too many variables to label 0/0 as being bad for hard corals in an aquarium. In nature they do just fine with those levels. It is however easy as heck to burn the tissues on hard coral trying to get to those levels in an aquarium. The trick is doing it slow and maintaining close to NSW levels. Higher alk and carbon dosing can destroy hard corals very quickly.

[symon_say]

If I could - I would have a probe for calcium, alkalinity. I dose 7 different things by hand daily. And calc and talk twice daily. Only thing holding me back from dosers is the ability to control them via a probe. I just don't have the know how to create a board to have printed if I were to buy the probes.

Why don't you put some of those things in you top off water??

[Deckoz2302]

I hear ya TK. You have to remember my tanks total volume is 37gallons 25 in the display. Its a bit different from running a larger tank like I have in the past where water changes took care of basically everything. As far as a calcium reactor - I have a Mini-cal calcium reactor that I have not hooked up yet. Something I noticed between larger and smaller tanks is when you do water changes its normally positive reaction in larger tanks. Where in a smaller tank it is not always positive because a swing can be drastic. Take my tank for example - if I don't dose my CA will drop from 465 to the 340s in 6 days. Dkh will drop from 12.6 to the low 8s and mag will drop about 100ppm. Iodide goes from 0.06 to 0 in two days. Iron goes from 0.15 to 0 in 4 days. Potassium will drop from 410 to 380. And strontium will deplete in 5 days.

I am in the process of setting up a 9 tank biotope system. 5 displays. 3 display fuges/sumps and a top off resovoir. The system will be in the 230gallon range which will bring me back to doing water changes as the water changes will have less of a negative effect and more of a positive due to greater water volume and less swings. And also the minical reactor will be incorporated.just waiting for my house to be built.

As far as adding it to my top off water - things like iodide. Iron and potassium don't stay in suspension in freshwater and will fall to the bottom of the resovoir getting pumped into the tank at higher concentrations then needed. Iodide and iron overdose can happen easily with I'll effects on both corals, inverts and macros. As far as calc alk mag supplements - I use a powder for each. I have been working with my brother who is in pharmaceuticals trying to modify a powder fractionator for reef dosing purposes - although will more then likely end up turning my bicarbonate to liquid and get dosing pumps for potassium, iodide, iron and alkalinity. I only mention alkalinity because everyone I know including myself when I used a calcium reactor - I could keep calc and may where I want but alk would always end up in the lower range of 7-8 when I like to keep it around 12 because the growth is astronomically faster when compared to a lower dkh.

One positive of the calc reactor is the fact that you can easily maintain ad 8.3-8.4pH without altering other things such as aerating more opening your house windows etc. The difference between keeping your phone at 8.1 and 8.3 is incredible in the fact that it ultimately doubles your waters supersaturation capability. Try keeping close to 500calc AND a dkh of 12+ with a pH of 8.1..it just doesn't work. Meh oh enough rambling

Also no my black sand is not magnetic

[tkeracer619]

What is it? The last black sand I used was magnetic... it was terrible. Thinking about trying for a second time.

[Deckoz2302]

Caribsea Tahitan Moon