yukongt Posted February 16, 2012 Author Share Posted February 16, 2012 My alkalinity tested 9.1 tonight, up significantly from last night! That is completely not what I expected. I guess I will have to remeasure tomorrow night and see what happens. I am debating on buying a different skimmer. Currently, I have a EuroReef RS80 and it just does not seem to ever build a good head of foam. I am always tinkering with it. I am thinking about purchasing the Reef Ocotpus BH-50. Has anyone ever used this skimmer? Opinions? http://coralvue.com/reef-octopus-bh50-protein-skimmer/ Link to comment
yukongt Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 Now that I am keeping up my with kalk additions I have decided that I need an ato for the tank. I hate checking the tank every night to make sure that my drip rate has not changed. I purchased an ato from Avast Marine that will easily integrate with my Reef Angel. I am going to program my controller to only allow the ato to run at night and for a set time period. I am also going to use a micro valve to limit the flow coming into the tank. I think with all the redundancy I will have little chance to overfill the sump. I am also going to start using a 5g bucket for my top off water. This should last me a little over a week. Here is a link to the ato I purchased incase no one has seen them. The make a stand alone version and versions that integrate with most controllers. http://www.avastmarine.com/ssc/do/product/...ing/Top-off-Kit Link to comment
yukongt Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 I just mixed my first batch of IO (1.026) since I have been testing. Here are the results: Calc:370 ppm Alk : 9.3 dkh Mg: 1080 ppm I am shooting for: Calcium: 400 ppm Alkalinity :11 dkh Magnesium: 1350 ppm Here is what I need to add to my wc water (4g at 1.026) Calc: 9.4 ml Alk : 2.4 ml Mg: 87 ml A few pictures from my skimmer cup cleanout tonight. Smelled pretty bad! I was going to upgrade skimmers, but I think I will stick with this one and just add some more bioload to the tank. Link to comment
yukongt Posted March 2, 2012 Author Share Posted March 2, 2012 I received my Avast ATO yesterday. I am really impressed with how it is built. I think this thing is going to be the ATO of the future. I have it all hooked up, but I still need to pick up an aqualifter. The ato communicates with my Reef Angel so that I can control how often the pump runs to avoid overfilling my sump. Link to comment
yukongt Posted March 7, 2012 Author Share Posted March 7, 2012 Good News! My zoa frags are starting to grow, two of my 5 frags have a new small polyp forming Link to comment
yukongt Posted March 11, 2012 Author Share Posted March 11, 2012 Here are a few updated pictures now that I am getting my dosing under control. All my SPS are starting to encrust nicely. I am pleased with the growth. The first picture is of my custom main screen on my Reef Angel. Next to "ATO Last on" it will display the last time that the ATO ran. There is nothing there now because I had to re-upload my code. Link to comment
yukongt Posted March 22, 2012 Author Share Posted March 22, 2012 I have not had much to post recently because I am just letting my tank grow. I just wanted to say that I can not believe how much better my tank looks. I always thought that I took good care of my tank, but I was wrong. Now that I am testing parameters and really paying attention to the small things my tank has started to take off and the colors are really starting to pop. When people say that husbandry is everything they are 100% correct. There is not magic solution that you can add to your tank to make everything grow. It just requires some TLC and water changes! Link to comment
yukongt Posted March 28, 2012 Author Share Posted March 28, 2012 So after months of tinkering, I think I finally have everything dialed in. I am dosing saturated limwater as my top off and it is maintaining my alk and calc levels. Now I am going to start upping my alk and calc levels to my target numbers. If you have not looked at the AVAST ATO's I would highly recommend them. My water level I bet only changes at 1/8th of an inch or so. It is pretty awesome. How does everyone that doese kalk deal with the changes in evaporation for winter to summer? Finally, I put a ball of chaeto in my sump that I picked up from Paradise Aquatics. I am hoping this will help with an phosphates that are in the tank. I love to feed my tank. All the information in this thread is a little scattered. Below is a list of maintenance, feeding and dosing I do. Water Change: try for once a week, but no less than every other week with IO. Glass: clean as required. I am a little lazy with this as I have big hands and have trouble cleaning the lower parts Skimmer: Euro Reef RS80 - cleaned once a week Tank Automation: Reef Angel Wave Maker: Vortech MP10 Filter Sock: Rotated twice a week. I think the filter sock really helped my tank. It helps to keep the sump clean and reduces the buildup of detrius. Top off: Limewater via ATO Feeding: everyday with flake, cyclopeeze and coral slurpie. I add in Black Jack Reef Crack a few times a week Alk: Limewater via ATO (2tsp/gal) Calc: Limewater via ATO (2tsp/gal) Mag: 30ml of recipe 1 from BRS once a week on Sunday (mag chloride and mag sulfate) Carbon Dosing: I have been dosing vodka every day. I started out at .5/ml a day and have worked up to .8ml. I am not sure if is helping my tank, but I know my skimmer is working better. I am going to go at this slowly. Macro Algae: Chaeto. I just added this and will be lit on the same lighting cycle as the DT. These things seem to really be working for me. My corals look better then they ever have now and are really starting to ecrust and grow, plus my lps are splitting like crazy. Link to comment
yukongt Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 Ok, well I made a bonehead move. I decided to raise my alk and calc levels tonight and for some reason I decided to raise them all at once. Well, I overestimated the volume of my tank and overdosed the tank. My alk went from 8 to 14 and my calc from 390 to 460. I have no idea why I decided to be impatient. I knew something was wrong in about 2 minutes when all my lps shriveled up and my sps retracted their polyps. I am currently mixing a wc, but it won't be ready until tomorrow and my ATO is straight RODI. What does everyone think the outcome of this will be? Will everything be ok? I can't believe I made suck a dumb mistake just because I was impatient. Link to comment
yukongt Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 Everything made it though the night. I am going to do a big WC tonight to get my levels back down. Link to comment
yukongt Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 Well, my plate and candy canes did not make it. I did a water change last night and removed the dying corals. This morning the tank is still pretty cloudy. I am going to do another wc tonight and replace my carbon. I really hope I do not lose anything else. I finally got to the point where I had everything going smoothly on the tank and then had to go screw it all up. Link to comment
olendorf Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 That sucks. Keep plugging and do keep updating us. I'm also hopefully going to learn from your mistakes so these updates are important to a lot of others even though you don't see many comments in your thread. Scott Link to comment
yukongt Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 Thanks, that is why I do it. I just wish people would get a little more involved in the thread. Oh, well. As an update. Three of my SPS are now toast. I guess it gives me a reason to go buy some more frags. Link to comment
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