tibbsy07 Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Pics or nothing is happening, jedi. Link to comment
vlangel Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 I am glad that it seems like things are going in the right direction. Here's hoping it continues that way! Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 RIP Beaker the Copperband Butteryfly. Swam with me for 2 years. Never had any problems feeding him. Always ate like a machine. Gone too soon. Link to comment
4x5 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Sorry to hear about the fish, he was really beautiful. Link to comment
SouthFlorida_Tron Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Sucks losing fish, worse losing a favorite Link to comment
metrokat Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Awww Jedibear Beaker was beautiful, and you used to talk about him all the time. Link to comment
vlangel Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Ahhh...I am very sorry. He was a beauty! Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 Nothing to report on the reef, but I need to post this. Found it on a memory card recently and didn't realize I had it. Link to comment
afyounie Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Sucks that this is happening to you. Its always a mystery trying to solve these issues, but just think that once you have it solved, you'll be able to solve similar problems in the future quicker. I read a couple times people saying chloramines might be a problem, but I have chloramines in my water here in TX. 3ppm is what is reported on city water supply site. I don't have any issues with my SPS other than my shoddy dosing abilities. I use a RO/DI unit that I recently replaced the carbon, sediment, and membrane on. Had a bacteria bloom and small crash before I changed it. TDS meter would show 0 on final out, but something I couldn't measure was coming through. The membrane had failed and wasn't filtering anything out either. I hope you figure it out soon. Have you thought about sending a sample of your water to Triton to get tested? Their tests are so thorough from what I've seen, maybe the results can tell you a little more of what's going on. Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 17, 2015 Author Share Posted February 17, 2015 Video of my T. Derasa spawning on Valentine's Day. It spawned every 2 minutes like clockwork for well over an hour. Link to comment
Mr. Microscope Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Sorry about your fish. That's one of my favorites and one of the primary fish that got me into the hobby. Amazing video of the clam! How big is it? Do you have a moon cycle or other clams in the tank? Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 17, 2015 Author Share Posted February 17, 2015 Sorry about your fish. That's one of my favorites and one of the primary fish that got me into the hobby. Amazing video of the clam! How big is it? Do you have a moon cycle or other clams in the tank? There's a lot and a long story about fish death that I'll post another time. But yeah losing the Copperband hurt. A lot. Re: the derasa. I got it from Dr. Mac in September 2013 at around 4". I measured it a few weeks ago at 8". Weighs a ton too. I have 6 other clams, all T. Maxima. No moon cycle or anything. This spawning occurred under full light, right near the end of the full light cycle. Now that I think about it, it might have gone on past full light into the dusk period too. Link to comment
Mr. Microscope Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Very cool! I miss my clam. It outgrew my tank when it hit the six inch mark (from 3 inches). Link to comment
BluCrab Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 Sorry to hear about your loss Jedi. Like I told a friend of mine , our reefs become family, just like a person can love a dog and make him part of the family ,so do Reefers. When my Flame Hawk ,Sith Sizzer jumped out the tank after having him over two years it hurt like a SOB. When Charlie Brown the clown died I swore to never name a fish again. <tear in my beer> Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted March 30, 2015 Author Share Posted March 30, 2015 New Red Table with blue growth tips, March 23rd: Same Red table, march 29th: And here's my setosa, this is how it just looks. Special photo bomb by McCosker's Flasher. Useless statistics: Salinity is 35 ppt. Specific Gravity is 1.026. Refractometer is calibrated. pH varies daily between 8.10 and 8.44. dKH was 6.3 last night. Saturated kalkwasser is added hourly, totaling 4800 ml per day. Soda ash (BRS 'alkalinity' 2-part) is added 8x per day, totaling 62 ml per day. Calcium chloride, (BRS calcium 2-part) is added 8x per day, totaling 53 ml per day. Last i checked it was around 440 ppm. I'll check tonight again if I can stay awake. I change 10% water with hw-Marine Mix Reefer Pro, once a week. I have 8 clams. Link to comment
markalot Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Magnesium? I would take Kats advice to me when I killed my sps and stop using Kalk for now. I am dosing 95ml each of two part a day over 24 doses. No Kalk in topoff but it's still higher PH than tank water. I topoff via timer so I'm not dumping a lot of topoff in the tank at once. Topoff runs for 15 seconds every 10 minutes and keep levels good enough over a week, at least. I use TLF C-Balance which keeps my Magnesium in range. Link to comment
metrokat Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Something about KALK doesn't agree with my system. Both you and Mark are heavy alk and calcium users and I understand that you might be dumping 6 gallons of it to make up for not using KALK but my gut tells me KALK in some cases isn't healthy for the reef. Yes thousands of people have nothing but good things to say and RHF also suggests using KALK, but each reef is different. If you have plenty of 2 part on hand to try a water change and then stop KALK and compensate with 2 part alone, do it. What can it hurt. Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted March 31, 2015 Author Share Posted March 31, 2015 I fell asleep last night so I didn't do much or think about the tank beyond filling the ATO and feeding the monsters. Here's a few tidbits though... I cannot maintain anything even resembling normal levels of Alkalinity nor Calcium with EITHER kalkwasser or 2-part ALONE. Just can't do it. I'd have to dump in so much kalkwasser that I'd dilute my water or so much 2-part that I'd run dry after a week or two. Plus all that calcium chloride has to screw things up some too. I recently tried just kalkwasser...I couldn't get dKH over 5.something. Sigh. If I use just the 2 part, it will be something like 15 minutes of drip for each of calcium and alkalinity. I need kalkwasser to help with pH levels too. So the only solution I've found is dosing both. The ATO only adds pure RO/DI on demand. Kalkwasser is dosed hourly, for 8 minutes, at the bottom of the hour. RO/DI is pushed through the Avast K1 and then into the sump (the drain section for whatever that is worth) Alkalinity/Calcium/Magnesium are dosed every 3 hours, also into the sump... IE 00:00 alkalinity ... 7 minute drip 00:30 kalkwasser ... 8 minute drip 01:00 calcium ... 6 minute drip 01:30 kalkwasser ... 8 minute drip 02:00 magnesium* ... 1 minute drip 02:30 kalkwasser ... 8 minute drip 03:00 alkalinity ... 7 minute drip etc * I haven't been dosing magnesium. It had risen high, very high, >1500 ppm, so I turned off the doser. At the same time I also started a much more regimented and regular water change schedule, so I'm not even sure i need to dose magnesium anymore. That all being said I haven't tested it in a while. I'll do that tonight. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 So no amount of dosing will allow you to budge your cal/alk numbers? That to me screams low magnesium. What test kit are you using? Have anyone that can test it and confirm? Link to comment
mdodso00 Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 What kind of dog is Penny? Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted March 31, 2015 Author Share Posted March 31, 2015 So no amount of dosing will allow you to budge your cal/alk numbers? That to me screams low magnesium. What test kit are you using? Have anyone that can test it and confirm? When I had it Triton tested in December, they read something like 1700 ppm magnesium. Using the Red Sea titration test myself in January it was uh, off the scale high. At first I thought that maybe that might be part of the insanity problems in my reef, but everything I've read said otherwise, that super high magnesium wouldn't crash anything. So I stopped panicking, but kept up with my weekly water changes. Anyway last time I tested myself it was something like 1350-1400ppm - ish with the doser off for a few weeks at that point. I haven't tested in a while. I will tonight I hope. The period where i'm sure Mag was > 1400 was also when I experimented with just kalkwasser and no 2 - part. A few weeks of that and I was only able to get dKH into the 5.0-5.8 range and couldn't get calcium above 360. So I started up with 2-part again, in small doses (new mix too) in addition to the kalkwasser and after 2x a week testing was able to get to around 440 ppm Ca and nearly 8.0 dKH. Then about 2 weeks ago I tested dKH and it was barely 6. Maybe in that interim magnesium crashed, but I doubt it would because of my pretty very regular often water changes. We'll see tonight. I'll test mag and calcium after dinner. For the record, I test alkalinity with both a Hanna electronic egg and the Red Sea titration test. They agree. Calcium, I also use the Hanna but the results have been insane lately ( > 500) so I think my reagents are bad, as the Red Sea titration shows 440 - ish like you'd expect. Magnesium is Red Sea. I dose everything into the drain section, right where the drains enter and cause a lot of turbulence. The skimmer intake is 18" away from there, in the same section. I'm working on the assumption that this is not a bad thing for purposes of dosing calcium/carbonate/magnesium/calcium hydroxide etc. Back in the day I would dose into the return section, but there was a fair amount of build up in the return section of the sump, so I moved it all into the drain for the added stir. What kind of dog is Penny? Golden Retriever, English Cream variety. She's my princess. She also enjoys sleeping up against the tank stand in winter. I think the warmth of the lights makes her happy Now that it's a little warmer, she's back to sleeping in the bathroom on the tile. heh Link to comment
mdodso00 Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 Ah ok. She looked like a goldendoodle. Link to comment
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