Jedi's Science Reef

[ReefWeeds]

I just read the last 6 pages and I think my brain melted a bit. But wow, I learned a LOT. This thread is great!

[metrokat]

Low pH actually precedes the ESV Salt phosphate poisoning, but long story short...

 

Dead fish (especially anthias), dead clams, 0 coral growth, dead coral (rtn/stn, not fried tips) During the bad days of pH problems, my daily swing was something like 7.60 to 8.00 if i was lucky. I didn't see 8 for a long time. It was awesome. Once I got the refugium and the kalkwasser going, pH stopped being an issue and things got way better. Then a few months later I poisoned my reef for nearly a year with Satan's salt.

I thought the dead fish was because of Bin Laden?

0 coral growth is consistent in your tank, low ph, high ph, no ph.

Coral death too.

[jedimaster1138]

The dosing was your idea, I just compounded that it was good

 

RHF doses 110mL vinegar daily: http://reef2reef.com/threads/randys-tank-description.172508/#post-2000650 His tank is a 120g with five 44g Brute cans as refugia and sump, so probably somewhere around 220-240g total volume depending on the running level of the cans.

 

Thanks for linking that. I was going to go looking for it. I'm very jealous of his multiple big Brute cans of rock, refugia algaes, etc. It's on the list for the giant basement tank if we ever actually move.

 

So far so good with the autodosing, but it's only been 12 hours.

 

I thought the dead fish was because of Bin Laden?

0 coral growth is consistent in your tank, low ph, high ph, no ph.

Coral death too.

 

Heh. You're confused due to the sheer number of calamities in my reef.

 

Tank inception - Fall 2013 .... pH problems. 7.60-7.9x daily swing. Lots of dead fish, corals, clams.

Fall and Winter 2013 ... pH problems cease thanks to Kalkwasser use and refugium lit 18 hours/day. Corals and clams and fish begin to thrive

Spring 2014 ... switch to ESV salt.

Spring 2014 - Fall 2014 ... phosphate rises inexorably. SPS corals crumble. Fish and clams thrive.

Thanksgiving 2014 ... switch off ESV salt to hw-MarineMix Reefer

January 2015 - February 14, 2015 ... Bin Laden the Black and White Chromis murders 3/4 of my fish. SEAL Team Jedi-Bear catches him on 2-14-2015 after Valentines Day dinner with the wife.

Late 2014 to present ... phosphate continues to leech out of rocks/sand etc, GFO swings it, Alkalinity swings, coral tips cooked etc. Lots of bacteria dosing to combat etc. Just read the previous 3 pages

Also this thread needs some Penny.

 

[tibbsy07]

I still am unsure what the bacteria you are dosing are doing for you? I didn't see a response to my previous post about the bacterial dosing.

 

This is probably going to make me unpopular, but I think you are making things WAY complicated. You are adding all kinds of things and assuming that they all work together without a problem. You are changing things too quickly. This isn't a science reef anymore - it's a reaction reef. Slow down. Take a step back and make slow changes.

[markalot]

I still am unsure what the bacteria you are dosing are doing for you? I didn't see a response to my previous post about the bacterial dosing.

 

This is probably going to make me unpopular, but I think you are making things WAY complicated. You are adding all kinds of things and assuming that they all work together without a problem. You are changing things too quickly. This isn't a science reef anymore - it's a reaction reef. Slow down. Take a step back and make slow changes.

 

All he's doing is adding NOPOX (carbon source) and prodbio bacteria or carbon source. He took GFO offline, so in fact his methods are fairly simple. Bacteria isn't going to hurt, even if it doesn't help. I still suggest leaving GFO running to help pull the PO4 out of the rocks.

 

Since I finally recognized my po4 issue I'm a bit sensitive to the talk that doing nothing or waiting is a good idea in this case. In my case waiting killed some of my corals because when you have a PO4 leeching problem doing nothing will let it spike, which slows growth and caused KH to spike and bam, dead acros. I chose to throw the kitchen sink at the phosphate problem and see what happens. I have a giant bag of Phosguard in the sump and corals look happy.

 

One must react based on tank size and background, uh, pressure for lack of a better term.

 

I'm still amazed and distressed how fast PO4 can rise in my tank, 150 gallons of water, if I don't make sure the PO4 media is still working. Depressing.

[jedimaster1138]

I still am unsure what the bacteria you are dosing are doing for you? I didn't see a response to my previous post about the bacterial dosing.

 

This is probably going to make me unpopular, but I think you are making things WAY complicated. You are adding all kinds of things and assuming that they all work together without a problem. You are changing things too quickly. This isn't a science reef anymore - it's a reaction reef. Slow down. Take a step back and make slow changes.

 

I actually had a long reply typed out to yours and other posts about a week ago, then hit the wrong button on my keyboard and blew it up. It was... yeah. I wasn't happy when I did that. heh Anyway, apologies, wasn't ignoring. Just pissed off at my fat fingers.

 

Regarding the bacteria dosing, IE the Prodibio. After starting that, which was about 2-3 months before I added NOPOX, I definitely noticed a drop in nitrate. Phosphate, less so, but it was only 2-3 months, so, take that with a grain of reef salt. Maybe on a Prodibio only regimen for more time I would have seen a phosphate reduction. Anyway, what I'm driving at is despite your completely reasonable and well thought out arguments, which i don't//can't disagree with, the Prodibio is/was doing SOMETHING positive for me.. So ... yeah I dunno what else to say about Prodibio. I'm not as big of a fan of their bacteria "food" as much as the bacteria itself (I can't remember which name is which and I'm too lazy to look it up). I actually stopped using their food/carbon source when I started on NOPOX. I think their carbon source might have contributed to the little bit of cyano I'm seeing/saw.

 

Other changes. Well honestly there haven't been many...

 

late January - start Prodibio

Late April or Early May - start NOPOX

Very late May - stop GFO/GAC

Mid June - automate NOPOX

 

Along the way I saw a drop in nitrate and phosphate, which was great, but then after reducing the NOPOX quantity, even though it was a small reduction, nitrate and phosphate went back up. So now I've automated it to dose hourly, the same amount I had been dosing at the peak. Actually slightly more depending on how much my doser is actually dosing. I had "calibrated" it a few weeks ago and it was dosing 1.1 ml/min, but it might be a little fickle. So we'll see how spreading the carbon dosing out does. The big bolus doses were less than ideal I'm sure. Automation FTW.

 

One more thing, I might have said this before, but every day I think about my own experiences and hear about Mark's to some extent, I'm even more certain about what was happening:

 

Phosphate rises as phosphate absorbing media is exhausted, slowing, if not halting, calcification. Measured alkalinity rises as corals/clams/coraline aren't taking it in. Some corals react negatively and immediately to this spike in alkalinity. Others react negatively to the spike down in alkalinity that occurs when the phosphate absorbing media is changed, which spikes phosphate down and restarts calcification in some species.

 

I reiterate that this is all species specific (perhaps even on a higher level). I've seen it happen with acropora, montipora, seriatopora, stylophora but I've also seen some species, heck even some corals, not care, where others do.

 

I'd love to have a basement a lot of space and time to test this all out. Maybe in a few years. For now I just want to stop murdering corals.

 

All he's doing is adding NOPOX (carbon source) and prodbio bacteria or carbon source. He took GFO offline, so in fact his methods are fairly simple. Bacteria isn't going to hurt, even if it doesn't help. I still suggest leaving GFO running to help pull the PO4 out of the rocks.

 

Since I finally recognized my po4 issue I'm a bit sensitive to the talk that doing nothing or waiting is a good idea in this case. In my case waiting killed some of my corals because when you have a PO4 leeching problem doing nothing will let it spike, which slows growth and caused KH to spike and bam, dead acros. I chose to throw the kitchen sink at the phosphate problem and see what happens. I have a giant bag of Phosguard in the sump and corals look happy.

 

One must react based on tank size and background, uh, pressure for lack of a better term.

 

I'm still amazed and distressed how fast PO4 can rise in my tank, 150 gallons of water, if I don't make sure the PO4 media is still working. Depressing.

 

A good summation.

 

I have actually simplified things quite a bit. No more changing medias and flow rates blah blah. All I do now is...

 

water change weekly

dose bacteria weekly

dose 2-part/kalkwasser tri-hourly (and conservatively)

carbon dose hourly

and skim like it's my job.

 

Speaking of, skimmer output has increased more than two-fold since starting NOPOX (and to a lesser degree Prodibio) And it bloody stinks extra bad too.

[tibbsy07]

Unless he's adding carbon and the bacteria he is adding are just dying anyways, which means he is adding carbon AND excess nutrients in the form of dead/dying bacteria which contain phosphates, among other goodies for stuff to eat.

 

Have you considered something like PhosphateRx? Melev from Melev's reef uses it and swears by it.

[jedimaster1138]

Unless he's adding carbon and the bacteria he is adding are just dying anyways, which means he is adding carbon AND excess nutrients in the form of dead/dying bacteria which contain phosphates, among other goodies for stuff to eat.

 

Have you considered something like PhosphateRx? Melev from Melev's reef uses it and swears by it.

 

I assume that's lanthanum chloride? I've thought about LC and it makes me a little nervous. I've seen some horror stories, especially around clams.

 

Unless it's not lanthanum chloride, I'll read in a minute.

 

I'm also of the mind that the system needs to balance out without these tools like GFO, Aluminum (phosguard) or lanthanum chloride that were never meant to be used 24x7. In my mind, "finding a balance" is with more export via skimming out the bacteria that are consuming the phosphate (and nitrate). I realize this is the slower than the tools as well, but again, given the above spike swing mechanism, I think that slow reduction is a good thing. To an extent.

 

It's the spikes up and down that kill the corals and the nutrient rich environment that simply slows it down.

 

I have a feeling that if I did nothing, even stopped carbon/bacteria dosing and only skimmed - so no GFO or GAC either - that the reef would probably churn on. Coral growth would probably be awful - depending on the species - though color might be OK, again, depending on the species. Clams would be fine, depending on the clam species. If I dropped a new acropora in, it might grow, it might color up, it might not. It might go full on necrosis in 24 hours or in a month. Or it might look like my maricultured slimer that hasn't cared at all during the past 2 years of phosphate hell and alkalinity spikes.

 

Again, it's all critter specific.

[jedimaster1138]

Cleaned the glass last night, came home to white fuzzy algae all over it today. I assume that's a bacterial bloom...

 

Turn off the NOPOX doser for x hours?

 

Reduce the quantity of NOPOX? (if so, permanently or for how long and how much?)

 

Turn on the UV ? (hasn't been on in a year)

 

Do nothing, eat bbq and watch baseball...

[tibbsy07]

I have no idea what PhosphateRx is. I just know some people use it.

 

As far as the bacteria, skimming will pull them away but only if they are intact.

 

Definitely a matter of finding a balance. But i hesitate to believe most of the microbial products on the market.

 

As for the nopox - if you want the bloom to go away, stop feeding them. The UV sterilizer will just kill everything that you want to grow, so you have to decide for yourself.

[jedimaster1138]

Yeah I checked, PhosphateRX is liquid lanthanum chloride.

 

I went with fall asleep on the couch - food coma - then wake up and clean the skimmer cup and neck. If there's bacteria bloom happening tomorrow I'll cut off NOPOX for 8 hours.

 

Random - is chaeto better at eating up nitrate or phosphate? How about caulerpa, same question?

[metrokat]

Chaeto eats it like a boss.

[jedimasterben]

Random - is chaeto better at eating up nitrate or phosphate? How about caulerpa, same question?

Well, they still take it in in approximately the same Redfield ratio (though everything is slightly different in its own ratio), but it takes so much volume of macros to make an impact versus what is being fed that for most it's not worth it. You can certainly give it a shot, but you will need a very large volume, extreme light, and lots of flow.

[jedimaster1138]

Chaeto eats it like a boss.

 

 

Well, they still take it in in approximately the same Redfield ratio (though everything is slightly different in its own ratio), but it takes so much volume of macros to make an impact versus what is being fed that for most it's not worth it. You can certainly give it a shot, but you will need a very large volume, extreme light, and lots of flow.

 

Right. Yeah I've been thinking about macros again. I have gracilira growing well in the fuge and half a dozen mangroves. I had put some chaeto in a while back but it melted. It didn't look great in the bag to be honest though.

 

I turned the doser off for 12 hours. Will turn it back on tomorrow around noon. Bacterial bloom was pretty thick today. Skimmer is pulling gunk out like mad, which is obviously good, but I'm a little worried about the bacteria fuzz getting on corals or fish and causing issues. So I'll back off slightly for half a day. Test tomorrow and resume maybe with a slightly lower dose.

[jedimaster1138]

So I'm seriously considering giving up on my setosa colony. It's over 8" front to back, but the flesh has been slowly sloshing off for months now and recently got dramatically worse.

 

March 23rd --

 

 

 

Today (under just 1 ATI Blue+ and 1 ATI Actinic + LED's)

 

 

The hunk on the extreme left, on that rocky outcropping, was inadvertently fragged a while back, so I glued it there for no reason.

 

Anyway you can see the decline. This has been one of the hardest hit, albeit slowest, of all my SPS Death Pieces I'm inclined to save a few frags and surrender on the rest. It doesn't appear to be getting better, in fact it's getting worse. I can see the orange flesh crumbling off in the current in places. I guess I could chop most of it out and do something else with the spot.

 

On the bright side that purple candelabra gorgonian has grown a lot!

[jedimaster1138]

The above Setosa colony is now 90% gone. Flesh continues to slosh off. I should rip it out tonight.

 

Last night's measurements...

 

Phosphate = 0.68

Nitrate = > 4 ppm

dKH = 6.5

Magnesium = 1280 ppm

Calcium = 410 ppm

 

On Friday I disabled the NOPOX dosing. The bacterial bloom was out of control. There was white fuzz on everything in both the DT and the sump, and it would occasionally fly off and wrap around a coral. Also the tangs were nibbling it. That can't be healthy. I'm going to have to go back to just dosing it manually a couple times a day I guess.

 

Also, I needed that dosing pump to auto dose magnesium. I found that it had dropped a lot to around 1100. Slowly bringing it back up. New water mixes to between 1350 to 1400. I have another pump in the closet, but i don't have a spot inside the stand to stick it so...yeah.

 

My big maxima doesn't look great. Mantle extension is lacking. The small one refuses to grab its rock. I would imagine I'll lose both those soon, if not in a matter of hours. I don't know if it's the bacteria bloom that did them in, or the super high N and P followed by low N and P followed by super high N and P, again. Also I have no clue how and why N and P spiked up so much.

 

Aiptasia is running rampant everywhere and on the above clam shells, irritating the mantles. There's only so much Aiptasia-X and wand I can do.

 

Cyano is blooming everywhere on the edges of the tank.

 

So yeah, that's fun. I'm about out of things to do short of turning off the lights and giving up.

 

I'm not going to run GFO because i know the minute i put it in, half the acropora will get fried. However the acro that I do have (that survived the last phosphate absorbing media change) have poop for color.

[markalot]

I don't think you can solve the phosphate issue without either media or dosing nitrate to help the bacteria eliminate it. Things sound so far out of whack now I'm not sure it's recoverable. I took the route that unless I got PO4 under control I was destined for a restart. I will now use any means possible to keep it under .1 and reduce it as fast as possible. So far nothing has suffered and in fact things are looking better.

 

Your rocks must be leaching PO4 like crazy.

 

I don't have clams, so I can do more.

[markalot]

I will counter what I said with this thread, if you haven't seen it before.

 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2366953&page=2

 

BigE (Ed) post #90 is where is starts to get interesting for me.

[jedimaster1138]

Last post was kinda me venting and not being very sensible. Just not happy with the tank. It seems that there's always some horrible calamity besetting it. This reef is just cursed.

 

I agree about needing to do SOMETHING. I'm not one for giving up. I just don't know what for sure. The good news is I know what's wrong. The bad news is...wtf is the solution?

 

I'm likely going to go back to dosing NOPOX manually a few times a day. I'll pour out the daily dose in the morning and dump a little in every time I walk past the tank I guess. I guess that mostly worked, before I started the auto-doser. Sorta.

 

Removing the sand in the DT. Can't really, I like wrasses and am getting more this week. I have removed some sand already. I could remove more for sure.

 

As for the cyano. I could always bomb the tank with Chemiclean but that's just a band aid and lord knows what that would do in the longer term.

 

Aiptasia. I might grab some Berghia nudibranches to at least keep up with the small ones. I literally can't keep up with killing aiptasia manually. 20 more spring up daily and I can see them pissing off corals and clams.

 

Removing the DT rock isn't an option without mass upheaval / destruction of everything in there, including the few SPS corals that actually are doing OK. Plus the fish stress. Also some of those rock pieces are likely hundreds of pounds.

 

Gutting the refugium and restarting it as a barebottom fuge. Possibly the least destructive "major" change. I wonder if the DSB in the refugium is hurting more than harming. I'd have to find a home for Bin Laden the chromis first though. And the mantis shrimp. I don't think I have the cold enough heart to flush the chromis, even though he killed ~ 10 fish.

 

I've toyed with rebooting. I just don't know if it's worth my time at this point if we really do move in 18 -24 months. What I do with the tank / rock / coral then is beyond me, depends if we move 20 miles or 800. Either is on the table. But whatever. That's the future.

 

One of those (many) hindsight is 20-20 moments I had a long time ago was to change out the return standpipes in either overflow to be additional drains. That would give me 4 drains and I'd also use larger diameter pipe. Put the returns over the top of the rim in the back possibly feeding sea-swirls. But yeah that's a big project and wouldn't help the problem. It's more of a "if i had to do it over again" moment.

 

I also wouldn't have used the gulf live rock. I think that's where a lot of the aiptasia jumped in from. Unless it was just coincidence that's when they started to mass reproduce.

 

I could replace the dead SPS with easier stuff like more euphyllias, gonioporas etc. They seem to do well for me.

 

I could just say...screw it and run a Rich Ross phosphate party reef. But there's still the "this acro colony looks like crap even though it's alive" problem.

 

 

 

PS I'm getting more and more confident that it's the GFO and the spike DOWN in PO4 and the "restarting of calcification" from a water column (too) high in alkalinity that is what hurts/murders the corals.

 

The general high PO4 level is what 1) retards growth and 2) results in crap color.

 

everything above remains subject to "IN SOME SPECIES"

PPS at the rate I'm going, I might not have clams for much longer, so, there's that. I expect to lose the maximas. If the giant derasa goes, I might throw something onto first avenue from the roof.

[metrokat]

 

Can you remove one rock at a time, bare ones first?

If the gulf rock brought the aiptasia - is it also crazy rampant in the fuge where the rock is?

What about a filefish for the aiptasia?

[jedimaster1138]

 

Can you remove one rock at a time, bare ones first?

If the gulf rock brought the aiptasia - is it also crazy rampant in the fuge where the rock is?

What about a filefish for the aiptasia?

 

Some of the rocks are multiple FEET long. They probably weigh what I do and are as big as Penny. Removing them would be...yeah.

 

The aiptasia is everywhere. DT. Sump Drain, Sump return, Sump refugium, Overflow boxes (huge ones in there)

 

From what I've read, Filefish frequently find zoanthids delicious.

[markalot]

I would dump the nopox dose in all at once, like I did. Seems to do just fine, just dump it into the return section so it quickly mixes with the display water.

 

I agree PO4 down fast is what hurts corals, maybe nitrate down fast as well.

 

I would get rid of the dsb in the fuge quickly.

 

Take chromis back to lfs.

 

You're either going to have to go the no test Rich Ross route and get corals that do well, or start the PO4 lowering, get it slowly down below .05, then nuke the hell out of it and keep it nuked.

[jedimaster1138]

I would dump the nopox dose in all at once, like I did. Seems to do just fine, just dump it into the return section so it quickly mixes with the display water.

 

I agree PO4 down fast is what hurts corals, maybe nitrate down fast as well.

 

I would get rid of the dsb in the fuge quickly.

 

Take chromis back to lfs.

 

You're either going to have to go the no test Rich Ross route and get corals that do well, or start the PO4 lowering, get it slowly down below .05, then nuke the hell out of it and keep it nuked.

 

OK list of things to do.

 

1. Don't be depressed, have 2 fingers of whiskey. CHECK

 

1a. Thank Mark for talking me in from the ledge.

 

2. Remove refugium sand. This will be a dirty job. Probably put it off till the weekend or when the wife goes to China next week. I suppose the best way to do this will be to isolate the fuge, remove the sand, let it settle, add more water, let it settle, open the valve from the return pump to de-isolate the fuge.

 

2a. What about the rocks in the fuge? They are big rocks. Not rubble. Baseball sized x 2 plus a big piece of Tonga Branch. More rock = better if you ask me. The rock shouldn't be the phosphate pump really, at least not more so than the DT rock. Hmm.

 

3. Dose NOPOX daily. Or possibly split it up into 2 doses roughly 12 hours apart.

Aside, Mark - how much did you dose at your NOPOX peak and for how long - ish? And what time of the day relative to your light cycle? I wound up at something like 25-30 ml split into 2 doses when I was doing it manually. When it was on automatic, somewhat less so. Actually probably a lot less so, that pump is a little slow.

 

4. Send chromis to Guantanamo or otherwise not worry about him. It's not like he cares about sand. Also, screw his murdering ass.

 

5. Ask Mark - hi Mark - more about his BioPellet reactor methodology and how it related to his NOPOX/carbon dosing. Did you start the BP's during the NOPOX dosing? I wonder if this is something I should look into as well. I mean lord knows I have a major problem here. Perhaps the general idea is to nuke the N and P from orbit with NOPOX dosing, all the while the biopellets are ramping up. Then it's the biopellets that, long term, will maintain the low-ish levels, once N and P reach something relatively low, assuming they do.

 

5a. Happy with the Avast BP reactor? I have their kalkwasser stirrer and a few pumps. Very high quality stuff. Also, go go Made in the USA. Double also, logos that are krakens = a company that is winning.

 

6. Go to store, buy more whiskey. Preferably Whistle Pig.

[jedimasterben]

From what I've read, Filefish frequently find zoanthids delicious.

I would move your nicer zoanthids to the refugium section and get a filefish. I've seen them go to town on an aiptasia-filled reef and man, they're good. Combine them with berghias and manual killing and I think you'll give it a huge kick in the nads that will make it think twice about growing back.

 

2. Remove refugium sand. This will be a dirty job. Probably put it off till the weekend or when the wife goes to China next week. I suppose the best way to do this will be to isolate the fuge, remove the sand, let it settle, add more water, let it settle, open the valve from the return pump to de-isolate the fuge.

 

The easy way is to get a buckethead from Home Depot (shop vac that fits over a 5g bucket). Put a bit of silicone on the exposed screws on top (they become electrified with water) and just suck all the sand and water out of the fuge chamber, then refill with fresh saltwater. Boom, done, and easy

 

2a. What about the rocks in the fuge? They are big rocks. Not rubble. Baseball sized x 2 plus a big piece of Tonga Branch. More rock = better if you ask me. The rock shouldn't be the phosphate pump really, at least not more so than the DT rock. Hmm.

 

While rock can be good, more is not always better. More rock means more surface area to bind (and later release) phosphorus, more nooks and crannies for detritus to get trapped (compounding the phosphorus issue), etc. I would take them all out for now - if you want to keep them in, scrub them with a mildly stiff brush and rinse the living bajeezus out of them in a bucket of saltwater before putting back in.

 

3. Dose NOPOX daily. Or possibly split it up into 2 doses roughly 12 hours apart.

 

I think that I would turn the doser back on but REALLY cut the total daily dose down. I don't think that the same dose split into nice, even increments should have done what it did, but weirder things have happened. Maybe cut the dose in half?

[markalot]

I'm going to answer, but don't confuse me with someone that knows what the hell they're talking about.

 

 

OK list of things to do.

 

1. Don't be depressed, have 2 fingers of whiskey. CHECK

 

I prefer American Honey.

 

1a. Thank Mark for talking me in from the ledge.

 

2. Remove refugium sand. This will be a dirty job. Probably put it off till the weekend or when the wife goes to China next week. I suppose the best way to do this will be to isolate the fuge, remove the sand, let it settle, add more water, let it settle, open the valve from the return pump to de-isolate the fuge.

 

2a. What about the rocks in the fuge? They are big rocks. Not rubble. Baseball sized x 2 plus a big piece of Tonga Branch. More rock = better if you ask me. The rock shouldn't be the phosphate pump really, at least not more so than the DT rock. Hmm.

 

Less rock = better if you ask me. Get the rock out of there. I removed all rock from my sump last weekend.

 

3. Dose NOPOX daily. Or possibly split it up into 2 doses roughly 12 hours apart.

Aside, Mark - how much did you dose at your NOPOX peak and for how long - ish? And what time of the day relative to your light cycle? I wound up at something like 25-30 ml split into 2 doses when I was doing it manually. When it was on automatic, somewhat less so. Actually probably a lot less so, that pump is a little slow.

 

I did 35ml daily IIRC, I will check bottle tonight. I was planning to increase the dose and then bam, nitrates fell. 10 days was all it took.

 

4. Send chromis to Guantanamo or otherwise not worry about him. It's not like he cares about sand. Also, screw his murdering ass.

 

I'd kill him and put the dead body on a stake, but I have a cruel streak.

 

5. Ask Mark - hi Mark - more about his BioPellet reactor methodology and how it related to his NOPOX/carbon dosing. Did you start the BP's during the NOPOX dosing? I wonder if this is something I should look into as well. I mean lord knows I have a major problem here. Perhaps the general idea is to nuke the N and P from orbit with NOPOX dosing, all the while the biopellets are ramping up. Then it's the biopellets that, long term, will maintain the low-ish levels, once N and P reach something relatively low, assuming they do.

 

I was using the NOPOX maintenance dose (12ml daily) when I started the reactor. I stopped dosing twice and had nitrates rise on me so had to restart until finally the biopellets kicked in. I think it took another 10 days, not positive. Now for the theory of how to control PO4 with bio-pellets. Basically bio-pellets can do a great job reducing N but then N will be limited and PO4 will rise. The trick is to dose N in order to reduce P, and it's been documented to work and work quite well. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2210947 The thread has a few flame wars, and they're pretty funny because obviously someone hit on a magic formula and pissed someone off. It was also revealed via testing that Zeostart contains a lot of nitrate.

 

Anyway, I'm not dosing N yet, I can't get my nitrates much below 2 and now I've backed off the reactor some to try and raise it to 5. I'm still experimenting, in other words.

 

5a. Happy with the Avast BP reactor? I have their kalkwasser stirrer and a few pumps. Very high quality stuff. Also, go go Made in the USA. Double also, logos that are krakens = a company that is winning.

 

I am now, but their recirculating design (an add on) is goofy and I had numerous air bubble issues. I moved the input flow control to the output and fixed it instantly. I'm not sure if the instructions were wrong or what. The recirc mod also comes with a nozzle adapter which is crap and makes it work worse, don't use it. I asked for advice on modifications and received some great ideas here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2504123

 

6. Go to store, buy more whiskey. Preferably Whistle Pig.