In Amber Clad

[jedimasterben]

Then why are you putting fish in it?

 

 

 

[Anden]

Pic of tank plz and make it a fts plz plz plz i forgot how your tank looks like. ;-) and it is to many pages back to find.

[jedimasterben]

Pic of tank plz and make it a fts plz plz plz i forgot how your tank looks like. ;-) and it is to many pages back to find.

 

I'll clean up the glass this morning so that it'll be 'photo fresh' for tonight.

[jedimasterben]

No pics tonight. Was doing some cleaning, siphoning detritus out into a lump of filter floss in a net, and I accidentally knocked a few corals loose, so everything in the tank is still pissy from all that.

 

 

Also, I have been running my Gyre on the overflow pushing across the tank. The water level in the tank is very high, and with the Gyre blowing near full force, it was pushing water onto the lower part of the top rim inside the tank. I moved the Gyre to the opposite side, so it is now pushing towards the overflow (which will actually allow for better filtration, detritus and junk will be pushed right to the overflow instead of away from it), and the water level in the tank literally dropped an inch, so now even in pulse mode at full power, the water doesn't get onto the top rim. Of course, unfortunately, now there is a bit of noise in the inside overflow box of water falling into it. Grrrr.

[righttirefire]

Excuses! GO spend time with your angel. Sell your tank!

[Anden]

Sorry i just asked if we can see tank not if you could clean it but never mind.

[Pinner Reef]

No pics tonight. Was doing some cleaning, siphoning detritus out into a lump of filter floss in a net, and I accidentally knocked a few corals loose, so everything in the tank is still pissy from all that.

 

 

Also, I have been running my Gyre on the overflow pushing across the tank. The water level in the tank is very high, and with the Gyre blowing near full force, it was pushing water onto the lower part of the top rim inside the tank. I moved the Gyre to the opposite side, so it is now pushing towards the overflow (which will actually allow for better filtration, detritus and junk will be pushed right to the overflow instead of away from it), and the water level in the tank literally dropped an inch, so now even in pulse mode at full power, the water doesn't get onto the top rim. Of course, unfortunately, now there is a bit of noise in the inside overflow box of water falling into it. Grrrr.

 

I don't understand this... Why does the water level change because of the water flow pattern? Was the Gyre pushing that much away from the overflow?

[metrokat]

 

I don't understand this... Why does the water level change because of the water flow pattern? Was the Gyre pushing that much away from the overflow?

yes

[Pinner Reef]

Woah, maybe I should see one of these things in action.

[righttirefire]

First day back to work?

[jedimasterben]

First day back to work?

Yep. A little tired, but not too bad.

 

 

Ellie is 7lbs 4oz today! And her umbilical cord fell off at the docs office

[righttirefire]

She's growing up so fast... pretty soon she'll be driving

[jedimasterben]

What in the dicks is going on with this tank. Decided to test alk today, it's again 5.5-6dKH.

[righttirefire]

Dose with you ato... that's what I do

[jedimasterben]

So the most logical explanation for the significant alkalinity demand when nothing else is dropping is that it is being used aerobically in the nitrogen cycle and that I do not have hardly any denitrification going on to release it back into the system. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-12/rhf/

Alkalinity Decline in the Nitrogen Cycle

One of the best known chemical cycles in aquaria is the nitrogen cycle. In it, ammonia excreted by fish and other organisms is converted into nitrate. This conversion produces acid, H+ (or uses alkalinity depending on how one chooses to look at it), as shown in equation 1:

(1) NH3 + 2O2 à NO3- + H+ + H2O


For each ammonia molecule converted into nitrate, one hydrogen ion (H+) is produced. If nitrate is allowed to accumulate to 50 ppm, the addition of this acid will deplete 0.8 meq/L (2.3 dKH) of alkalinity.

However, the news is not all bad. When this nitrate proceeds further along the nitrogen cycle, depleted alkalinity is returned in exactly the amount lost. For example, if the nitrate is allowed to be converted into N2 in a sand bed, one of the products is bicarbonate, as shown in equation 2 (below) for the breakdown of glucose and nitrate under typical anoxic conditions as might happen in a deep sand bed:

(2) 4NO3- + 5/6 C6H12O6 (glucose) + 4H2O à 2 N2 + 7H2O + 4HCO3- + CO2

In equation 2 we see that exactly one bicarbonate ion is produced for each nitrate ion consumed. Consequently, the alkalinity gain is 0.8 meq/L (2.3 dKH) for every 50 ppm of nitrate consumed.

Likewise, equation 3 (below) shows the uptake of nitrate and CO2 into macroalgae to form typical organic molecules:

(3) 122 CO2 + 122 H2O + 16 NO3- à C106H260O106N16 + 138 O2 + 16 HCO3-

Again, one bicarbonate ion is produced for each nitrate ion consumed.

It turns out that as long as the nitrate concentration is stable, regardless of its actual value, there is no ongoing net depletion of alkalinity. Of course, alkalinity was depleted to reach that value, but once it stabilizes, there is no continuing alkalinity depletion because the export processes described above are exactly balancing the depletion from nitrification (the conversion of ammonia to nitrate).

There are, however, circumstances where the alkalinity is lost in the conversion of ammonia to nitrate, and is never returned. The most likely scenario to be important in reef aquaria is when nitrate is removed through water changes. In that case, each water change takes out some nitrate, and if the system produces nitrate to get back to some stable level, the alkalinity again becomes depleted.

If, for example, nitrate averages 50 ppm at each water change, then over the course of a year with 10 water changes of 20% each, the alkalinity will be depleted by 1.6 meq/L (4.5 dKH) over the course of that entire time period. This process is one of the primary reasons that fish-only aquaria that often export nitrate in water changes need occasional buffer additions to replace that depleted alkalinity.

So, I need denitrification to happen, not just nitrification and then removal by skimming.

[metrokat]

I spy sand

[Pinner Reef]

Haha! Ben adds sand and Science can't understand it... Sounds about right

[jedimasterben]

Haha! Ben adds sand and Science can't understand it... Sounds about right

 

In a nutshell, the nitrogen cycle uses carbonate (which is what makes up almost all of what is considered 'alkalinity') when converting from ammonia to nitrate. When nitrate is used by anoxic denitrifying bacteria and converted to nitrogen gas, that carbonate that was used earlier in the cycle gets released back into the tank, so a net zero alkalinity is used.

 

Well, my tank probably has very little denitrification. No sand, not a lot of rock, etc, just not enough physical surface area for it to happen on the scale it needed to happen, so for me, what happens is that nitrate is removed by the skimmer significantly faster than it can be denitrified by bacteria, so that carbonate that was used never gets released back into the tank, and boom, low alk.

 

Quick fix is to dose carbonate for alkalinity, but that doesn't really fix the issue, so hopefully adding the sand will. I added probably around 25-30lbs of it, Tropic Eden Grand Select, and I still have another 30+lbs that I can use if I want it deeper. Right now, in the front and sides, the sand is flush with the trim, but it quickly slopes up and the back is above the trim by over an inch.

[Pinner Reef]

Oh, I misinterpreted the previous post. I thought it dropped after the sand's addition.

[jedimasterben]

Nah, hopefully the sand will prevent it in the future

 

 

[righttirefire]

Do you think sand will prevent babies?

[jedimasterben]

Do you think sand will prevent babies?

I think sand in a hoohah probably would prevent one from wanting to put things in said hoohah

[Chris!]

I think sand in a hoohah probably would prevent one from wanting to put things in said hoohah

 

[bdevillier19]

congrats on the little one ben, she's looking good.

[jedimasterben]

congrats on the little one ben, she's looking good.

thanks man!

 

 

Tank is lookin' good with the sand. Now I'm on the hunt for a candy striped pistol shrimp for the watchman. LFS usually only sells giant tiger pistols, never been a fan of those.