fivedeuce Posted January 22 Author Share Posted January 22 3 minutes ago, geekreef_05 said: Is that the CN Tower? Yessir Quote Link to comment
Staticmoves Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 6 hours ago, fivedeuce said: Just wanted to post a little glamour shot from the early days after I set up my tank. I want my tank to outshine my view So is that south of the Gardner towards the beaches…. Does chair girl live in your building…..😎 Quote Link to comment
fivedeuce Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 11 hours ago, Staticmoves said: So is that south of the Gardner towards the beaches…. Does chair girl live in your building…..😎 Haha I live midtown - Yonge/St Clair. Chair girl is not an issue in my building 😂 Quote Link to comment
fivedeuce Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 Quick update. I can confidently say that my parameters are now right where I want them to be and I think I've struck the right balance between dosing/testing. Obviously I won't let my guard down and will monitor the tank closely over the next month or two and hopefully all my corals will start to recover/look their best CAL - 418 ALK - 8.9 MAG - 1260 PH - 8.3 No3 - 7.9 Po4 - 0.08 Salinity - 1.026 Temp - 78 My tank seems to be consuming 60-70ml of MAG every three days so I will dose accordingly to keep it between 1300-1350. I wanted to thank all you guys for your input in helping me out. I'm starting to think I should start a tank journal to document my progress and let you guys follow along 2 Quote Link to comment
fivedeuce Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 Just a quick little update with what's been going on with the tank. MAG has stabilized around ~1350, I had to dose pretty heavily at first to get levels back up to par but now have pulled back to about 40ml every 3-4 days. The system doesn't seem to be soaking up as much now daily The only interesting thing that has happened in the last two weeks is that my CAL is now being utilized much more rapidly, it's dropping much quicker daily so I've increased dosing from 6ml to 8ml and will probably come up to 10ml/day Parameters below: CAL - 360 ALK - 8.4 MAG - 1360 PH - 8.2 No3 - 13.2 Po4 - 0.09 Salinity - 1.026 Temp - 78 ALK has dropped to 8.4 so I've increased dosing by 0.8ml/day to keep it between 8.5-9 dKh. No3 is up a bit but I'm not too concerned. I will do a 10% water change this weekend to keep that in check and replenish any trace minerals that might still be depleted. My last water change was two weeks ago Corals are doing a little bit better. My torch is much more extended and I can see the neon green centre for the first time in months. My purple hammer is about 25% puffier than normal but my frogspawn and rainbow hammer are still retracted. It'll probably take a while to get them to come around The only other thing to note is that a few aptasia have popped up in the tank. I noticed a few little guys hiding in the rocks a few months ago but now there are 3-4 huge polyps poking out so I picked up 2x peppermint shrimp over the weekend to take care of those. I might blast the larger ones with Aptasia-X if they get out of hand Lastly, I've found 3-4 tiny astrea snails crawling up the glass and they are absolutely adorable! Steady as she goes 3 Quote Link to comment
geekreef_05 Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 Awesome, Mg is at a nice spot. Torches love it. Wait til you see Torches at 1500 Mg. Juicy lookin!. Great work making it this far dude. As you increase dosing of Calc and Mg keep an eye out for when things plateau and you cant slightly ease off the pedal. Lots of regular testing. I noted this effect in my reefs as well, when it comes to dosing Calc and Mg. Its like...imagine being hungry for a long time. Then being feed alot. And you eat alot until you reach a healthy norm. Then you ease up and eat enough to maintain that healthy range. The corals are like that with Calc and Mg. Also, your temp is on the lower end, normal for your reefs or an irregular drop? Quote Link to comment
fivedeuce Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 7 minutes ago, geekreef_05 said: Awesome, Mg is at a nice spot. As you increase dosing keep an eye out for when things plateau and you cant slightly ease off the pedal. Lots of regular testing. I noted this effect in my reefs as well, when it comes to dosing Calc and Mg. Its like...imagine being hungry for a long time. Then being feed alot. And you eat alot until you reach a healthy norm. Then you ease up and eat enough to maintain that healthy range. The corals are like that with Calc and Mg. Also, your temp is on the lower end, normal for your reefs or a dip? Before I tested MAG I found it very strange that I was only dosing ~1ml CAL per day, now I know that since my magnesium was so low it was affecting calcium uptake. I will adjust accordingly My temperature fluctuates between 25.8-26.6 celsius. I always thought 25-27 was ideal. Would you say that's on the cooler side? Quote Link to comment
geekreef_05 Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 Yah, its on the cooler side. Generally id say: 78-80F is on the cooler side. 80-82F is on the warmer side. Venturing outside that goldilocks zone will be uncomfortable for your inhabitants. Quote Link to comment
fivedeuce Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 17 minutes ago, geekreef_05 said: Yah, its on the cooler side. Generally id say: 78-80F is on the cooler side. 80-82F is on the warmer side. Venturing outside that goldilocks zone will be uncomfortable for your inhabitants. Mmmmmk I'll be sure to bump it up to 80 Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 3 hours ago, fivedeuce said: The only other thing to note is that a few aptasia have popped up in the tank. I noticed a few little guys hiding in the rocks a few months ago but now there are 3-4 huge polyps poking out so I picked up 2x peppermint shrimp over the weekend to take care of those. I might blast the larger ones with Aptasia-X if they get out of hand They were already out of control a few months ago. 😉 But seriously, get em now! 3 hours ago, fivedeuce said: Before I tested MAG I found it very strange that I was only dosing ~1ml CAL per day, now I know that since my magnesium was so low it was affecting calcium uptake. It might not be quite right to think about what was happening as "uptake" since IMO most of the tank's usage was likely abiotic precipitation of calcium and carbonates (ie chalk). Magnesium being too low allows Ca+carbonates to "fall out" of solution. Did you ever pinpoint why Mg got so low to begin with? (ie salt mix?) 3 hours ago, fivedeuce said: I always thought 25-27 was ideal. More or less true. 25.6 C (78 F) is about the low end of "ideal" for tropical. Most reef tanks are probably in that range if I had to guess. Surface water temps on real tropical reefs can easily get into the mid-30's C (90's F). (This is why it's not too hard to these reefs to drift into bleaching temperatures when a heat wave hits....sometimes they're already pretty close.) In the temperature range where your tank is, you're bordering on upper sub-tropical temps OR a deeper water tropical reef. Should be OK – supposedly most of our corals are deeper water corals. For what it's worth, I tend to target about 26.6 C (80 F) for my tanks. 1 Quote Link to comment
fivedeuce Posted February 4 Author Share Posted February 4 On 1/31/2024 at 4:04 PM, mcarroll said: They were already out of control a few months ago. 😉 But seriously, get em now! It might not be quite right to think about what was happening as "uptake" since IMO most of the tank's usage was likely abiotic precipitation of calcium and carbonates (ie chalk). Magnesium being too low allows Ca+carbonates to "fall out" of solution. Did you ever pinpoint why Mg got so low to begin with? (ie salt mix?) More or less true. 25.6 C (78 F) is about the low end of "ideal" for tropical. Most reef tanks are probably in that range if I had to guess. Surface water temps on real tropical reefs can easily get into the mid-30's C (90's F). (This is why it's not too hard to these reefs to drift into bleaching temperatures when a heat wave hits....sometimes they're already pretty close.) In the temperature range where your tank is, you're bordering on upper sub-tropical temps OR a deeper water tropical reef. Should be OK – supposedly most of our corals are deeper water corals. For what it's worth, I tend to target about 26.6 C (80 F) for my tanks. Tomorrow I hunt aptasia 🔫 Well, considering I never tested MAG for the first ~18mos, never dosed and did infrequent water changes it's no wonder my MAG dropped to dangerously low levels. I think it just slowly dropped over time and never had a chance to recover 1 Quote Link to comment
fivedeuce Posted February 4 Author Share Posted February 4 Ran a full battery of tests today: CAL - 386 ALK - 8.3 MAG - 1400 PH - 8.4 No3 - 15.3 Po4 - 0.10 Salinity - 1.025 Temp - 80 CAL is still a little low, I've increased my daily dose by 2ml bring that up. I haven't dosed MAG since Jan22 but it's still creeping up - my hunch is it could be inaccuracy while testing. I'm using Aquaforest. Is it possible that there could be delay in uptake by the system? ALK has dropped by 0.1ppm, increased the dose as I'm aiming to keep it between 8.5-9. Nitrates are up to ~15ppm, I'm going to do a water change tomorrow to clean the sandbed and bring that down to ~10ppm I also raised the temperature and it's now holding steady at 80 F 2 Quote Link to comment
seabass Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 1 hour ago, fivedeuce said: it possible that there could be delay in uptake by the system? As far as consumption goes, recovery will cause the consumption rate to change over time (along with your other parameters). You might even notice that coralline algae growth starts to increase (which can also affect consumption). But as far as the increase goes, it's probably just testing error. Keep monitoring it. An exact number isn't as important for magnesium; just try to keep it in a healthy range. 1 Quote Link to comment
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