Just like our aquariums, I think RU-vid videos, at least reef aquarium related videos are best when they are regularly updated.
Its been six months since my last update, and many changes have been made. With all tanks, we have our good and bad moments.
I guess I can start with the bad.
I have always had a problem with bubble algae. I think I picked it up on my very first piece of live rock. Even after scrubbing my rocks and frag plugs, the issue never went away. I want to try Vibrant, and may give it a shot when my parameters have been good for at least 6 months. As you can see on this frag, I have to clean the plug off every few weeks or so. It got so out of control, it took over this rock and I couldn’t see the rock at all, just a mound of bubble algae. So what I did was take the rock out of the water, cleaned the rock of all algae, and coat the rock with thin CA glue. Sure it killed all the coraline and made the rock white, but no more bubble algae has grown back.
Around 2 months ago, I purchased a new Salifert alkalinity test kit. I made the mistake of not testing my old kit with the new kit to see if there were any discrepancies, and believed what the new kit was telling me. It seemed my ALK was at 9DKH, which was strange because it has always been locked at 8 to 8.5DKH, so I lowered my water change schedule and lowered my Kalk potency.
Time went on and one of my newest frags was looking pretty upset, so I went to my aquarium journal and found out that everything was fine until using the new test kit. I had a few tests left on my old trusty test kit, tested, and found out the new kit was reading 1DKH higher.
Keeping an aquarium journal may sound overly obsessed to some, but its what actually saved me from losing that frag, and who knows what else.
And to continue on this path of bad testing equipment, I purchased a new bottle of refractometer calibration solution at the same time. And yes, from the same supplier.
You can see the direction of where this headache is going. Not only was I dropping my kalk solution, but I was also raising my salinity at the same time. Which really threw everything off.
At this point I couldn’t trust any data I was receiving, so I took a liter of my tank water, both the ALK and salinity solution to a friends house and tested with his kits. It turns out the new kits were way off. He let me borrow his kits until my new order came in the mail and did normal sized water changes over the next few days. Problem fixed.
With all of the bad, there have also been good moments I have encountered.
Kalk is one of the easiest methods of dosing, and that is my current dosing supplement. I reached the point of my PH spiking because of the amount of kalk I was dosing, so I had to supplement the kalk with something that doesn’t cause a PH spike. Around 5 months ago I started using All For Reef. I have to say I don’t know how this stuff works, the chemistry doesn’t seem to make sense to me, but it works great! I supplement it with my kalk and no more PH spikes.
The tank has now reached what I like to call “auto pilot” mode again, which saves me a lot of time and grief having to test daily. I test alk twice a week, salinity before and after a water change which is once a week, and N & P every other week. I hardly test for calcium and magnesium anymore, they are almost always rock solid. And here are my latest test results:
The corals seem to be bouncing back from the alk and salinity fiasco, the reactor is growing the cheato nicely, and the fish seem to be enjoying not watching me remove rocks to clean bubble algae as often.
As far as changes go, since removing the sand, I scrape the bottom of the tank before every water change. I do this so algae and coraline doesn’t take hold and get out of hand. I like the look of a white bottom rather than coraline, and by doing this it also lowers any unnecessary calcium and alkalinity consumption.
After adding the new sump, I noticed my N & P skyrocket. I knew this would happen, because by removing the old sump, I was also removing a ton of filter feeders and other organisms that were feeding on the excess nutrients. After bumping up my water change schedule, everything seemed to go back to normal within a few weeks.
I added All For Reef as mentioned earlier. And I really do love this stuff.
I made a reactor from a 2 gallon bucket I picked up from Home Depot. I drilled 3 holes in it, plumbed it, and it now grows my cheato better than the last reactor specifically designed to grow cheato. I use 3 LED puck lights commonly found in commercial applications. This current setup works very well, and it just goes to show you don’t need expensive equipment to produce good if not better results.
Most importantly: there are ups and downs in this hobby, but by being vigilant and noticing problems before they turn into nightmares, you too can enjoy a small piece of the ocean in your home. Happy reefing!
7 сен 2024
