need ur help and advice please ....

[acrofragger]

details first ....on tank and equipment



65 aga rr tank
20 gallon eshopps sump
reef dynamics in 80 skimmer
2 150 watt non dimmable leds
4x koralia 1050 s
quiet one 3000
reef keeper lite
two lil fishies reactor 150
250 watt heater



live stock ..........
emperor angel 3=4 inches (i know ....big no no....but as soon as he is nice an big i will let one of you get dibbs ,he is reef safe so far )
2 cleaner shrimps
2 snowflake clowns
1 cleaner wrasse (i know ...... ,but he looked good ,hope he lives )
80-100 lbs live rocks
50 -60 lbs live sand ,maybe more nice 3 inch sand bed
20 hermits
20 snails

3 monti caps ..... orange ,red ,purple
2 ricordias green and one with like 4 different colors
green slimer
purple and green millie
blue german digi
2 other acros one reddish one green and yellow

now here we go my questions concerns (where i need help )

, my parameters are good except alk and phosphates (what do i run in the phosban reactor for phosphates i want the best media possible with out having to worry ?)

alk is not very steady is dosing the only way to keep steady ?\

green film every couple hours on the glass is this phosphates at 1.0 in conjunction with new leds ?

 

[acrofragger]

tank parameters as of last night

alk 8.0=8.2
cal 450-480
mag 1280


ph 7.8 =8.0
ammo 0
natrite 0
nitrate 0

these are according to red sea test kits for alk. mag .cal
and api test kits

 

[dannyp02908]

alk at 8 isnt terrible. bump the mag up a little bit and your alk will come up and possibly hold better. You have a bunch of SPS. are those frags or big colonies. SPS will use alk and calc quickly. dosing is one way to keep alk steady. a kalk addition could help in your top-off water. a calcium reactor will do the trick. In your Phosban reactor, i would just run some GFO from bulk reef supply. be careful though and do some reading as some report loss of color in their SPS.

 

[jamesdong009]

You have different options in keeping your parameters stable. Two-part dosing, kalkwasser, calcium reactor etc. I personally dose kalkwasser through my top off water and add some two part if necessary.

Try measuring your alkalinity at the same time on separate days to see how much it's dropping. This reef calculator should come in handy in determining how much you need to dose.

I keep my phosphates a tad under .05 with BRS HC GFO. I do like PO4X because it rinses well and needs very little pressure to tumble.

 

[Matt W]

what is your water change schedule?

 

[acrofragger]

once a week (but i havent done one yet, i want aged water )
i bought some gfo and some carbon (gfo in reactor ,carbon in bag under some flow )


i will dose the red sea mag supplement i have tonight .

tomorrow i will dose the alk and se if it holds

thanks for the help so far

 

[acrofragger]

alk at 8 isnt terrible. bump the mag up a little bit and your alk will come up and possibly hold better. You have a bunch of SPS. are those frags or big colonies. SPS will use alk and calc quickly. dosing is one way to keep alk steady. a kalk addition could help in your top-off water. a calcium reactor will do the trick. In your Phosban reactor, i would just run some GFO from bulk reef supply. be careful though and do some reading as some report loss of color in their SPS.

im worried now... i got some gfo for the phosphates and its been running about 4hrs ,do you run gfo?
i also will try bumpin mag up slowly to where it need to be ,and corals are mini colonies with 2 3inch frags.

 

[Matt W]

how old is the tank then?

 

[dannyp02908]

I have a gfo reactor but honestly haven't used it yet. I have a refugium. I lost all my caulerpa recently for no known reason though. Currently, refugium has red bubble algae and cyano. Tank has no algae though (save for the thin layer I have to scrape daily; tank faces a large window).

 

[acrofragger]

tanks 2 mths old .......well idk lets see what gfo does and glad i double checked parameters ..................cal 450 , mag 1480 , alk 7.8 8.0

 

[Matt W]

gfo should help alot. some find dosing carbon (vodka, vinegar) to be helpful with no3, po4.
Your algae is somewhat normal, good maintenance during this period will help out a lot. I would recommend 10-20% wc biweekly. Especially during new tank phase.

 

[Matt W]

i want aged water )

What do you mean by this?

 

[acrofragger]

i want the water i have mixing to be like 2-3wks old before i change the water .
ok so gfo and carbon in there ,ph is up at 8.5

 

[SteveDola]

why would you want your water change water to be 3 weeks old? Ive never heard of people waiting that long. Overnight or even a couple of days Ive heard of but never 3 weeks. seriously, is there a science behind it?

Im going to do a water change today...Im putting the water in the barrel, bringing to temp, adding salt and then in 2-3 hours after fully mixed Im doing the change. Honestly I dont like to wait long(a day at max), I thought you can have issues with new water parameters after a few days. Ive been doing it this way for years...no issues.

 

[JohnK]

^ second that. No need to age water beyond a day or so.

 

[Matt W]

In my mfg work we make a similar sg sterile saline solution for medical bags. It mixes at crt for ~2 h.

2 hours is good.

 

[acrofragger]

ok i wont wait then ,water change today for sure .
i was just waiting because i read it was better to use aged water (water that has mixed thouroughly over a couple days,i exxagerated wanting to wait 3 wks )
and boy idk if its me or that gfo works that fast .....................my tank looks great this morning .

im happy to ......my cleaner wrassse is on crack and eating evrything nori ,mysis brine .....im thinknig i got a real good one againg .

the last cleaner wrasse i had luck with is still alive goimg on almost 2yrs

 

[Matt W]

You also may want to consider changing out the gfo every 2 weeks until you get the algae under control

 

[acrofragger]

ok good tip cus i was thinking monthly , but i will change it evry 2 wks thank you

 

[Matt W]

if you use brs High capacity GFO you can regenerate it too