Aquaforest Guide

[landlubber]

Ok, let me know your reading after 24 hours of not dosing anything. I wanted to know how much your system is consuming. Also, the PO4 level. Stop using the biopellet and lower down the light intensity a bit like not more than 60%.

sounds good.
you had mentioned that biopellets are ineffective as far as aquaforest's system goes. i'm curious what my means of getting rid of the hair algae is going to be if i'm not combating nitrate or phosphate? my tank gets more than i'd prefer at times.

 

[Anirban]

sounds good.
you had mentioned that biopellets are ineffective as far as aquaforest's system goes. i'm curious what my means of getting rid of the hair algae is going to be if i'm not combating nitrate or phosphate? my tank gets more than i'd prefer at times.

Biopellet does not go well with any probiotics and zeolite based system. There are exceptions but very very few. Actually you don't do anything to get rid of the hair algae just a little bit of nitrate like 2 ppm and very little PO4 like .02-.04 ppm will help. First, we need a steady water chemistry and then we can play around a little bit with nutrient to fine tune it. Hope that works for you. Remember once you achieve a steady chemistry your system will progress positively and that helps a lot.

 

[landlubber]

Biopellet does not go well with any probiotics and zeolite based system. There are exceptions but very very few. Actually you don't do anything to get rid of the hair algae just a little bit of nitrate like 2 ppm and very little PO4 like .02-.04 ppm will help. First, we need a steady water chemistry and then we can play around a little bit with nutrient to fine tune it. Hope that works for you. Remember once you achieve a steady chemistry your system will progress positively and that helps a lot.

makes sense to me.
ok well i'll pull the plug on the doser and strap in for the ride. i'm going to recheck my cal and alk before doing so.

 

[Anirban]

I am currently doing this with another gentleman here and we are progressing well so we will do that for your system too. Just keep your patience..

 

[landlubber]

I am currently doing this with another gentleman here and we are progressing well so we will do that for your system too. Just keep your patience..

Alright, so it's 24 hours later and i just finished testing to see where things are at and this is what came up...
-Ca has gone from 475 down to 465
-kH has increased from 8.48 up to 8.8
phosphate is still sitting at zero currently but i ran a couple of tests last night to trend it a little after feeding and while it did rise briefly i tested it about 5 hours ago at 0.08 and down to 0.0 just a few minutes ago.
the ph on my tank has sat almost stable at 7.98 for the past 24 hours which is normal when i don't actively dose. otherwise it moves from 8-8.3ph which i'm very ok with.
i removed the biopellets from my reactor and switched in the activated carbon i had running in bags.
finally, i modestly adjusted my lighting a little dimmer but in reality decided that i need to get a par meter on it to get things 100% where things are measured and happy.

 

[Anirban]

Hmmm....where is Mg sitting now?

 

[landlubber]

Hmmm....where is Mg sitting now?

i didn't measure yesterday or today as you mentioned it was going to remain high throughout the experiment. none the less i would assume it's the 1470-1480 it usually is.

 

[Anirban]

i didn't measure yesterday or today as you mentioned it was going to remain high throughout the experiment. none the less i would assume it's the 1470-1480 it usually is.

The Alk generally increases when the Mg drops. Ca decreases as per expectation but Alk increase is little suspicious so just take a reading of Mg so that we know what we are precisely dealing with.

 

[landlubber]

sure. i'll check right now and we can look it over.

 

[landlubber]

alright so i measured and to my surprise my mg is down to 1440! the last measurement i made before this was only 3 days ago but was the regular 1470 it normally is.

 

[Anirban]

Its fine you can add some Mg plus like 30 ml and let it sit for 24 more hours. I want that Ca and Alk both down naturally before we start our dosing titration.

 

[landlubber]

Its fine you can add some Mg plus like 30 ml and let it sit for 24 more hours. I want that Ca and Alk both down naturally before we start our dosing titration.

i agree that i shouldn't dose anything for the next 24 hours, all the values need to come down anyway.
please clarify about the Mg as it sounds like you want me to add 30mL of Mag?

 

[Anirban]

Yup I want to keep that Mg high enough so that the system can use both Ca and Alk. I don't want it to fall back at least now.

 

[landlubber]

Yup I want to keep that Mg high enough so that the system can use both Ca and Alk. I don't want it to fall back at least now.

ok but you do understand i dose using aquaforest balling method: dosing pump #1 (Ca+Mg) pump #2 (kH) and pump #3 (trace elements) and then component strong dosed in all of them. so basically by dosing Mg i would be dosing the exact same of Ca. i could mix up a batch of Mg and dose it separately if that's what you mean?

 

[Anirban]

ok but you do understand i dose using aquaforest balling method: dosing pump #1 (Ca+Mg) pump #2 (kH) and pump #3 (trace elements) and then component strong dosed in all of them. so basically by dosing Mg i would be dosing the exact same of Ca. i could mix up a batch of Mg and dose it separately if that's what you mean?

Dose Mg separately just Mg not as component. Enough to bring it up 20-30 ppm.

 

[jsker]

sounds good.
you had mentioned that biopellets are ineffective as far as aquaforest's system goes. i'm curious what my means of getting rid of the hair algae is going to be if i'm not combating nitrate or phosphate? my tank gets more than i'd prefer at times.

I will chip in on this one and @Anirban is correct. I was running bio pellets with AF and my system crashed. I am now running Life Bio Fill with the same results as running bio pellets and my system looks much better now even before the cash.

 

[jsker]

ok but you do understand i dose using aquaforest balling method: dosing pump #1 (Ca+Mg) pump #2 (kH) and pump #3 (trace elements) and then component strong dosed in all of them. so basically by dosing Mg i would be dosing the exact same of Ca. i could mix up a batch of Mg and dose it separately if that's what you mean?

again @Anirban in on spot with this also. I dose the components 1+2+3+ and my system consumes more Mg then Ca and I dose Mg on the side.

 

[landlubber]

ok i'll get 30mL in here asap and get back to you tomorrow to see what we're dealing with then.

 

[landlubber]

@Anirban alright 24 hours later...
my Ca was 465 and is now up to 480. Alk went from 8.8 to 10.24 and after dosing 30mL of Mag it has gone from 1440 up to 1470.
the only other change i'm going to try is attempt to stabilize my phosphate by feeding my normal amount but split over 2 feedings a day.

 

[Anirban]

Now this is interesting....why your Alk and Ca are increasing without even dosing????

Dont dose anything and just let it sit and keep checking the 3 after 24 hour. Also where are your NO3 and PO4??? Can you post a picture of the tank please.