Aquaforest Guide

swayd · Apr 20, 2017

Also, do you have to add the calcium to the salt every time you mix it? I will eventually be doing the 1+ , 2+ and 3+ I assume that will be enough.
Sorry for all the questions.

Anirban · Apr 20, 2017

swayd said:
Also, do you have to add the calcium to the salt every time you mix it? I will eventually be doing the 1+ , 2+ and 3+ I assume that will be enough.
Sorry for all the questions.

Now thats something new. Why you want to add Ca to the salt?

swayd · Apr 20, 2017

Anirban said:
Now thats something new. Why you want to add Ca to the salt?

I believe on the BRS website it said to add that in the instructions. I might have misread but it sounded really odd to me.

Anirban · Apr 20, 2017

swayd said:
I believe on the BRS website it said to add that in the instructions. I might have misread but it sounded really odd to me.

Post the link..

jsker · Apr 20, 2017

swayd said:
I believe on the BRS website it said to add that in the instructions. I might have misread but it sounded really odd to me.

The only time you would add Ca in with you salt mix is if you test and your Ca is low, otherwise do not add Ca

swayd · Apr 20, 2017

Anirban said:
Post the link..

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-mineral-salt-aquaforest.html

Anirban · Apr 20, 2017

swayd said:
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-mineral-salt-aquaforest.html

Its for dosing, you need to order Reef salt for regular water change.

swayd · Apr 20, 2017

Anirban said:
Its for dosing, you need to order Reef salt for regular water change.

Oh man so I ordered the wrong salt. Going to have to call BRS. Thank you.

Anirban · Apr 20, 2017

swayd said:
Oh man so I ordered the wrong salt. Going to have to call BRS. Thank you.

I told you reef salt not mineral.....lol

swayd · Apr 21, 2017

Anirban said:
I told you reef salt not mineral.....lol

So many products I didn't know there was a difference lol.

Anirban · Apr 21, 2017

swayd said:
So many products I didn't know there was a difference lol.

Ask twice before you order....

landlubber · Apr 24, 2017

good morning @Anirban
well the tank has had since thursday to prove that it is capable of maintaining alkalinity and i think it has managed fairly well. i did a 10% water change last night which has some effect to the parameters so i'll include my morning numbers from yesterday before i added the new water last night.
from thursday: Ca 430 Alk 8.48 Mg 1440
sunday morning: Ca 425 Alk 8.32 Mg 1395
currently: Ca 435 Alk 8.32 Mg 1425
i suspect everything falls slightly in the next couple of days back to the values that sunday morning produced.
there is one problem that is still persisting, every time i do a water change i lose coral. it doesn't make sense to me considering the parameters barely swing and the temperature and salinity are consistent. as you know i'm fighting what looks like either gha, bryopsis, dinos or a combination of them. when i did my wc yesterday i made an effort to clean off the rock which is now swarmed by this hairy mess, changed the water and filter socks to remove as much of this stuff as possible.
i will never be without an aquarium but should this flucanozole not cure my issues i'm considering rebooting the system. i've lost more in lost coral than i care to think about over this process and when i looked at my tank before the wc yesterday it is basically an eyesorer which is not acceptable considering the financial input to this point.

Anirban · Apr 24, 2017

What do you mean by lose coral? How they die? Flucanazole will kill the GHA but for others you need to try different thing. At this moment I will not do the water change. Do it couple of days before Flucanozole treatment. Where are your nutrients now?

landlubber · Apr 24, 2017

lose coral as in my coral goes from having color before i go to sleep and then in the morning is stark white. i didn't measure my nutrients today for a couple reasons, the removal of the algae completely littered my tank with particles and the other is that i overfilled my tank by a few gallons when i replaced the new water and it caused my skimmer to boil over. it was about a 1/3 full at the time and no question will cause a bad reading.

Anirban · Apr 24, 2017

If your No3 reads 0 or less than 2 then increase that. It will help with the algae also do the corals loose flesh or they are bleachd?

landlubber · Apr 24, 2017

even the fastest episode of rtn i've experienced took more than 12 hours so i think i can rule that out. my coral had color at looked at 11pm last night and by 6:30am this morning the damage was done so i'd say bleached.
since testing my no3 it has never been lower than .05ppm and no higher than 1ppm
i have to step out for an hour or so but will certainly get back to you asap

Anirban · Apr 24, 2017

landlubber said:
even the fastest episode of rtn i've experienced took more than 12 hours so i think i can rule that out. my coral had color at looked at 11pm last night and by 6:30am this morning the damage was done so i'd say bleached.

I will say check you nutrients and lower down your light intensity at least to 40-50%.

landlubber · Apr 24, 2017

Anirban said:
I will say check you nutrients and lower down your light intensity at least to 40-50%.

ok.
i took your advice back when we first started over a month ago and lowered my light intensity to half of what it used to be. should i go lower again?
i actually rented a par meter a week ago and took baseline measurements of what my fixture produces at 50% intensity on both channels and the highest point of my tank measured at 272 par. i currently don't run both channels at the same time ever at 50% which means the brightest point of the day is less than that.
my tank is primarily sps and zoanthids and i can honestly say that none of my zoas have fully opened in the past 2 months. half of them squint for a period of the day but never fully open which i attributed to unstable water and the algae issue i'm having but i'm also a little worried i'm going to kill them with lower light.
i'll get some nutrient levels for you as well in the next 30 mins.
edit: i should mention that i reduced the photo period by an hour a day yesterday and raised my fixture an inch this morning which will further reduce the lighting.

Anirban · Apr 24, 2017

landlubber said:
ok.
i took your advice back when we first started over a month ago and lowered my light intensity to half of what it used to be. should i go lower again?
i actually rented a par meter a week ago and took baseline measurements of what my fixture produces at 50% intensity on both channels and the highest point of my tank measured at 272 par. i currently don't run both channels at the same time ever at 50% which means the brightest point of the day is less than that.
my tank is primarily sps and zoanthids and i can honestly say that none of my zoas have fully opened in the past 2 months. half of them squint for a period of the day but never fully open which i attributed to unstable water and the algae issue i'm having but i'm also a little worried i'm going to kill them with lower light.
i'll get some nutrient levels for you as well in the next 30 mins.
edit: i should mention that i reduced the photo period by an hour a day yesterday and raised my fixture an inch this morning which will further reduce the lighting.

Which light you use?

landlubber · Apr 24, 2017

its a sunpower 8x54w dimmable and i run a 48" reefbrite xho as accent light over a 120g standard:
8am-12pm reefbrite xho dimmed to 60% then off
12pm-6pm ati ramping up to a max of 50% by 4pm then down to 25%
6pm-9pm ati running channel 1 (only 2 bulbs) at 25% dimmed to zero+ reefbrite xho at 60%
9pm-11pm reefbrite xho at 60%
11pm-everything off.
my photo-period is fairly long but white lights are realistically on very short after the adjustments i made at the start of this process