Defect
Well-Known Member
So I have been talking to someone about this for a while now and we have been trying to figure it out and now I am just going to post my most recent reply to him here to get some other opinions because right now the more info I get the better I feel. This post is targeted at SPS that I have lost a few of due to unknown reasons.
First I will give you my most recent readings. 50 gallon with 25 gallon sump.
All test done with Red sea test kits except for p04 which is salifert
Salinity - 1.025 2 weeks ago it was as 1.023 refractometer was broken
Nitrate - 3-4
Temp - Sits between 77.8-78.5 ( Had gone up to 81 one day when I put my apex in the on position instead of auto for the heater one week ago)
Alk - 7.7( Only goes up or down .2 a day)
Cal - 475
p04 - 0
mag - 1440
ph - 8.27-8.09 Day and night
Dosing 2 part b-ionic 4 ml of ak and 3ml of cal daily via dosing pump.
Here is the message.
My personal feel for the tank is there is somethings going on. It may have been the GFO which is now offline. Also think my alk needs to be in the 8.5 range because when it was in the 8's the efflo was encrusting like crazy but now sitting in the 7's it has almost stopped encrusting. Hell I might even be testing incorrectly and my alk might be lower then I think it actually is. Going to slowly bump my alk to my reading of 8.5 and keep it there.
I get flim algae that needs to be cleaned off every 3 days and I have to blow off one corner of my tank that has cyano every couple of weeks. Coraline is growing on my rocks and powerheads are almost completely covered as well and growing on my overflow and back acrylic.
I also might be skimming to wet. My skimate rarely smells bad at all but get a nasty layer of solid junk in the bottom of the cup but the liquid is green tea like. This wednsday I will be taking a water sample to my LFS to have them see what my paramaters are.
I think the only thing that could be the culpirt for my tank is alk really......even with high p04 and nitrates stuff just isnt going to look that great but still stay alive. When I started dosing my alk was 7.4 at the start of the month. Now it is sitting around 7.8. I am dosing 1 more ML of alk a day to boost it up a bit.
I have other things in my tank that are doing just fine though. I got an acan last month in that had one head and now has 5 heads....4 heads popped in 1 month.
2 wednsdays from now I am going to rip my sump apart and clean everything out of there and also buy a new heater because its 7 months old at this point. I am thinking about removing all rock from my sump and just leave the cheato in there. I get a bit of detritus built up in my sump that is a pain in the butt to clean out with the rocks in there.
The Cheato in my sump does not grow at all. Its a nice healthy green all the way around but the growth is non existant since I got it. Still the size of a softball.
Maybe there is copper in my water? Not sure if I can test for that though. Although if that was the case I dont think I would be getting growth on any coral at all.
All hermits are alive and kicking and so are my snails and fighting conch. Maybe my anenome is releasing some toxins in the water due to my shrimp picking at it every day.
Sorry for the long message but just figured I would lay it all out there and see if you can pick through and see if anything stands out.
First I will give you my most recent readings. 50 gallon with 25 gallon sump.
All test done with Red sea test kits except for p04 which is salifert
Salinity - 1.025 2 weeks ago it was as 1.023 refractometer was broken
Nitrate - 3-4
Temp - Sits between 77.8-78.5 ( Had gone up to 81 one day when I put my apex in the on position instead of auto for the heater one week ago)
Alk - 7.7( Only goes up or down .2 a day)
Cal - 475
p04 - 0
mag - 1440
ph - 8.27-8.09 Day and night
Dosing 2 part b-ionic 4 ml of ak and 3ml of cal daily via dosing pump.
Here is the message.
My personal feel for the tank is there is somethings going on. It may have been the GFO which is now offline. Also think my alk needs to be in the 8.5 range because when it was in the 8's the efflo was encrusting like crazy but now sitting in the 7's it has almost stopped encrusting. Hell I might even be testing incorrectly and my alk might be lower then I think it actually is. Going to slowly bump my alk to my reading of 8.5 and keep it there.
I get flim algae that needs to be cleaned off every 3 days and I have to blow off one corner of my tank that has cyano every couple of weeks. Coraline is growing on my rocks and powerheads are almost completely covered as well and growing on my overflow and back acrylic.
I also might be skimming to wet. My skimate rarely smells bad at all but get a nasty layer of solid junk in the bottom of the cup but the liquid is green tea like. This wednsday I will be taking a water sample to my LFS to have them see what my paramaters are.
I think the only thing that could be the culpirt for my tank is alk really......even with high p04 and nitrates stuff just isnt going to look that great but still stay alive. When I started dosing my alk was 7.4 at the start of the month. Now it is sitting around 7.8. I am dosing 1 more ML of alk a day to boost it up a bit.
I have other things in my tank that are doing just fine though. I got an acan last month in that had one head and now has 5 heads....4 heads popped in 1 month.
2 wednsdays from now I am going to rip my sump apart and clean everything out of there and also buy a new heater because its 7 months old at this point. I am thinking about removing all rock from my sump and just leave the cheato in there. I get a bit of detritus built up in my sump that is a pain in the butt to clean out with the rocks in there.
The Cheato in my sump does not grow at all. Its a nice healthy green all the way around but the growth is non existant since I got it. Still the size of a softball.
Maybe there is copper in my water? Not sure if I can test for that though. Although if that was the case I dont think I would be getting growth on any coral at all.
All hermits are alive and kicking and so are my snails and fighting conch. Maybe my anenome is releasing some toxins in the water due to my shrimp picking at it every day.
Sorry for the long message but just figured I would lay it all out there and see if you can pick through and see if anything stands out.
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