nsuderman
New Member
OK so this is my first post. I have usually found my answer in someone elses thread, but I cannot get a solid answer to this one.I read a lot but have never asked a question before, so please forgive me if i did this wrong. I have a 330 gal tank 420 total volume. its been running just over a year, with a mix of softy, lps and a few sps. I have around 20 various fish. 4 urchins, various brittle stars, and tons of snails and crabs. The tank has sand and around 300lbs of pukani. I am dosing two part from BRS and I have found that in order to keep my levels where I want them I have to dose a lot more soda ash than calcium, a lot. My current levels are Alk 7.95 calcium 420 magnesium 1580. I use a neptune to do my dosing via brs pumps, and I am running the soda at three times the level of calcium and still struggle to keep my levels up. I do weeklyish water changes of around 50 gallons. I use RODI water and instant ocean reef crystals to a salinity of 1.026 or 35 ppm. with water changes I have never had a dip in my magnesium levels and so I do not dose mag at all. I have a 55 refugium running cheato and a protein skimmer on an opposing light schedule. tank ph stays between 8.1 and 8.3. temp is at 78 though it does spike to 79 mid day. I feed pellets via an automatic fish feeder and feed frozen brine/mysis/krill/algae by hand once a day.
I already hear the question, why would you dose such a large tank rather than use a reactor. I don't know, I had to choose a method and it had been 10 years since my last tank, and i wanted to start easy.
if it matters fish all seem healthy, most corals are doing well except my acans which never seem to fully open, they are growing but look nothing like the lfs which are big and puffy, mine are always tight even though they are in a low flow area. I also have two kenya tree corals which are tightly scrunched up. a green one, which almost looks normal and a purple one which hasn't opened up in three months. other corals; duncan, candy cane, xenia, GSP, euphilia look great. Also have two anemones that have withered up but wont die, but have four other anemones that are just fine.
thats a lot, but I am just including as much as I can to give a complete picture. I really am just asking about the dosing question, but perhaps the other stuff might paint a better picture of what is going on here.
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I already hear the question, why would you dose such a large tank rather than use a reactor. I don't know, I had to choose a method and it had been 10 years since my last tank, and i wanted to start easy.
if it matters fish all seem healthy, most corals are doing well except my acans which never seem to fully open, they are growing but look nothing like the lfs which are big and puffy, mine are always tight even though they are in a low flow area. I also have two kenya tree corals which are tightly scrunched up. a green one, which almost looks normal and a purple one which hasn't opened up in three months. other corals; duncan, candy cane, xenia, GSP, euphilia look great. Also have two anemones that have withered up but wont die, but have four other anemones that are just fine.
thats a lot, but I am just including as much as I can to give a complete picture. I really am just asking about the dosing question, but perhaps the other stuff might paint a better picture of what is going on here.
New video by Nathan Suderman
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