First saltwater tank, 40 breeder

[KleineVampir]

I put the iron in at the beginning of the night cycle. That way it gives the chaeto a 16 hour head start!

 

[KleineVampir]

Man what is the deal with my snails? They don't seem to be doing too well. Is it my alkalinity? I am adding soda ash every now and then, trying to get my pH up. Is it the hare? I got the water cleared up a while ago now. I dunno what their deal is.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well the alkalinity is through the roof. It's like 15. Oopsies. Maybe I should get some coral to help it come down?

 

[KleineVampir]

I got some monties...better than the one I have now if it actually survives. Man, I messed up. I thought alkalinity had a more direct impact on the pH. I was so far under on pH that I figured I needed more alk, but really I was adding too much. I shoulda tested my alk levels before I went nuts with the soda ash. I didn't think snails would mind the alkalinity but apparently they do. The fish seem ok but everything else seems to be suffering. Snails upside down flailing around.

 

[KleineVampir]

Soda ash is STRONG....strong stuff!

 

[KleineVampir]

Also I'm thinking I need to make friends with macroalgae...in the display. I can dig it. It's good for the tank and it's better than nuisance algae.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Ugh. I had a bad Alkalinity spike a few months back. Not fun. I would say pH is one thing we should never chase.

 

[KleineVampir]

Or at the very least, don't dump a bunch of soda ash in your tank to try to raise it. From what I can tell pH is not nearly as connected to KH as I was lead to believe.

Also may very well have lost a clown today. Didn't see him this morning. I looked on the floor, found a nerite snail, put him back in, and he came alive! So losing the clown saved the nerite's life. This hobby is pretty wild!

 

[KleineVampir]

Sadly, the clown died. I found him dead in the overflow box. I'll probably get another one but I'm gonna have to wait out this high alkalinity disaster first...

 

[KleineVampir]

I ordered some red grape and some caulerpa prolifera. So there will be some seaweed in the tank.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Sorry about your clown.

 

[KleineVampir]

Yeah...he died in the great cataclysm. After this hopefully I'll have learned the lesson that I needed to learn and I can get this aquarium going again. I hope some stuff survives at least.

When it's all said and done I'll put in a big order to replenish the tank to save on shipping fees. Mostly talking about snails. Now I know which ones I like. And no more silliness with chitons and cowries. I think the snails I'll get back are trochus, astrea, and florida cerith. Mostly astrea though.

 

[KleineVampir]

WOW! Calcium levels were at 160 ppm. That is crazy. I measured it not too long ago and it was 400 or so. I am getting some coraline algae growth so that's probably a big part of it. Anyways I calculated what I'd have to do to bring it up to 420 and I'm gonna have to add 5 teaspoons of Ca every day for 6 days. Lol. Bad news, my calcium was insanely low. Good news, by raising it up hopefully I can get rid of this alkalinity faster.

I had no idea calcium could be depleted so quickly. Keeping tabs on calcium, alk, and maybe magnesium seem to be harder than I thought it would be. My elevated alk apparently made my calcium levels plummet. I wonder if low calcium contributed to the snails dying?

 

[KleineVampir]

I guess that's what happens when you put in the soda ash but no calcium... rate of calcium absorption keeps increasing. Suddenly I understand the point of two-part that BRS is always going on about. Dunno if I'm into the whole liquid and mixing jugs thing though. Seems like I could just put some into the fuge like I've always done.

Looks like I'm gonna have to keep more of an eye on both calcium and alk. I had no idea their levels would be this difficult to manage.

 

[KleineVampir]

It's kind of a unique opportunity to see if a good chaeto fuge and some macros will actually work to have nutrients under control. But you know, people are always struggling with algae but they refuse to keep seaweed. The ocean has seaweed in it! Besides I just put the red grape macro in there and it actually looks great! Better in person than you can see in pictures. The prolifera is nothing too special looks wise but that was something I wanted just for nutrient reduction and hopefully not be ugly or melt on me. Now that the red grape is in there, though, I feel I might be better off with like another of those instead of prolifera. It looks so much better. And maybe if you had enough of it you could keep nutrients down, I'm not sure.

I can see a future for the red grape since it looks good and performs some function. I'm kinda surprised it isn't more popular. Assuming it's able to survive and absorb a decent amount of nutrients, I'd have to recommend it pretty strongly! I guess we'll see what happens though.

 

[KleineVampir]

If I manage to find a 20 gallon I'll probably slowly get started on the sump though. Dunno if I can do this, but it would be awesome if I could grow chaeto and sell it. With 20 gallons there's more room to grow and keep it....easier to manage with a bigger space. Also would be nice to up the total system volume by so much.

 

[KleineVampir]

Well a few things are going on. I might get a hold of that sump soon and the dKh is about 12.5. Almost acceptable! Things are basically bouncing back at this point. Some snails back on the glass again which is good to see. It was still a huge astrea and trochus massacre. I'm gonna have to get more snails again and this time not kill them.

 

[KleineVampir]

I got a fire shrimp, might go back and get a clownfish to replace the one I lost. The place I went didn't have the color of clownfish I wanted so I ended up just getting the fire shrimp. He's pretty but sadly they are pretty shy. For that reason and the fact that they cost a lot I'd probably recommend the cleaner shrimp and not the fire shrimp. That said I did just put him in the tank so we'll see how active he really gets. There's no point in having a beautiful shrimp if you never see him... and I kinda like the cleaner's antennae. I might get a cleaner shrimp too. Then I'll be able to compare them pretty well.

 

[KleineVampir]

Ok I got a cleaner shrimp, another clown, and I also picked up a feather duster. The cleaner is very active and outgoing in the tank as expected, the fire shrimp is still pretty shy. I really like the cleaner shrimp but actually the feather duster may be my favorite of all. He's actually very pretty. It looks amazing when he comes out of the tube and fans out again. I'd like to go back and get more feather dusters if this one survives for a while. Seems like a great deal for 12 bucks each. Then again I should start thinking about making the reef society work for me instead of always going to a pet store.

Today I also had a guy come over and give me 2 tanks in exchange for some GSP. One of the tanks is supposedly a 20 gallon tall, looks ancient like it's from the 70's or something. It has faux wood lining on the top. The other one is supposedly a 30 gallon sump, which is pretty good. Just gotta figure out the plumbing, which is something I have almost no experience with.

Right now I'm soaking the sump in tap water, then I threw some vinegar in there to help with the mineral deposits. I'm gonna let that sit in there for as long as I can. Then obviously I'll scrub it out but not before a nice long soak!

 

[KleineVampir]

Honestly I'm kinda surprised there's no way to add something solid to the tank that would dissolve slowly over time to add calcium or alkalinity. The calcium ones exist, but for freshwater. I got some for my freshwater tanks because there are like 200 baby mystery snails that are gonna want that calcium. Any particular reason why that wouldn't work for saltwater? It wouldn't be a measured amount but it might maintain the calcium level within an acceptable range. Another one for alkalinity would be cool but no idea how that would be done.