Beautiful video, so much random flow and everything is loving it! I'm also right there with you, with swings and loses. I've got to write up a post that details my struggles (and successes to some extent with pH at least.) I'm currently awake at the hospital helping my wife feed our new baby boy, so I will get around to posting...soon.
Also what param(s) would you say are swinging the most and you feel was the culprit?
Congratulations on the baby boy! Very exciting.
My first major swing was no3. I think this may have done the most damage. I put it on a doser and mistakenly let it run for a few minutes before I realized. About 15-20ppm dosed at once. I had two maricultured acros RTN that night, and a couple more that went a day or two later. Otherwise the response to elevated nitrates has been very positive. I am seeing some of the best PE in a loonnnng time. Especially tenuis. I peaked at 27, now at 17.
Po4 up next. Started dosing this as well. I also changed up my feeding routine to AmericanReef HPD. I should have suspected it had a lot of po4. Anyways I didnt quite catch on to my rising phosphates until I was over .3, peaked at .45. Down to .12 now. Personally, I don't think anything cared about this swing.
Salinity? Ya that too. Nothing too major, from 35 to 32ppt over I'm gonna guess like 2-4 hours. I took the strainers off my frag tank overflow for one night and some rogue piece of plastic from a nori clip quickly clogged it. My emergency drain prevented any flooding, but it was set too high. Sump level went down, gravity ATO fed around 8g. I'm guessing kalk went into overdrive for a while too. So lots of extra freshwater. Took about 10 days to get it back to 35.
I also discovered my eheims could not keep up now that the weather has been cooling down. I think my worst swing was 3-4 degree drop over about 6 hours. Not that big of a deal, but very concerning when you're getting alerts all day at work. Lowest I got was 75. I did upgrade to the IM Helios 2x500w and all is good since.
Alk. Remember I posted those beautiful logs maintaining around 8dkh and 8.3pH 24/7? Well I'm back up to 11+. This happened quickly over a few days and I believe was a result of the frag tank incident. House has not been getting as much fresh air either, so that is certainly a factor as well. I'm just going to let it slowly drop again.
I think that's it. This was all over 40 days or so.
I did send out an ICP to Fauna Marin. Everything was okay for the most part. A couple metals slightly elevated and some traces that were low. The weird one is I have insanely high silicates. I can only assume this is an RO problem. I'm pretty good about changing filters, so I'm skeptical. I plan to send out another in a week or two.
I should note if I didn't in a previous post. I got rid of my filefish and solved my aiptasia issue. Filefish became a polyp nipper and I had some freakishly huge aiptasia that were likely stinging more than I knew. Between 6+ peppermint shrimp and a copper band, I no longer see them in my display.
It was a pleasure watching both of them grow together over the last 14 months.
