Ken's Reef Tank

Ken Good · Mar 20, 2021

Found 2 "bubble algae" growing on a snail. I got them off without rupture. I do not know how they could have arrived in my tank. Also, I assume that if there is two there are more. But I cannot find them anywhere else. Now I am on bubble algae watch!

Ken Good · Mar 28, 2021

Changed my programming for ATO to use RO water when the Salinity is 1.025 and salt water when it is below 1.025. Used the programming from HERE. Testing it at the moment to make sure it works. So far so good.

Ken Good · Jul 22, 2021

It has been 4 months since I have posted about my aquarium. I have had a lot of growing pains. 4 months ago, I had several fish die suddenly. I was concerned that a new fish that I had purchased had brought a disease into my tank. I was so upset with myself. I waited for the rest of my fish to die, but they did not. I waited 2 months before I added any more fish. I finally bought a few more fish and I did an alkalinity test and determined that my alkalinity was over 12. Then I could not decide if my fish perished because of disease or because of high alkalinity.

Ken Good · Jul 22, 2021

I once again started adding a few additional fish and suddenly several of them died at the same time. Right away, I was afraid that I did indeed had a disease brought into my tank and that my fish that survived were carriers.

I was rocking along for a while trying to figure out what was happening.

I did another alkalinity test and this time my alkalinity was below 6.

Ken Good · Jul 22, 2021

I think my alkalinity dropped because I decided to add a CO2 scrubber to my aquarium. Initially, the CO2 scrubber was depleting the media within a week. So after several weeks I started researching "recirculating CO2 scrubbers." So I bought the equipment that I needed to set up the CO2 scrubber and to connect the intake to the protein skimmer output. I read several articles about using a solenoid. Some of the comments suggested that it would get very hot. So I also looked at ball valves. So I decided to go with the ball valve.

I set up the additiontal equipment. Currently, the CO2 scrubber raises the ph to 8.23 at which point the ball valve opens. The ph then drops to 8.20 and the ball valve closes. The ph ping pongs back and forth all day long. By adding the recirculating feature, the media lasts at least 3 weeks instead of a week.

Ken Good · Jul 22, 2021

One of the things I learned from adding the CO2 scrubber is that it will allow the aquarium to use more alkalinity. This was the cause of my alkalinity dropping to less than 6.

Ken Good · Jul 22, 2021

I was pretty upset about my alkalinity fluctuating so much. So I began testing it daily. Also, I also have a KH Director that I have had for many months. I attempted to set it up 5 months are so ago and was not able to get it to work correctly.

Last weekend I decided to try again in setting up the KH Director. I played with it on Saturday and Sunday. I calibrated the ph probe several times and and the pumps without success. I just could not get it to work.

I kept getting an error message that said "tritation taking too long."

On Monday I decided that maybe the problem was not the KH Director, but maybe was the dosing pump.

I had an extra set of dosing pumps that did not work, so I canibalized it for parts. The problem turned out to be that the tubing around the rollers needed to be replaced. Because of the old tubing, two of the pumps was not holding their prime.

After replacing the tubing around the rollers, the KH Director started working. I spent the last couple of days fine tuning it and now it seems to be working as expected.

Today, the KH Director gave accurate results all day long with the exception of 1 test result. I believe that this one was a user error on my part.

I have started adding more fish again.

Ken Good · Jul 22, 2021

Ken Good · Jul 22, 2021

Ken Good · Jul 23, 2021

After setting up the KH Director, I have concluded that the trouble shooting page should add something discussing dosing pump issues. In retrospect, the issues that I was having from the beginning of my attempts to set up the silly device had nothing to do with the KH Director and instead was related to the dosing pumps. The water sample line and the reagent lines were not able to keep prime and the problems that I was having in set up were all related to that, but at the time I did not know it. I kept fiddling with the KH Director and not the dosing pump.

If the results of the KH Director are inconsistent, then I think the problem may be dosing pump related.

When I got the pumps straightened out, and got everything set up and running correctly, the KH Director immediately starting giving the same result which was 6. This was a substantial difference to my Hanna Checker which was giving a result of 8.3.

By this time, I figured that I did not accurately set up the calibration of the dosing pump. So instead of re-calibrating since I figured my measuring cup was off, I decided to increase the amount of ml per minute. I did this until the result of the KH Director increased to 8.3.

Then just to make certain that my result is accurate, I ordered a bottle of effluent that I can compare against.

This may all seem like a backwards way to get to the same result. But this is what I did.

Ken