GlassMunky
2500 Club Member
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2014
- Messages
- 3,326
- Reaction score
- 4,409
- Location
- NJ-Philly Burbs
- What state or country do you live in
- New Jersey
I dont know what to do.....
I'm loosing my mind trying to understand my tanks levels and get it back to normal.
A few weeks ago, maybe like a month, my tank had a pretty nasty crash. I'm not sure what exactly crashed the tank though. i had thought that i had gotten my new calcium reactor finally tuned in as i had kept the levels in the tank constant at 10.5dkh and 450ppm CA for a little over 2 weeks. but i noticed one of my acros was starting to STN from the base, so i did a small water change (hadnt done one the entire time of tuning in the reactor), and then when i came home from work, the tank was nuked...... almost all my SPS died and all of my LPS was looking ****** off .NO IDEA what it was.
So i ripped out all the coral that had not died that i cared about and relocated them to a friends tank for safe keeping.
I then did a few massive water changes over the course of the next couple weeks, and also added a bottle of live bacteria to try and help boost the bio-filter in the tank in case that was an issue.
In anticipation of trying to get some SPS back into the tank, i wanted to try and get the tanks alk/ca stable before i start re-adding all the coral. So on Tuesday evening (10/01/2104) i tested my ALK (8.0dkh) and turned back on the calcium reactor. the next evening i tested the tank again, and my alk had raised by half a point to 8.5dkh. the next evening it was up to 9.0 dkh. Ok, so at this point im thinking to myself, "ok, the setting of the reactor is raising the tanks levels slightly each day since i no longer have any SPS eating it up" so i decide i want to let it continue to raise until 9.5 where i would like to ideally keep the tank at. but on friday, saturday and today the tanks alk has stayed right at 9.0 maybe 9.1
I'm confused as to why it would raise the tanks alk in a steady pattern and then suddenly stop???? Is this something i need to be concerned about?
also, concerning Calcium levels, originally when i first setup the reactor i tested calcium with the alk daily in getting it tuned and they both stayed in the same pattern. if alk raised so did calcium. if alk dropped so did calcium. since this tuesday when i turned the reactor back on, ive only been testing Alk, until today, where it tested at 500 (or above since the test kit stops there).
I know that at an alk level of 9.1, having my calcium up that high would be considered out of balance.
Is this maybe from my reactor putting out more calcium then alkalinity? what would cause that if so and how do i correct it? Or is it something else entirely? Should i try to get the calcium down, or the alk up a little more to get them back in line with each other?
I'm sooo lost and have no real idea as what my next step should be.
I just really want to get my nice tank back.
System is a 90G display tank, 40G fuge full of caulerpa, 30G sump, Radion Lights, Vortech Pumps, BM Curve-7 skimmer, MRC CR-1 Calcium reactor controlled by apex with CA-reactor pH held between 7.2-7.25
I'm loosing my mind trying to understand my tanks levels and get it back to normal.
A few weeks ago, maybe like a month, my tank had a pretty nasty crash. I'm not sure what exactly crashed the tank though. i had thought that i had gotten my new calcium reactor finally tuned in as i had kept the levels in the tank constant at 10.5dkh and 450ppm CA for a little over 2 weeks. but i noticed one of my acros was starting to STN from the base, so i did a small water change (hadnt done one the entire time of tuning in the reactor), and then when i came home from work, the tank was nuked...... almost all my SPS died and all of my LPS was looking ****** off .NO IDEA what it was.
So i ripped out all the coral that had not died that i cared about and relocated them to a friends tank for safe keeping.
I then did a few massive water changes over the course of the next couple weeks, and also added a bottle of live bacteria to try and help boost the bio-filter in the tank in case that was an issue.
In anticipation of trying to get some SPS back into the tank, i wanted to try and get the tanks alk/ca stable before i start re-adding all the coral. So on Tuesday evening (10/01/2104) i tested my ALK (8.0dkh) and turned back on the calcium reactor. the next evening i tested the tank again, and my alk had raised by half a point to 8.5dkh. the next evening it was up to 9.0 dkh. Ok, so at this point im thinking to myself, "ok, the setting of the reactor is raising the tanks levels slightly each day since i no longer have any SPS eating it up" so i decide i want to let it continue to raise until 9.5 where i would like to ideally keep the tank at. but on friday, saturday and today the tanks alk has stayed right at 9.0 maybe 9.1
I'm confused as to why it would raise the tanks alk in a steady pattern and then suddenly stop???? Is this something i need to be concerned about?
also, concerning Calcium levels, originally when i first setup the reactor i tested calcium with the alk daily in getting it tuned and they both stayed in the same pattern. if alk raised so did calcium. if alk dropped so did calcium. since this tuesday when i turned the reactor back on, ive only been testing Alk, until today, where it tested at 500 (or above since the test kit stops there).
I know that at an alk level of 9.1, having my calcium up that high would be considered out of balance.
Is this maybe from my reactor putting out more calcium then alkalinity? what would cause that if so and how do i correct it? Or is it something else entirely? Should i try to get the calcium down, or the alk up a little more to get them back in line with each other?
I'm sooo lost and have no real idea as what my next step should be.
I just really want to get my nice tank back.
System is a 90G display tank, 40G fuge full of caulerpa, 30G sump, Radion Lights, Vortech Pumps, BM Curve-7 skimmer, MRC CR-1 Calcium reactor controlled by apex with CA-reactor pH held between 7.2-7.25
