sgrosenb
Active Member
Hi there. Apologies in advance for the long post! Here goes:
I have a new tank which has cycled and seems to be doing decently well. I started it with some sand and dry rock. It's been running for about 5 weeks, and I added cleanup crew of snails and hermits about a week ago. I have some macro algae - chaeto and sea lettuce - in the fuge. So far I have only used Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt. Ammonia and Nitrate are undetectable, and over the past few days nitrates have gone to 0 as well. I haven't put anything in the tank except the CUC to date (haven't fed any food and haven't dosed anything).
I have an apex and have been monitoring pH, which continues to bounce between 7.7 and 7.9 daily. In terms of alkalinity, I have a GHL KH Director and a Hanna test kit. Hanna shoes 6.9 dKH, KH director (supposedly more accurate) shows 5.5-5.9 dKH.
It would seem that dosing some alk would bring up my alkalinity and pH. I have the full Triton method teed up and ready to dose, but am apprehensive to start, as there is not much need for Ca and Mag right now, and I'm worried that dosing Triton will overload the system with pro-algae growing "stuff" that will cause nuisance algae until my macro can handle it. So my question is three-part:
1) should I start dosing something - either a simple alk dosing from soda ash or from Triton?
2) am I right to hold off on full Triton Method dosing until my tank has become a bit more established?
3) are my parameters, as they stand now (pH and Alk) acceptable to add some fish, specifically, clownfish?
Thanks so much for any help. Cheers!
-Scott
I have a new tank which has cycled and seems to be doing decently well. I started it with some sand and dry rock. It's been running for about 5 weeks, and I added cleanup crew of snails and hermits about a week ago. I have some macro algae - chaeto and sea lettuce - in the fuge. So far I have only used Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt. Ammonia and Nitrate are undetectable, and over the past few days nitrates have gone to 0 as well. I haven't put anything in the tank except the CUC to date (haven't fed any food and haven't dosed anything).
I have an apex and have been monitoring pH, which continues to bounce between 7.7 and 7.9 daily. In terms of alkalinity, I have a GHL KH Director and a Hanna test kit. Hanna shoes 6.9 dKH, KH director (supposedly more accurate) shows 5.5-5.9 dKH.
It would seem that dosing some alk would bring up my alkalinity and pH. I have the full Triton method teed up and ready to dose, but am apprehensive to start, as there is not much need for Ca and Mag right now, and I'm worried that dosing Triton will overload the system with pro-algae growing "stuff" that will cause nuisance algae until my macro can handle it. So my question is three-part:
1) should I start dosing something - either a simple alk dosing from soda ash or from Triton?
2) am I right to hold off on full Triton Method dosing until my tank has become a bit more established?
3) are my parameters, as they stand now (pH and Alk) acceptable to add some fish, specifically, clownfish?
Thanks so much for any help. Cheers!
-Scott
