Would you be dosing this tank?

Elwood Dowd · Oct 10, 2018

40 breeder with 20 long sump
Ph stable 8.0
NO3 >1
Alk 8.9
Mag 1185
Cal 420
Ph 8.0

All I have been doing is 50% WC every 4 weeks with aquarium solutions mag pro plus.

Montis seem to grow well. I only have undatas and caps right now.

Euphilia don't die, but dont really grow. Thats probably because of lighting. I have appx 200 par at the sand and 520 at water surface.

Justfebreezeit · Oct 10, 2018

I'd throw some kalkwasser in your ato (if you have one).

Easy way to maintain a low demand alk level inbetween the water changes. The lps love a stable alk to.

MasterBacon · Oct 10, 2018

Mag would be better around 1350 from my experience.

Elwood Dowd · Oct 10, 2018

Justfebreezeit said:
I'd throw some kalkwasser in your ato (if you have one).

Easy way to maintain a low demand alk level inbetween the water changes. The lps love a stable alk to.

Therein lies my problem. I am all out of space for an ATO. I do one gallon manual top offs every 24 hours because of this.

Larry L · Oct 10, 2018

You didn't mention what your phosphates are at, but if they are too low that might be part of the reason your Euphilia don't really grow. Also, you might actually have too much light on them - have you tried them on the sandbed to see if they do any better?

Elwood Dowd · Oct 11, 2018

Larry L said:
You didn't mention what your phosphates are at, but if they are too low that might be part of the reason your Euphilia don't really grow. Also, you might actually have too much light on them - have you tried them on the sandbed to see if they do any better?

PO4 is slightly higher than 0. But absolutely lower than .2ppm, Closer to 0.

My wall hammer and pink frog spawn are the ones that don't grow. They are at or extremely close to the substrate level. My two torches have doubled in number of heads in the last 8 months. But they are mid level in the tank. I have about 50 x flow also. Low for sps. I am adding another 600gph tomorrow.

Elwood Dowd · Oct 11, 2018

MasterBacon said:
Mag would be better around 1350 from my experience.

Is kent tech M a good product? I don't and haven't ever used any kent products. But I have a bottle of the stuff for some unknown reason.

MasterBacon · Oct 11, 2018

I'm not sure about Kent. I have used redsea with good results. If you have it and it isn't expired I'd give it a try. Just follow the instructions and dont raise it more than 100 ppm per day.

sghera64 · Oct 12, 2018

Elwood Dowd said:
PO4 is slightly higher than 0. But absolutely lower than .2ppm, Closer to 0.

My wall hammer and pink frog spawn are the ones that don't grow. They are at or extremely close to the substrate level. My two torches have doubled in number of heads in the last 8 months. But they are mid level in the tank. I have about 50 x flow also. Low for sps. I am adding another 600gph tomorrow.

Phosphate at 0.20ppm is not “low” and I would not dose it. If you were below 0.02ppm and struggling to keep it there, then maybe.

My system grows wall hammers and green torches like weeds. I have to dose both N and P, or P falls to less than 20ppb (0.02ppm) PO4 using a Hanna ULR and converting the reading from Pi to PO4.

Euphyllia are one of the species that tanks either cater to or not and we don’t know why. My system seemed to “favor” my euphyllia after they got established in there over 3-4 years. At first they were under MH, and now doing just fine under LED and T5.

I do dose strontium, iron, iodine (I2), and iron. I also have a chaeto refugium.

Hang in there.

Elwood Dowd · Oct 12, 2018

sghera64 said:
Phosphate at 0.20ppm is not “low” and I would not dose it.
Hang in there.

I measured with a salifert. My post was supposed to read my po4 is between .03 and 0.0 but closer to the 0 end of the scale.

@MasterBacon @Justfebreezeit. I ended up finding space for 3 - 1.5l dose reservoirs in my sump are. So I am going to use two of them with kalkwasser and one with magnesium. That should handle my top off and dose daily. I really appreciate the comments and help.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 13, 2018

Elwood Dowd said:
Is kent tech M a good product? I don't and haven't ever used any kent products. But I have a bottle of the stuff for some unknown reason.

It is suitable, yes.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 13, 2018

Aside from correcting the magnesium, I don't see a need to dose anything if the alkalinity is not declining.

Elwood Dowd · Oct 14, 2018

@Randy Holmes-Farley. I really appreciate your response. I feel like I just got a guitar lesson from Eddie Van Halen.

I went ahead and created a spread sheet and graph so I can follow my nutrient and mineral uptake more accurately. I am hoping every bit of data I log helps point this tank straight.