Desperate plea for help.

[dolpator]

The 2 gen6 (xr15’s?) are probably fine for most corals on a 80 gallon tank. Youre current multi light set up would be good for a thriving sps tank but it sounds like that’s not where your at right now. All blue is fine as is a blend, it doesn’t really matter all that much. People have success with all blue or a much whiter spectrum. 250 par is adequate for sps. My biggest concern is that if something is amiss, blasting everything with high PAR will not help, and will hurt. You can keep sps at least alive with lower par numbers and definitely grow most other corals with much lower par. My logic is that sps is tricky regardless, so optimize and get things living and happy and then slowly ramp up and add light as things begin to thrive. I can assure you with your description of how hard it is for you to grow any coral, not enough light is not your problem.

Thank you for your response. I have turned everything down, and will begin to try and figuring out what might be going on. It might be just time to settle everything down for a bit and start from a new base line. It may be a few weeks before this takes place. and I am willing to wait it out and get things back into equilibrium. I am reading @Randy Holmes-Farley Optimal Parameters post and this is where I am going to begin again. I may loose some things along the way, but I need to find out what I may be doing wrong and really dissect this system and get it simplified. I have removed the Kalk Stirrer, it may have a place in the system in the future, but for now I think it is just adding more complications to the system than need be. I think after I get everything settled down and things are doing what they are supposed to do, I will work on what the lights need to be. Having two different lights is a small problem, as the AI Prime is more direct coned lighting, where the Gen6's are more spread out. Wondering if replacing the AI Prime with another Radion is the right choice for a more blended and equal light source over the reef. If 250 is adequate I am sure I am getting that. was just told it needed to be 350 for SPS hence the extra light bars...So you see where things headed quickly.

 

[dolpator]

After not reading your post, and watching your video (lol) - your tank looks great! I guess I don't understand the problem?? Congratulations on a beautiful reef aquarium. Keep up the good work!

Thank you. It looks good, it doesn't grow. I am getting little to no growth on any of the inhabitants. My Alk hasn't dropped in over a week with no dosing, so no consumption no growth. This is why I reached out. I am happy with my tank but looks are deceiving. It only looks good looking in from the outside, when you have been on this journey for over 10 years, and never had a thriving tank just a sustainable tank when most corals end up dying and being replaced. I want to grow coral into beautiful colonies full of color and life. Not a tank that I just keep replacing corals until I finally get it right...Just want more....

 

[twentyleagues]

Thank you. It looks good, it doesn't grow. I am getting little to no growth on any of the inhabitants. My Alk hasn't dropped in over a week with no dosing, so no consumption no growth. This is why I reached out. I am happy with my tank but looks are deceiving. It only looks good looking in from the outside, when you have been on this journey for over 10 years, and never had a thriving tank just a sustainable tank when most corals end up dying and being replaced. I want to grow coral into beautiful colonies full of color and life. Not a tank that I just keep replacing corals until I finally get it right...Just want more....

How long ago did you stop dosing kalk?

 

[twentyleagues]

IMO kalk stirrers are fine but you never know the true saturation of what you are dosing unless you have a ph probe to tell. Some days its higher some days its lower. I find 2 part or afr is actually easier to keep the system stable, and I understood it right away. I did carx and a kind of kalk stirrer in the past. Luckily I had a reefing buddy or mentor to help me in person in those days because I didnt understand it at all, still dont. Hope I dont need to go that direction again. It kind of scares me.

 

[dolpator]

UV is a gimmick unless you can afford an appropriately sized unit. Time water is exposed to the UV is key. Most units as far as I can tell are under powered for the tanks they are in.

Everything is a balance. So if you have a ton of PAR you also need the nutrients. If you have less nutrients then less par. A balance. That's my take on it. When stuff is not balanced, and you start buying crap you don't need like carbon, but never iron in the balance, you never succeed. I am so guilty of this.

How long ago did you stop dosing kalk?

About a month because calcium went well over 600. Had to stop

 

[Gabbone]

I have a g6 xr15 blue and I am currently on ab+ at 50% intensity

 

[Sump Crab]

Thank you. It looks good, it doesn't grow. I am getting little to no growth on any of the inhabitants. My Alk hasn't dropped in over a week with no dosing, so no consumption no growth. This is why I reached out. I am happy with my tank but looks are deceiving. It only looks good looking in from the outside, when you have been on this journey for over 10 years, and never had a thriving tank just a sustainable tank when most corals end up dying and being replaced. I want to grow coral into beautiful colonies full of color and life. Not a tank that I just keep replacing corals until I finally get it right...Just want more....

Is it mostly the sps that die on you? It sure looks like your softys and LPS have growth! I even see a big sps colony in your tank as well. I've been in this hobby a little over 20 years and I can say 100% without a doubt that most hobbyist will never have a tank that looks as nice as yours. Most ppl have algae infested tanks and quit after a year or two. If you are trying to compare yourself to social media influencer tanks or a wwc display tank then idk what to say lol. I do know that you have a very nice tank that you should be proud of. Most of those Instagram tanks are photo shopped anyways!

 

[William Chiavetta]

I have been in the hobby for a while now. Have had my ups and downs like most people and have always come here for help. I feel that the collective members in this group have the aquarist best interest at heart and are generally willing to provide some insight feedback on most issue involving our hobby and I really appreciate that. So my issues, I cannot grow coral. I sustain life for the most part, but never do I ever see any kind of growth. I have been going back and forth with wanting to try something new since the old is not working,I have looked into the new 4part Red Sea Foundations Program, I am looking at TM All for Reef, but I get freaked out on change. So basically, I sustain the life until the coral succumbs to its death. This is typically the life in my tank. Never any noticeable advancement in the coral for any given time. I did a reboot of my system about 2 years ago, put the new apex A2 system on the tank, new Trident, new Radion G6's Pros and an Avast marine Kalk Stirrer and Pax Bellum N18 Macro Reactor. A friend said it would be the easiest to maintain and have a thriving tank. Well, this has been further from the truth. I think I was having issues with the Trident, because I was trusting it too much. I wasn't chancing numbers, but trends, and if things were stable I was ok with it. Still nothing grows.

Now I find myself in a position where I have a tank full of mixed corals and quite frankly, I am about to just give up the hobby and move on. (this would make my wife very happy). I do not want to give up. I have been a lover of all thing's ocean, and it breaks my heart when I cannot provide the care these animals need when I am trying my hardest to do so. There is really something wrong with this tank, and nobody can seem to be able to help me. My local reefers are not able to figure it out, I am here because I cannot figure it out. I am losing all hope and getting very frustrated. I know it isn't the easiest of hobby's to be in, a lot of time, care and money goes into this hobby to try and give the inhabitants of our reefs everything they need. But there is something seriously wrong with my tank.

So on to my problem. A about a month ago I was given some advice, that wasn't something I understood. So, my calcium in my tank was well over 550, maybe even close to 600, but my alkalinity was 9. I couldn't bring my calcium down at all. I had stopped running the Kalk in the system, and just put a doser on dosing B-Ionic Part B (alkalinity) and Magnesium. Calcium levels never dropped. We are talking a month without dosing any kalk in the system. So, it was suggested that I increase my alk to above 10-11 to bring the system into balance with regards to the elements in the tank. I do not know if this hurt the system, but I did try and there was no change. So, I have stopped this process all together and have just left the system alone, not dosing anything at all and letting the numbers fall on their own and see where they end up. Currently after a month, my levels according to both the Trident and the Hanna Checks are Alk 9.81, Cal 496, and Mag 1594. (yes, I know mag is high I do not know how it got up there, but that is what the trident is reading and salifert is off the scale). This is where my questions are coming. These numbers have been in this range for about a week. No change, at all. This is confusing to me. If the corals were taking up these elements there would be a steady decrease in these numbers daily, and I am just not seeing it. Corals are starting to die, and things to my knowledge are just unexplainable. Hanna Checks out with what the Trident says so the numbers have been at least verified. So, what could be the problem? I need help, I am tired of getting corals that I like, and just watching them wither up and die over a month. I really believe there is something going on in this tank that I am not experienced enough to understand. I will break down the tank, equipment, schedules, everything, and hopefully together we can bring this tank around and thriving and not just a holding area for corals to come to die....(Trust me that is how I feel sometimes).

Tank Parameters. (30 gallon water change was performed this past weekend)
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 77
PH-7.8 at night 8 during the day (there is a C02 Scrubber on the Skimmer) Trying to raise PH. Tank sits in a sunroom with an open door and probably is in the best place for fresh air.
P04 - .07
N03 - 10
Alk 9.81
Cal - 496
Mag- 1594
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0

Tank and Equipment
80 gallons with Fuji 20 Sump 48"x24"x16" about 50lbs of live rock in the system.
2 Radion XR15's G6 Pro's, 1 AI Prime HD between them and 4 Led Light Bars Blue/UV (Schedule is Victors from WWC, thought it would be easier to mimic a similar tank)
Neptune Apex 2 with Trident and DOS (alk and Mag)
Avast Kalk Stirrer (Currently not running)
Pax Bellum N18 Macro Reactor (No room for a refugium in the tank)
Maxspect Gyre XF330 on each side of tank running a SPS mode Preset)
ATO with 10-gallon Reservoir
Small Media reactor that I run Carbon or GFO in as needed.

Inhabitants
Mixed Reef with just corals that I like, SPS (various types Mostly acros of some type), LPS( Blasto, Torch, hammer, Frogspawn, galaxia), Mushrooms, zoanthids, Bubble Tip Nem for the Clowns, Rock Nem garden.
1 Sailfin tang,
1 Blue Regal Tang
1 Tomini Tang
2 Clown fish
4 Pajama Cardinals
1 Banggai Cardinal
1 Mandarin Dragonet
1 Yellow Coris Wrasse
1 Goby of some type

1 Pistol Shrimp
2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
4 Peppermint shrimp

I Feed homemade frozen food once a day and a TDR Pellet food on automatic feeder once a day. Just enough for the fish to eat. I do not typically spot feed the corals, once a week I may put some reef roids in the frozen food and broadcast feed this in the tank. Once in a while I will added a few ML's of Coral Amino's but I do not have that on a schedule, just when I think about it, I will add it to my food mix and add it to the tank. I have tried to give you as much as I possibly could to try and figure out what we need to do to reverse this tank and get it into thriving mode before I go crazy and just throw in the towel. Here is a video of the tank from about a month ago. As it is it looks ok. Just no growth. I am happy to have a discussion, open my mind to things I may not be thinking of. I will try anything at this point. I know All for Reef is not the norm, but I am considering it for just ease of use, but I do not want to start it until my numbers come down. I would monitor the dosage by Alk only and I know I would have to make adjustments to either alk or calcium depending on test. I am good with that, at least the tank would be getting mostly what it needs and could be better off than where I am at. Of course, my other option, which I know Randy would probably say is the better choice is to go B-Ionic Part A and B and just dose Mag as needed. I do not care which road leads me to success as long as I get to some kind of success. Thanks for listening, thanks for any advice, Thanks for being such a great group in general. Leaving with an open mind and heart, with hopes I can figure out what is going on with this tank.

Good luck

 

[Alazo1]

+1 for beefy,s suggestions.
I would shut off any kind of unnecessary equipment Or additives. If your system is not growing, you do not need to add calcium, alkalinity, magnesium. I would stop the carbon dozing as well.

How are your RO filters? Is your makeup water 0 tds? If you trust your make up water, I personally would do a series of water changes. The only exception is that I would use your old salt.Mix not the new nios. Not that niles is a bad salt, I don't know. But just because it's different than the one you were previously using, It Maybe negatively impacting your system. Keep it simple.

 

[Roatan Reef]

What about your flow? It seems very low to none from the video; also, the water doesn't look crystal clear. It seems a bit cloudy and this could indicate a bacteria bloom. Are you running carbon?

I suggest drop a bag of "Blue Life Clear FX Pro" in high flow area of your sump.

Watch out to Hanna MG, it's total trash. Always reading 150-200pm higher;
Hanna CA you must use deionized water. RODI it's not the same and it will read higher number.

I will do an ICP test asap to make sure the water is not contaminated in any way and that you do not have any critical deficiencies.

Besides that I must admin your tank it's truly amazing!!!

Yes... as @Gabbone said...tank looks good, you clearly have some melting corals, but what's up with your flow?? Video has almost no movement??

@dolpator what is your powerheads situation?? With out enough flow, your corals will grow algea and not be able to shed algae growth on them...all of us here @R2R struggle with flow, as we are always dialing it in to be better, but your tank looks like it lacks flow.

Give us a breakdown of your equipment....please and thanks!

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

I have been in the hobby for a while now. Have had my ups and downs like most people and have always come here for help. I feel that the collective members in this group have the aquarist best interest at heart and are generally willing to provide some insight feedback on most issue involving our hobby and I really appreciate that. So my issues, I cannot grow coral. I sustain life for the most part, but never do I ever see any kind of growth. I have been going back and forth with wanting to try something new since the old is not working,I have looked into the new 4part Red Sea Foundations Program, I am looking at TM All for Reef, but I get freaked out on change. So basically, I sustain the life until the coral succumbs to its death. This is typically the life in my tank. Never any noticeable advancement in the coral for any given time. I did a reboot of my system about 2 years ago, put the new apex A2 system on the tank, new Trident, new Radion G6's Pros and an Avast marine Kalk Stirrer and Pax Bellum N18 Macro Reactor. A friend said it would be the easiest to maintain and have a thriving tank. Well, this has been further from the truth. I think I was having issues with the Trident, because I was trusting it too much. I wasn't chancing numbers, but trends, and if things were stable I was ok with it. Still nothing grows.

Now I find myself in a position where I have a tank full of mixed corals and quite frankly, I am about to just give up the hobby and move on. (this would make my wife very happy). I do not want to give up. I have been a lover of all thing's ocean, and it breaks my heart when I cannot provide the care these animals need when I am trying my hardest to do so. There is really something wrong with this tank, and nobody can seem to be able to help me. My local reefers are not able to figure it out, I am here because I cannot figure it out. I am losing all hope and getting very frustrated. I know it isn't the easiest of hobby's to be in, a lot of time, care and money goes into this hobby to try and give the inhabitants of our reefs everything they need. But there is something seriously wrong with my tank.

So on to my problem. A about a month ago I was given some advice, that wasn't something I understood. So, my calcium in my tank was well over 550, maybe even close to 600, but my alkalinity was 9. I couldn't bring my calcium down at all. I had stopped running the Kalk in the system, and just put a doser on dosing B-Ionic Part B (alkalinity) and Magnesium. Calcium levels never dropped. We are talking a month without dosing any kalk in the system. So, it was suggested that I increase my alk to above 10-11 to bring the system into balance with regards to the elements in the tank. I do not know if this hurt the system, but I did try and there was no change. So, I have stopped this process all together and have just left the system alone, not dosing anything at all and letting the numbers fall on their own and see where they end up. Currently after a month, my levels according to both the Trident and the Hanna Checks are Alk 9.81, Cal 496, and Mag 1594. (yes, I know mag is high I do not know how it got up there, but that is what the trident is reading and salifert is off the scale). This is where my questions are coming. These numbers have been in this range for about a week. No change, at all. This is confusing to me. If the corals were taking up these elements there would be a steady decrease in these numbers daily, and I am just not seeing it. Corals are starting to die, and things to my knowledge are just unexplainable. Hanna Checks out with what the Trident says so the numbers have been at least verified. So, what could be the problem? I need help, I am tired of getting corals that I like, and just watching them wither up and die over a month. I really believe there is something going on in this tank that I am not experienced enough to understand. I will break down the tank, equipment, schedules, everything, and hopefully together we can bring this tank around and thriving and not just a holding area for corals to come to die....(Trust me that is how I feel sometimes).

Tank Parameters. (30 gallon water change was performed this past weekend)
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 77
PH-7.8 at night 8 during the day (there is a C02 Scrubber on the Skimmer) Trying to raise PH. Tank sits in a sunroom with an open door and probably is in the best place for fresh air.
P04 - .07
N03 - 10
Alk 9.81
Cal - 496
Mag- 1594
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0

Tank and Equipment
80 gallons with Fuji 20 Sump 48"x24"x16" about 50lbs of live rock in the system.
2 Radion XR15's G6 Pro's, 1 AI Prime HD between them and 4 Led Light Bars Blue/UV (Schedule is Victors from WWC, thought it would be easier to mimic a similar tank)
Neptune Apex 2 with Trident and DOS (alk and Mag)
Avast Kalk Stirrer (Currently not running)
Pax Bellum N18 Macro Reactor (No room for a refugium in the tank)
Maxspect Gyre XF330 on each side of tank running a SPS mode Preset)
ATO with 10-gallon Reservoir
Small Media reactor that I run Carbon or GFO in as needed.

Inhabitants
Mixed Reef with just corals that I like, SPS (various types Mostly acros of some type), LPS( Blasto, Torch, hammer, Frogspawn, galaxia), Mushrooms, zoanthids, Bubble Tip Nem for the Clowns, Rock Nem garden.
1 Sailfin tang,
1 Blue Regal Tang
1 Tomini Tang
2 Clown fish
4 Pajama Cardinals
1 Banggai Cardinal
1 Mandarin Dragonet
1 Yellow Coris Wrasse
1 Goby of some type

1 Pistol Shrimp
2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
4 Peppermint shrimp

I Feed homemade frozen food once a day and a TDR Pellet food on automatic feeder once a day. Just enough for the fish to eat. I do not typically spot feed the corals, once a week I may put some reef roids in the frozen food and broadcast feed this in the tank. Once in a while I will added a few ML's of Coral Amino's but I do not have that on a schedule, just when I think about it, I will add it to my food mix and add it to the tank. I have tried to give you as much as I possibly could to try and figure out what we need to do to reverse this tank and get it into thriving mode before I go crazy and just throw in the towel. Here is a video of the tank from about a month ago. As it is it looks ok. Just no growth. I am happy to have a discussion, open my mind to things I may not be thinking of. I will try anything at this point. I know All for Reef is not the norm, but I am considering it for just ease of use, but I do not want to start it until my numbers come down. I would monitor the dosage by Alk only and I know I would have to make adjustments to either alk or calcium depending on test. I am good with that, at least the tank would be getting mostly what it needs and could be better off than where I am at. Of course, my other option, which I know Randy would probably say is the better choice is to go B-Ionic Part A and B and just dose Mag as needed. I do not care which road leads me to success as long as I get to some kind of success. Thanks for listening, thanks for any advice, Thanks for being such a great group in general. Leaving with an open mind and heart, with hopes I can figure out what is going on with this tank.

Stunning tank. Tell the truth, were you humble bragging?

 

[bubbgee]

From my experience, it is really difficult to handle mixed reef as the inhabitants requirements are variously different to grow.

One thing I noticed is your pH is on the low end. I fixed my issue by adding a protein skimmer and co2 scrubber. I finally got out of the 7.6-7.9 range and now I am able to hit 8.3 daily from a low of 8.1. Watching Jake talk about pH is what spurred me to solve that issue and finally get some growth. My euphillia are all splitting now and my zoas are adding more polyps. I am still working on my phosphates and nitrates to get growth out of my SPS, but like I said, it's the challenge of maintaining stable numbers and keeping each kind of inhabitant happy and fighting algae.

How to Actually Make Corals Grow Faster, High pH | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

After temperature and salinity, the pH of aquarium water is one of the most important parameters of reef aquarium chemistry. In freshwater tanks soft water fish have been adapted to higher pH and vice…

reefbuilders.com

 

[dolpator]

Is it mostly the sps that die on you? It sure looks like your softys and LPS have growth! I even see a big sps colony in your tank as well. I've been in this hobby a little over 20 years and I can say 100% without a doubt that most hobbyist will never have a tank that looks as nice as yours. Most ppl have algae infested tanks and quit after a year or two. If you are trying to compare yourself to social media influencer tanks or a wwc display tank then idk what to say lol. I do know that you have a very nice tank that you should be proud of. Most of those Instagram tanks are photo shopped anyways!

No I am having issues right now. That big colony I have is a Pink Caddy that has completely browned out on me, I bought it from a local because everyone wanted frags and he didn't want to chop it up. SO I bought the whole piece fragged it up, made all my money back and a little extra from the sell of the colony and that is what I have left. To answer your question, as of today I have lost a head of one of my Torch's all my Golden Dragon Bounce mushrooms on the left side of the Tank are melting away, have lost 6 frags of SPS, and My Superman and Forest Fire Rhodactis Mushrooms on the right side are showing signs of something is off. They are weathered. But yes the tank in general looks beautiful, I was not complaining that it doesn't. I am trying to figure out how to grow corals. The hammer and torch corals have been in that tank for over a year. I bought them with 2 heads each I have only grown 2 heads of Hammer coral in a year, I have never been able to grow any SPS for any given amount a time. Before my Walt died I got a small colony of him going for a good bit but it took 2 years to do it. and then my Calcium reactor Pump malfunctioned in the on position and dumped massive amounts of effluent in the tank, crashing the system 2 years ago. I have slowly climbed back into this position thinking I had everything in place to begin again, all numbers were good and everything was happy. This past month everything is not happy and starting to decline. That video was taken a month ago...

 

[dolpator]

From my experience, it is really difficult to handle mixed reef as the inhabitants requirements are variously different to grow.

One thing I noticed is your pH is on the low end. I fixed my issue by adding a protein skimmer and co2 scrubber. I finally got out of the 7.6-7.9 range and now I am able to hit 8.3 daily from a low of 8.1. Watching Jake talk about pH is what spurred me to solve that issue and finally get some growth. My euphillia are all splitting now and my zoas are adding more polyps. I am still working on my phosphates and nitrates to get growth out of my SPS, but like I said, it's the challenge of maintaining stable numbers and keeping each kind of inhabitant happy and fighting algae.

How to Actually Make Corals Grow Faster, High pH | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

After temperature and salinity, the pH of aquarium water is one of the most important parameters of reef aquarium chemistry. In freshwater tanks soft water fish have been adapted to higher pH and vice…

reefbuilders.com

Same here, I do have a C02 scrubber on my skimmer, It isn't getting me to 8.3 but I have seen glimpse of 8.1-8.2, which @Randy Holmes-Farley says should be fine. The tank also sits in the sunroom with an open door all day for the dogs. So tank should be getting adequate 02 in the room.

 

[dolpator]

Stunning tank. Tell the truth, were you humble bragging?

WIsh I were, the troubles right now are real...

 

[dolpator]

Yes... as @Gabbone said...tank looks good, you clearly have some melting corals, but what's up with your flow?? Video has almost no movement??

@dolpator what is your powerheads situation?? With out enough flow, your corals will grow algea and not be able to shed algae growth on them...all of us here @R2R struggle with flow, as we are always dialing it in to be better, but your tank looks like it lacks flow.

Give us a breakdown of your equipment....please and thanks!

I have two new Maxspect Gyre XF330's on that 4' tank one on each end. They are on one of the SPS presets, it alternates percentages up to 80% on each side throughout the day. I posted a video yesterday. I can post another today of inside the tank. Video's get pretty large and can't email them past like 5 seconds. I have also adjusted the individual vents on the wave maker, the ones on the end are finned out towards the front glass and back wall and the middle ones are pushing over the reef. It has to be enough flow everything in the tank has some kind of movement.

 

[dolpator]

+1 for beefy,s suggestions.
I would shut off any kind of unnecessary equipment Or additives. If your system is not growing, you do not need to add calcium, alkalinity, magnesium. I would stop the carbon dozing as well.

How are your RO filters? Is your makeup water 0 tds? If you trust your make up water, I personally would do a series of water changes. The only exception is that I would use your old salt.Mix not the new nios. Not that niles is a bad salt, I don't know. But just because it's different than the one you were previously using, It Maybe negatively impacting your system. Keep it simple.

I forgot to add that. RO filters have been replaced in the past month, and we recently spent 3K on a whole house water purification system. It removes everything, has an extra chloramine remover, and has a UV sterilizer on the system as well. I feel my water is as pure as it gets. The sediment filter in the RO/DI unit hasn't even turn brown yet after a month of making RO water for the ATO's . I was using Reef Crystals before and was having issues with dkh and Mag. I do not know if I just got a bad batch of Reef Crystals, it was a salt I was always using. This is why I went to a different salt that was more inline with where I wanted to keep my parameters.. I will say the salt tested as it was presented to on the bag for two water changes. So I do not know if that means anything but there is that...

 

[dolpator]

IMO kalk stirrers are fine but you never know the true saturation of what you are dosing unless you have a ph probe to tell. Some days its higher some days its lower. I find 2 part or afr is actually easier to keep the system stable, and I understood it right away. I did carx and a kind of kalk stirrer in the past. Luckily I had a reefing buddy or mentor to help me in person in those days because I didnt understand it at all, still dont. Hope I dont need to go that direction again. It kind of scares me.

I had a PH probe in the Kalk Stirrer, I always kept my saturation above 12PH which is what I was researching was the correct ph for fully saturated Kalk. I actually do want to move over to All for Reef. I need simplicity. Not that All For Reef is not going to have its quirky issues that I have read, If I can dial in AFR and just make manual adjustments when needed I think I would be much happier than trying to get all this equipment reinstated back into the system. I have taken the Kalk stirrer out of the system and put it away for now. I was thinking of doing a tandum set up with Kalk and AFR to get the benefits of the PH boost that comes with Kalk the inexpensiveness of kalk for what it provides the tank, and the then all the trace and benefits of AFR. I am not doing that but that was a thought that I was leaning towards before all this happened...Now in this settling phase in the tank waiting on numbers to come back to reality before implementing either AFR or 2 part system again...

 

[dolpator]

Ok I think I have everyone answered and beginning to understand some things. I do have a question. We have stopped all dosing for at least 3 weeks. Trying to get numbers to come down. I have been manually dosing B-ionic alkalinity to adjust alk levels when needed as calcium and magnesium came back down after what ever happened happened. I have not dosed any alkalinity for at least 2 weeks and this past week has hovered in the 9.6-9.8 range all week with out dropping, then this morning Alk is back to 10.3. (verified with Hanna). What do I not understand about Alk that would cause this shift upward without dosing anything...

 

[twentyleagues]

Ok I think I have everyone answered and beginning to understand some things. I do have a question. We have stopped all dosing for at least 3 weeks. Trying to get numbers to come down. I have been manually dosing B-ionic alkalinity to adjust alk levels when needed as calcium and magnesium came back down after what ever happened happened. I have not dosed any alkalinity for at least 2 weeks and this past week has hovered in the 9.6-9.8 range all week with out dropping, then this morning Alk is back to 10.3. (verified with Hanna). What do I not understand about Alk that would cause this shift upward without dosing anything...

Processing of nitrate via bacteria will produce a positive shift in alk. I believe it is 2.3dkh per 25ppm of nitrate. Is that happening in your tank? kind of hard to say as your nitrate isnt that high to begin with but new nitrate is being made daily so maybe? I am sure there is a better explanation just the first that came to my mind.