Trenton Henderson
Active Member
Hey everyone!
I posted a while back in the reef chemistry forum about issues with what seemed to be calcium carbonate precipitation issues. I wanted to stabilize my levels of calcium and alkalinity, so I began dosing BRS 2 part. The only demand I have is a growing population of coralline algae in the tank. The tank will be a mixed reef, but I need to get the tank matured and get better lights. The tank has two small clowns, a royal gramma, and a skunk cleaner shrimp (plus a few snails and hermits).
Since this discussion, I have found that the calcium carbonate precipitation seems to be a cause of the new tank’s sand bed (both in the tank and refugium). I have seen Randy mention that this often happens with younger tanks or newer sand because it doesn’t have the organic buildup/phosphates to coat the surface before the calcium carbonate does. I am dosing the two parts on a dosing pump directly into a power head over 24 doses (one every hour) a day. My magnesium level is solid at 1350 ppm, alkalinity in the mid-7 dKH range, and calcium quite high for what I want at 450 ppm due to a bit of overdosing to correct the low calcium I previously had.
I would like to have these levels:
Alk: 9 dKH
Ca: 430 ppm
Mg: 1350 ppm
but I just can’t seem to stop the sand bed from soaking it up!
I backed off on the dosing by a good bit and disconnected my CO2 scrubber from my protein skimmer today to drop my pH a bit, so we will see if this helps.
Anyone else had problems with this? If so, how’d you solve it? How long before your tank stopped sand hardening?
As a side note, I had a FOWLR (plus inverts) tank with Fiji pink sand a while back with no dosing and still experienced some sand hardening early in the tank’s life. My current tank is a 60 gallon long (or tall) with a sump. The total volume is somewhere between 75 and 85 gallons. I have two MP40s running on it, so flow is not an issue.
I posted a while back in the reef chemistry forum about issues with what seemed to be calcium carbonate precipitation issues. I wanted to stabilize my levels of calcium and alkalinity, so I began dosing BRS 2 part. The only demand I have is a growing population of coralline algae in the tank. The tank will be a mixed reef, but I need to get the tank matured and get better lights. The tank has two small clowns, a royal gramma, and a skunk cleaner shrimp (plus a few snails and hermits).
Since this discussion, I have found that the calcium carbonate precipitation seems to be a cause of the new tank’s sand bed (both in the tank and refugium). I have seen Randy mention that this often happens with younger tanks or newer sand because it doesn’t have the organic buildup/phosphates to coat the surface before the calcium carbonate does. I am dosing the two parts on a dosing pump directly into a power head over 24 doses (one every hour) a day. My magnesium level is solid at 1350 ppm, alkalinity in the mid-7 dKH range, and calcium quite high for what I want at 450 ppm due to a bit of overdosing to correct the low calcium I previously had.
I would like to have these levels:
Alk: 9 dKH
Ca: 430 ppm
Mg: 1350 ppm
but I just can’t seem to stop the sand bed from soaking it up!
I backed off on the dosing by a good bit and disconnected my CO2 scrubber from my protein skimmer today to drop my pH a bit, so we will see if this helps.
Anyone else had problems with this? If so, how’d you solve it? How long before your tank stopped sand hardening?
As a side note, I had a FOWLR (plus inverts) tank with Fiji pink sand a while back with no dosing and still experienced some sand hardening early in the tank’s life. My current tank is a 60 gallon long (or tall) with a sump. The total volume is somewhere between 75 and 85 gallons. I have two MP40s running on it, so flow is not an issue.
