- Joined
- Dec 3, 2015
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- 355
- Reaction score
- 385
Situation: I have a waterbox 90.3 that I upgraded into from a system that was 2 years old and started 1 month ago today. while I knew that I would come into some chemistry issues, this one kind of stumped me to the point of needing some help and or a plan of action.
i set the tank completely up and ran water for 2-3 days monitoring it checking for leaks and fine-tuning my water levels regarding gate valves and overflow and sump usage. after that, I did a 75% water change in case any chemicals from plumbing or dust or anything floating around in the water that I didn't want. and raised my PH with seachem PH buffer (which worked amazingly BTW). I then added my single dosing pump for TM all for reef and started dosing at 15ML a day according to the manufactures instructions. my total water volume is 70-75G of water. ( I don't have the funds to up and buy 2 dosing pumps from Neptune. i have a Neptune apex monitoring my tank.)
My CA, ALK and MAG started to drop slowly in the tank day by day. i didn't pay too much mind to it until levels dropped below minimum parameters. i then dosed red sea foundation A,B,C, its 3-250ML bottles with (liquid). my levels were brought up above the minimum requirement parameter levels. after I dosed the first time with the red sea solution my levels stayed within range for a week straight. Hopefully, that was because of the daily 15ML of dosing TM all for reef.
i understand that all for reef is a maintenance solution so you have to get the correct levels first in order for all for reef to maintain above minimum levels. The following week my ALK took a pretty big hit and would drop below the minimum parameter level so I started to spot dose slowly with the part b reef foundation from red sea wich will raise my ALK. My alkalinity would raise up to the correct levels then the following day or 2 it would drop drastically 2 points or a 1.5. I then would re dose the alk again. to maintain levels and once again a 2-1.5 drop once more. i started to run out of part B solution because I'm trying to keep up with it. MY CA, MAG started to drop slightly but not as much as the ALK swings. i then started to spot dose CA and MAG because they were also starting drop again. through this whole process I'm dosing all for reef. mind you my PH is within range during all this. 8.0-8.4. i had some precipitation accumulating also iduno if that has any effect on anything.
**during all of this, all equipment was re-calibrated and or cross-checked with another piece of testing equipment. All of the testing equipment is accurate. i am also going to be getting an ICP test kit here soon.**
Parameters:
The parameters range I'm following are TM ill put a reference down below. i will also show the trident graphs showing what i described above.
if you look at the alk you can see were I dosed the tank because it swings up and down....I'm not to worried about MG and CA because I have more of a handle on those. if my ALK did the same as my CA then I might have not wrote this post. if I hadn't dosed the tank it would have possibly dropped my alk down into the 5.0/6.0 range. the reason you don't see it fall to those is because I have an alarm on my trident levels.
Conclusion: I am worried about my corals. this is an SPS tank and i have some Acro's in it. being said that i understand that we should be shooting for stability but being that i have a certain type of coral in this system you have to at least maintain minimum levels. im chasing numbers to maintain stability but in order for stability to be achieved i need the numbers.
i am open to hearing any advice and also I'm here to learn. if I'm not asking or putting this out there then I'm not trying to learn or get better.
Questions:
1. Would my CA help my ALK stay in check if CA were maintained at a certain level or MAG?
2. I like using all for reef because its one solution but as far as I can see it doesn't do anything for calcium mag or ALK. anyone have any success with all for reef?
3. does anyone have any advice that might have gone through this?
4. i have a new tank. however, my rocks and media bags are over 2 years old and some of the rocks have 15 year bacteria growing on them. that being said is my tank not mature enough?
5. i might need a new way to dose my tank. any suggestions? (not interested in 2-part btw)
i set the tank completely up and ran water for 2-3 days monitoring it checking for leaks and fine-tuning my water levels regarding gate valves and overflow and sump usage. after that, I did a 75% water change in case any chemicals from plumbing or dust or anything floating around in the water that I didn't want. and raised my PH with seachem PH buffer (which worked amazingly BTW). I then added my single dosing pump for TM all for reef and started dosing at 15ML a day according to the manufactures instructions. my total water volume is 70-75G of water. ( I don't have the funds to up and buy 2 dosing pumps from Neptune. i have a Neptune apex monitoring my tank.)
My CA, ALK and MAG started to drop slowly in the tank day by day. i didn't pay too much mind to it until levels dropped below minimum parameters. i then dosed red sea foundation A,B,C, its 3-250ML bottles with (liquid). my levels were brought up above the minimum requirement parameter levels. after I dosed the first time with the red sea solution my levels stayed within range for a week straight. Hopefully, that was because of the daily 15ML of dosing TM all for reef.
i understand that all for reef is a maintenance solution so you have to get the correct levels first in order for all for reef to maintain above minimum levels. The following week my ALK took a pretty big hit and would drop below the minimum parameter level so I started to spot dose slowly with the part b reef foundation from red sea wich will raise my ALK. My alkalinity would raise up to the correct levels then the following day or 2 it would drop drastically 2 points or a 1.5. I then would re dose the alk again. to maintain levels and once again a 2-1.5 drop once more. i started to run out of part B solution because I'm trying to keep up with it. MY CA, MAG started to drop slightly but not as much as the ALK swings. i then started to spot dose CA and MAG because they were also starting drop again. through this whole process I'm dosing all for reef. mind you my PH is within range during all this. 8.0-8.4. i had some precipitation accumulating also iduno if that has any effect on anything.
**during all of this, all equipment was re-calibrated and or cross-checked with another piece of testing equipment. All of the testing equipment is accurate. i am also going to be getting an ICP test kit here soon.**
Parameters:
The parameters range I'm following are TM ill put a reference down below. i will also show the trident graphs showing what i described above.
if you look at the alk you can see were I dosed the tank because it swings up and down....I'm not to worried about MG and CA because I have more of a handle on those. if my ALK did the same as my CA then I might have not wrote this post. if I hadn't dosed the tank it would have possibly dropped my alk down into the 5.0/6.0 range. the reason you don't see it fall to those is because I have an alarm on my trident levels.
Conclusion: I am worried about my corals. this is an SPS tank and i have some Acro's in it. being said that i understand that we should be shooting for stability but being that i have a certain type of coral in this system you have to at least maintain minimum levels. im chasing numbers to maintain stability but in order for stability to be achieved i need the numbers.
i am open to hearing any advice and also I'm here to learn. if I'm not asking or putting this out there then I'm not trying to learn or get better.
Questions:
1. Would my CA help my ALK stay in check if CA were maintained at a certain level or MAG?
2. I like using all for reef because its one solution but as far as I can see it doesn't do anything for calcium mag or ALK. anyone have any success with all for reef?
3. does anyone have any advice that might have gone through this?
4. i have a new tank. however, my rocks and media bags are over 2 years old and some of the rocks have 15 year bacteria growing on them. that being said is my tank not mature enough?
5. i might need a new way to dose my tank. any suggestions? (not interested in 2-part btw)
