JCPatella's 90g Reef Build

[melev]

From these three pictures, I can't decide which one is my favorite. All three contain elements dear to my heart.







Great update. I wish more threads were like this.

Regarding the baked baking soda, I didn't mean 1 measuring cup of water, but rather a red beer cup of water. That would be about 16 to 20 oz or so. With less water it can be tough to dissolve the baking soda. It looks like you could dose more and bring up pH again. Always when dosing, add a little at a time, and measure the reaction to your tank before adding more.

On my huge reef, 6 teaspoons does nothing. In a barrel of water (55g's worth), that same amount will bring up alk and pH nicely.

I use a Pinpoint pH meter. I love them. You can buy them used for $45 to $55, or new for $89. If you care about pH and just want a quick update, that is the tool for you. It uses a 9v battery (a d/c plug may cause false readings) that lasts 6 months. Turn it on, put the probe in the water, see the numbers any time you approach the tank.

It is a great tool to measure newly mixed saltwater, as I discussed in my Water Change article in Reefkeeping. It saved my reef from a disaster when the brand of salt I used lacked the alkalinity ingredient. pH was 6.0 instead of 8.2, but baked baking soda brought it up where it needed to be, and I was able to proceed.

Having it portable, you can use it around the house as well as when visiting someone else's tank if they are having problems. You can test pH in newly acquired livestock too.

The probes tend to last about a year, and you can buy them online. Same with calibration solution. I've not used a pH test kit in years because they are never accurate. When my tank was reading 8.3, I pulled out the test kit to finally see it match that bright green color that 8.3 should be, and it STILL didn't match.

For those asking: For more information about baking soda, just scroll back two or three pages. It was explained in detail there.

Your skimmer is working exactly as it should. Good skimmate.

For a lazy man doser, what about getting a couple of those huge plastic syringe looking things. I've seen them for injecting poultry. If you could secure some tubing to the base of each injector, and hang the injectors in the perfect spot, you could pour in the additive and let it trickle out via the tubing. They even have measured markings on them. Pinch the hose, fill it up to the proper level, and then open the valve, unclamp the tubing. The smaller the tubing, the slower it would flow out.

Remember never to dose them at the same time as the reaction will cause precipitation just like dumping it in quickly. (If you are dosing them at one drip per second, then yes you could dose both at once in separate syringes. )