crafty_50mitchell
08/28/2004, 06:49 PM
Hey all, here's the backstory Ive been running a 10 gallon nano reef/mantis tank (Gonadactylus Chiragra) for 7 months now and have had little problems in the area of maintaining my calcium levels between 400-450, over the past couple weeks however I cant seem to maintain it at all, even if I purposly overdose with some turbo calcium just to get a reading. Here's what I dose with: turbo calcium, turbo strontium, Tech M, Tech I, coral vite, coral accel, essential elements, Marine buffer, Marine builder.
The set up on the ten is: bak pak 2 skimmer, not collecting just used for added water volume (Im very good about my weekly water changes), Hang on aqua clear power filter with some live rock and a small light thats working as a reverse daylight refugium with macro algae (the macro however is calurpa, so I cant blame the calcium on halimada sucking up all of it, and there's not that much in there now anyway), 15 lbs of live rock, which "was" growing some fantastic coraline on it, but now that calcium is depleted thats grinded to a halt. Various softies mushrooms, some pipe organ frag I rescued, candy cane, zooanthids etc. Basically nothing new has been added coral wise over the past month
My ph maintains at 8.3 through daily top offs with the above elements added in small portions.
Salinity stays around 24-26 (depending if I topped off yet or not)
Alkalinity stays between 7-9.8 again from top offs, however with this I dont add calcium and the marine builder at the same time due to the dissapation of calcium.
I am very suspicious now of the turbo stontium, I have been adding it daily, just a very small pinch but Im curious as to its effects on calcium uptake for the tank, and now I know for a fact that I am overdosing with it due to seeing some compounding of elements on the live rock.
So basically Im at a loss, today Ill be snagging some kalk just for a change plus Im a much bigger fan of it than the turbo calcium, and beyond that Im cutting down on dosing the tank daily, or at least cutting the dosing way down (like two drops of everything in my 500 ml daily top off). It's just very bizare my test kits are good (seatest) I know this due to my tests of the top off water showing me that Ive got the calcium levels up around 500ml for top off, and then the next day..nada no calcium, or very very low levels of it. Thanks for those who muscled their way through this post, and plz throw up any suggestions that might come to mind. This is seriously driving me nuts since I work on aquariums by day and research grad programs by night (which now by the way my nights are filled by such classic quotes as: Okay honey...Ill be in there for dinner in a minute I just have to finish dunking my head into the ten gallon mantis/nano reef tank to look for where my calcium ((and my sanity) is going.)
Cheers,
Brian (nano reef guy who would kill a mofo for a little bit of a calcium readin)
The set up on the ten is: bak pak 2 skimmer, not collecting just used for added water volume (Im very good about my weekly water changes), Hang on aqua clear power filter with some live rock and a small light thats working as a reverse daylight refugium with macro algae (the macro however is calurpa, so I cant blame the calcium on halimada sucking up all of it, and there's not that much in there now anyway), 15 lbs of live rock, which "was" growing some fantastic coraline on it, but now that calcium is depleted thats grinded to a halt. Various softies mushrooms, some pipe organ frag I rescued, candy cane, zooanthids etc. Basically nothing new has been added coral wise over the past month
My ph maintains at 8.3 through daily top offs with the above elements added in small portions.
Salinity stays around 24-26 (depending if I topped off yet or not)
Alkalinity stays between 7-9.8 again from top offs, however with this I dont add calcium and the marine builder at the same time due to the dissapation of calcium.
I am very suspicious now of the turbo stontium, I have been adding it daily, just a very small pinch but Im curious as to its effects on calcium uptake for the tank, and now I know for a fact that I am overdosing with it due to seeing some compounding of elements on the live rock.
So basically Im at a loss, today Ill be snagging some kalk just for a change plus Im a much bigger fan of it than the turbo calcium, and beyond that Im cutting down on dosing the tank daily, or at least cutting the dosing way down (like two drops of everything in my 500 ml daily top off). It's just very bizare my test kits are good (seatest) I know this due to my tests of the top off water showing me that Ive got the calcium levels up around 500ml for top off, and then the next day..nada no calcium, or very very low levels of it. Thanks for those who muscled their way through this post, and plz throw up any suggestions that might come to mind. This is seriously driving me nuts since I work on aquariums by day and research grad programs by night (which now by the way my nights are filled by such classic quotes as: Okay honey...Ill be in there for dinner in a minute I just have to finish dunking my head into the ten gallon mantis/nano reef tank to look for where my calcium ((and my sanity) is going.)
Cheers,
Brian (nano reef guy who would kill a mofo for a little bit of a calcium readin)