SoCalMicSkills Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 210 mixed reef. Been running since early December 2011. Most of this was moved over from my 90 gal, but I had to establish a new sandbed, and some new rock. I know it was a little risky doing it this way, this fast. But so far it's working out. [ATTACH]12333[/ATTACH] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeramy Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 Thats looking good heres to continued success (drinking) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gill Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 Looks fantastic!!! You probably don't have to worry as much about an ammonia spike since you have smaller fish, unless of course the big guys are camera shy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 [ATTACH]12413[/ATTACH] Update!, looking a little better. Here are the fish in it: 7 firefish, strawberry dotty, 2 PJ Cardinals, 5 green chromis, masked foxface, kole tang, blue hippo tang, 2 ocellarus clowns, flame hawk, yellow tail damsel, I think that's it, but I probably forgot. I waited until after each water change to add fish, so the majority of the fish were added in about 4 groups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Still can't figure out why my calcium is running at 700 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmike Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Still can't figure out why my calcium is running at 700 Its got to be your test kit.... If you really had a calcium level of 700 it would look like it was snowing in your tank, the calcium would precipitate out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Used 2 different API test kits, another friend tested it, not sure what type he had, the friends test said 780, two API kits said 700. After a big water change today the test read 660 on API, and Salifert read 650. It's snowing outside, but not in my tank. I don't even see any sand clumping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmike Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Whats your alk at? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 7, going to raise it up to 8.5 over the next few days. Salinity = 1.0255, Mag = 1440 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefnjunkie Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 I had my Ca run real high when I moved things into the new tank but its settled down to the 420-440 rangenothng as high as the high 7's-I would haqve guessed test kits-still do-LOL What kind of salt do you use just out of curiosity? everythng seems to be doing good from the pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 Reef Crystals. For the most part everything is, a couple of newer frags struggling, but all the established dtuff is flourishing. I'm going to move a couple more clams in too and see if that drops it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefnjunkie Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 out of curiosity do you dose, run a Ca reactor, or just do water changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 Just water changes so far. I plan to dose kalk as soon as all the parameters are right. I haven't added anything else yet, and I use r/o at 1 ppm on my tds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 I guess I should also add that about a year ago I had calcium in my 90 gallon, about 550. However, I thought it might have been partially because it was 100 % synthetic rock, and mostly because at the time I was using Oceanic salt. After I switched to Reef Crystals I never had that problem again. I did move some of the rocks (about 1/8 of the total rock volume) into the 210 because all of my SPS were attached to them. I wouldn't think that would have much to do with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbru70 Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Lookin Good Man.........I would have thought it was impossible to have calcium that high if I hadnt tested your water myself. I was literally running out of room for drops in the titration tube. I tested it twice and it was 780 the first time and 765 on the second test. I tested my water at the same time and my calc was 480 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmike Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Have you tested your RODI for calcium? I run reef crystals and there is no way it alone got you to 700ppm calcium, there is something else going on! and the only way the rock would effect the calcium level is if your ph is WAY low and it is dissolving it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burningbaal Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Try diluting tank water with ro/di. I'm not sure what the chemistry of the test kit is, but I doubt salt makes a difference. Try diluting it 50-50 to get in a 'normal' range. I'd test just the ro/di first to make sure it's Ca free. If your 50-50 shows over 350, test a fresh batch of salt water to make sure it's not a bad batch of salt. If virgin saltwater is OK, it must be something in the tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 First my R/O water. After 1 drop it turned blue = 0 to 20 ppm calcium. Second, I diluted tank water 50/50 with R/O, Started to turn blue at 16 drops, real blue at 17 drops (16=320, 17=340). Third, my salt mix (Reef Crystals), 22 drops = 440, although I just finished the last 200g batch before my last water change. So there may have been a bad batch that I went through while filling this system up, and/or the first few water changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burningbaal Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 First my R/O water. After 1 drop it turned blue = 0 to 20 ppm calcium. Second' date=' I diluted tank water 50/50 with R/O, Started to turn blue at 16 drops, real blue at 17 drops (16=320, 17=340). Third, my salt mix (Reef Crystals), 22 drops = 440, although I just finished the last 200g batch before my last water change. So there may have been a bad batch that I went through while filling this system up, and/or the first few water changes.[/quote'] that's pretty good data. the 50/50 mix (assuming the RO is actually 0 and your dilution was accurate), means that you're tank is at 640-680, a little better than the mid 7's. IF (and that's a definite if) your dilution was accurate and the RO is 0, I trust the diluted one more than the straight because you may be getting out of the linear range of the test in the 7's (Maybe, I don't know). the salt mix figure looks like what we shoot for. Your point about the end of a 200g batch is valid. since your coloines are happy, this probably isn't worth asking, but I will anyways: what's your pH at? if it's low, it could be dissolving the rock/sand. also, did you rinse the sand you used? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 I just added soda ash about 1 hour ago, but PH is at 8.3, I rinsed the sand like crazy with tap, then did final rinses with R/O Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burningbaal Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 man...that's pretty weird Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeramy Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 I had a simmilar experience with my biocube and was using reef crystals the new salt water was at a acceptable level the fresh water had almost no calcium in it I never did get an acurate measure ment because I stopped testing after I got to thirty drips and had no change I was also using api test kits. My calcium slowly dropped as I did water changes every week it took almost 3 months befor my calcium levels were normal but nothing in my tank seem to be stressed or unhappy with the high levels. I at first thought I had a bogus test kit but for the fact that it would test my fresh make up water acurately and the water from other peoples frag bags. I know this was not a lot of help as to the why but just some one who went through the same thing with out any real ill effects =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted March 7, 2012 Author Share Posted March 7, 2012 Ok, here's the update. Just did another water change and I have added about 600 ml of soda ash over the past week. Here's the numbers: Salinitey: 1.0255 Calcium: 620 DKH: 7 PH: 8.0 Nitrate: reads less than 5 Phosphate: .25 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalMicSkills Posted June 2, 2012 Author Share Posted June 2, 2012 Ok here's the latest: Salinity 1.0255 PH 8.3 Mag 1600 ALK 8.5 (after adding 600 ml of soda ash 4 times per week) Cal 530 finally! Nitrates 30 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike nickerson Posted June 9, 2012 Share Posted June 9, 2012 Tanks looking really nice cant wait for future updates Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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