hi there! I'm Christi from Benton. In November I bought my first reef setup used (BC29). In December I bought my second used reef setup (75 gal) and it came with some live rock, fish and corals ... so when I got home the BC29 was quickly put to use! Since then I've rehomed all but one of the fish, a bluefin damsel (as far as I can tell). I also ended up losing some of the corals but have since purchased more that seem to be doing well. Even with the live rock and biospira my tank went through somewhat of a cycle bump and is now just in the aging process. I recently had the cyano bloom but I think I'm finally past it. I cut down the light time and sucked out what I could and even used some marine algaefix for about a week and it was just almost gone but I decided to do a small dose of chemipure to finish knocking it out. I haven't seen any since. Hopefully It did the trick. I'm currently working on getting my numbers stable and keeping everyone happy. I'm running some phosguard and purigen in a tiny external canister. It's been running close to a week and I just swapped it out for new yesterday. Hoping that finally gets the phosphates under control! Other than a random coral target feeding, I usually just feed some pellets once, maybe twice a day. The fish just sits there at the surface waiting for me to drop some in and scoops them up as soon as they hit the water. One rarely gets past him so I know there isn't food just sitting around. I'm also working on getting my mag up. When I used IO my alk was 12ish and calc 300, mag 900.. I switched to IORC and numbers have slowly started to stabilize. Alk is finally down to 9, calc up to 440 but mag is hanging around 1170. So I started dosing with fluval sea mag supplements. It says to dose weekly. I'm shooting for 1300-1500 ... I'm wondering how slow I need to go on getting that mag up to be more in synch with the alk a s calc ... can I do a dose every couple days or sooner? How fast is too fast to raise it to normal levels? I feel like once I get it into range I'll just have to supplement when I do water changes ... just trying to see if I can do it faster than once a week for the initial rise. Anyway ... loving my new tank and am excited for this warmer weather so I can get the 75 and cabinet all ready to go! Got some work to do on the cabinet and need to finish cleaning the tank and rock before I'm able to set it up to begin cycling. I want to have everything up and good to go before moving the BC29 over. Still not sure if I'm going to keep the BC29 up and running once I get the 75 going. It was supposed to be a temporary tank, but we all know how MTS goes!
Welcome to RRMAS LJC6780!!! Definitely make it out to a meeting we have many good people in the group. When you have time, you should start a build thread.
Welcome to RRMAS Christi! Your magnesium being low is a bit of a mystery. Both IO and IORC are considerably higher in Mg than your levels show. Reef Crystals is much higher. More info would be helpful. How long ago did you switch to IORC and how many water changes since then? IO is certainly lower in Mg than your goal is and it's possible the Reef Crystals just haven't had time to raise it. IORC is quite high in Mg. Your levels should be a lot higher than that with the salt mixes you're using/have used. How are you measuring Mg, Alk, Ca? Could be an instrumentation problem. You can dose Mg every day but I would try not to raise the level more than 100/24 hours. I would use a Magnesium only supplement. I use BRS mix because it's balanced as far as affecting salinity.
As far as when did I switch and how many water changes ... I have no idea! Uh ... I used a 50 gallon bag of IO then switched to RC. I usually change 5 gal once a week or so. I've done a couple 10 gal changes when trying to battle some algae. I'd say I've done a handful of changes since switching. Definitely more than the 29 gallons the tank holds (obviously not all at the same time though!) I am using API tests for everything except Hanna UL Phosphorous (ppb), and Salifert Mag. I have a Nutrifin kit but when tested along side the API tests, I've gotten similar results and I'm just more familiar with the API kit because of my fresh tanks. I do test the same way every time and recently even started measuring exactly 5ml with a medicine dosing syringe rather than depending on the line on the vial, that may or may not be accurate. So at least from test to test it will be accurate. I am dosing fluval sea magnesium only. Before water change it was 1170. After was 1185 and then I did one dose and 2 days later it's up to 1230. I did just realize my source water is the cause for my phosphate issue. I have been using filtered water but not RODI since I don't have my unit yet. I guess I'll be buying RODI water from LFS until I get a unit.
Salifert Mg has always worked well for me so I doubt it's that. Really strange. Dose it up slowly to around 1400 and then monitor it is the only thing I know to do. It will be interesting to see if it falls rapidly again. Sounds like you are handling it well. Maybe some of the other guys will have some thoughts.
Thanks! I'll see about dosing again tomorrow. I'll test first to see how much change from today to tomorrow. I don't know WHY this would change but I wonder if it will be higher with RODI water ...
Hiya, Welcome to the club! I have a 75 gallon for about 4 years and felt the urge to set up another saltwater, so did a 29 biocube. I'd keep it up and running if you can. It doesn't take much maintenance once it's stabilized. Kim/Benton, AR
Oh I'd love to! It's going to be convincing my wife to let me keep it that will be the hard part! I bought it and then found the 75 for a good deal ... so I convinced her I'd sell the other one blah blah ... MTS has taken over in my house! Lol
I'm wondering if there is something in the water binding to Mag pulling it oh of solution? This is purely opinion but all reef tanks should use RODI, unless special circumstance like tested well water. 100% agree with Doc. Target 1400 and see if it falls. I suspect it will not, at least not more than 'normal.' I see some nice coral BTW!
Hiya, Its hardly any work to keep the 29 going. Plus, you need a place to put the club corals. Kim/Benton, AR
I may do that. I had my wife go ahead and pick up 10g of RO water from them today. I'll test again tomorrow and see if I might want to do a water change to get the phosphates down some more. They are on their way down SLOWLY. Today was 0.156. Somehow calc read 500- I did the test twice to be sure. And mag was on its way down at 1180. So what is sucking up all the magnesium?! I have zoas, mushrooms, 1 trumpet, 3 acans, 1 Duncan and 1 hammer.
I did a water change with RO water last night and went ahead and did a dose of mg since it's dropping so quickly. The phosphates are still dropping but I hope they are in a much more reasonable level now. I think it was 0.15 before the 5 gallon change. Nitrates were hanging around 30 too ... so hopefully that helped them too. I need some anaerobic bacteria to munch on those nitrates!
