July 2006 Archives

I have been adding all the nitty gritty details to the ReefCon Pro software instead of using this. Guess I need to figure out what I am going to do...

The QT tank is up and running. I added the Percula I think on the 26th and it was doing fine. I added the Purple Tang on the 27th but it got badly stressed within 6 hours - when the nitrites went up to 0.1. So I took both fish out and back in the main aquarium.

Yesterday I bought 10kg of Malaysian LR and added that to the tank. I also added some Vodka and Ammovec biostarter. Hopefully I’ll get the cycling process sped up.

Today I got my small anemone from Exotic - finally! It moved about 5cm downwards so I hope it will find a place it likes.

I also replaced the powerhead in the QT tank with a 1200l/h Eheim pump to silence the noise at night. The pump will be 10 times per hour, but is more quiet and has a nice sponge filter built in to eliminate debris to break the propellor.

I have been feeding the Sun Coral, Yellow Polyps and Anemone at night using Mysid and Brine shrimp, as well as Krill.

I installed the QT tank today. The new RO/saltwater mix was not enough for both a water change on the main tank and filling up the QT, so the QT is about 90% full of main tank water and I am preparing some new RO/saltwater to add to the QT tank to get the sump full.

It took me 4 hours to catch the Yellow Tang. I decided I am going to give it back to Exotic since they were stressed beyond belief. Eventually after tearing down part of my reef I managed to catch him.

I have started feeding the fish a frozen vegetable diet and new SeaVeggies strips.

Got my QT tank yesterday and between today and tomorrow will be setting it up.

Ok I finally got my Calcium Reactor set up and running (the baking soda did not work). It was quite a mission to find a CO2 gas bottle. It is running at one bubble CO2 per second, and about 2-4 drops of output water per second. Will closely monitor water parameters.

I made a huge mistake initially since I never rinsed the media before use - so I flooded my tank with a cloudy powder. Through experience is the way I’ll learn it seems... Grrr...

Since I want to target pH 8.2-8.3, 8.5dKH and 420-440 mg/l Calcium, and currently my values are pH 8.4, 7.5dKH, 420mg/l Calcium, I need to tred carefully not to have too high pH values. Since I had been adding dKH buffer the past week to raise the KH and stopped adding kalkwasser to lower Calcium (which is working by the way), I have been getting closer to these values. I am however now at a point where I cannot move forward as I used to, since it will push the pH above 8.4. The reason is this:

It is clear that with a pH of 8.4 and Alkalinity of 7.5 (2.6meq/l) I seem to have a lower CO2 value in my tank that I should have. So to fix this (without adding a CO2 reactor) I am going to stop adding dKH buffer and instead use Baking Soda for the next two-four days (and closely monitoring pH, Alkalinity and Calcium). Theoretically baking soda will not increase pH dramatically but will increase alkalinity. Once I have reached my target values, I’ll start adding kalkwasser with white vinegar (4ml / litre of kalkwasser). This should raise alkalinity without impacting too much on pH.

Today I replaced 10% of the water with new RO water mixed with Tropic Marine Salt. The new water’s parameters were:

Alkalinity: 9.5dKH
Calcium: 372mg/l
Temperature: 26C
pH: 8.2
SG: 1.025

I used the return pump inside with a pipe to have some flow. I used the wooden air stone to aerate the water. I also added a heater to maintain the temperature whilst it was in the black bin. I had it running for 24 hours before using it.

I also cleaned out the brown algae by siphoning from the bottom. I left the algae (diatoms?) on the rocks. The powerheads and skimmer were also cleaned.

Finally I got hold of three T5 54W’s - two Aquablue and one 11k white tube. Installed them too.

It seems as if P. hepatus is now happy and feels safe. For the first time she is swimming around with the other fish. Cool!

I have been running the RO unit since two days ago trying to make enough RO water for a 60l water change. This is taking forever!

I bought some Nori from Woolies and attached it with the SeaVeggies clamp. After about 10 minutes the Purple Tang started nipping at it - and now every now and again it eats some. The Yellow Tang does not look as much interested, however it did eat a couple of pieces that came off.

I woke up only to discover my one small percula is gone... No body, no trace... I guess the boxer shrimp got hungry ☹

I went to Sterlig Aquarium in Ontdekkers Road in Roodepoort and purchased:

• Purple Tang
• Yellow Tang
• Purple Firefish

The Purple Tang seem to have about 14 small white spots - seems pretty much like Ich! It immediately started feeding on the algae once added to the tank. When I added the Yellow Tang, they immediately attacked each other. So my Yellow Tang has some fin damage.

I called the LFS and they said I need to give the fish about an hour to sort themselves out. After a stressful hour they seem to be more tolerant of each other. Phew...

I tried to give the fish Sprung’s SeaVeggies - but none of the fish eats it...

When I added Brine Shrimp everyone in the tank went nuts and even P. hepatus came out for the first time. She started feeding for the first time since I added her.

With all these fish I added and the drip acclimation I lost a bit of water. Every time I just added RO water... Thus the salinity is now 1.025.

Since I have currently only been running on a single 54W T5 Actinic tube and a common white tube, I bought two additional Actinics and added that to the other ballast. It does not provide much additional lighting, but I guess it is better than not having enough light. I found that the Leather Coral started bending toward the front of the tank where the white light was. I need to get my 3 x T5 54W Aquablues VERY SOON.

It seems the alkalinity is slowly rising. It is now at 6.0 and the calcium is dropping - at 515.

Went to Exotic, and what did I do? I purchased some fish... Since the Ammonia/Nitrite levels were doing fine I assumed it would be fine to add some small fish. So I bought:

• 2 x small Percula Clownfish
• 1 x small Paracanthurus hepatus (Pacific Blue Tang)
• 1 x Pink Leather Coral
• 4 x Turbo Snails
• 4 x Red Legged Hermit Crabs
• 2 x Peppermint Shrimps
• 1 x Brown Brittle Star

When I got back home I saw an explosion of brown algae on the front side of the tank - on the live rock and on the substrate. I guess the white light, daylight, high phosphate levels and dKH buffer additions fueled them.

Oh yeah - the LFS tested my phosphates and they were *very* high.

The P. hepatus was very stressed when I bought it - it swam into a crack in the display rock in the LFS. When I added it to my main tank it immediately went into the live rocks on the LHS of the tank never to be seen again.

The two percula’s seem to be doing fine.

Since Alkalinity, Calcium and pH all need to be balanced, I bought a Calcium test kit. The Calcium seems to be at 545mg/l! That is very high. Since my Alkalinity is only 7.0 dKH, I decided to make use of Kent Marine’s Pro Buffer dKH. I started adding 35ml to the water daily. I also stopped adding kalkwasser. The idea is that since kalkwasser is a balanced supplement, I first need to get the proportion of Calcium and Alkalinity right then I’ll resume adding kalkwasser. I think the different salt I used as well as the RO water to fix SG messed up the balance.

Did the first accurate measurement of Ammonia myself and found that Ammonia is < 0.01mg/l, Nitrite is 0.20mg/l and Nitrate is 10mg/l. Since the Alkalinity dropped severely to 5.0 dKH, I decided to open up the tank so that evaporation is increased. In one hour the topup pump came on about 6 times. Since this was quite severe I closed down the lids of the aquarium.

The RO water mixed with Kalkwasser is BAD since it reacts quickly with air to precipitate the calcium out of the solution, and pumping in the precipitate is A Bad Thing.

So I put a Tunze Calcium Dispenser in the RO bucket. Basically the RO water is pumped through the dispenser to the sump. Inside the closed dispenser is the kalkwasser mix.

Added 10ml Combisan and will try to add this on a weekly basis.

The shrimp and crabs and snails are doing fine. The Colt Coral is unhappy since all its polyps are retracted. I moved him with underwater epoxy to be on top of a rock in the water stream, and closer to the light.

Steven tested the water and it seems to have almost no Ammonia/Nitrites. So he said it should be fine for me to add some invertebrates. Thus I purchased the following:

• Colt Coral
• Green Mushroom Coral
• LPS Brain Coral (came on the same rock than Green Mushroom Coral)
• Boxer Shrimp
• 4 Turbo Snails
• 4 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs

Back home I decided the aquascaping needed some work. So I changed it to look like this: