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

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.

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.