Water Chemistry

Double checking parameters is always best, rather than waiting for corals to indicate something is amiss. The numbers look good overall.

I'm only running one liter of Biospheres (np biopellets) and there's a chance nitrate is rising. I felt like it was a little off from the pure yellow I normally see, but I'll keep testing it weekly to be sure.

I've wondered about re-using dead coral skeletons in a calcium reactor for years. I asked about the chance of the stony corals releasing PO4 into the water, but never got an answer of any kind. So I thought, I'll take some of the former colonies from my last reef tank and immerse them in RO/DI water for a week and then test for phosphate.

I filled the bucket with water, and tested it. Zero phosphates. In a week, I'll test again. It's not precise, but...

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On February 6th of this year, I started running 2 liters of Vertex biopellets in my system, and over that 7.5 month period I was able to maintain zero nitrate and zero phosphate. Granted, my system has a DSB, live rock, a skimmer and a refugium, but so did my 280g reef. I've not had to dose Phosphate Control nor use GFO once with the new tank. And no vodka dosing either. I've only done a handful of water changes in that time. Maybe 600g, possibly.

Two weeks ago, I hooked up a ...

My latest blog on Reefs.com was published today.

http://www.reefs.com/blog/2011/08/03/ammonia-alert/

Have you tested your source water yet?

As my tank approaches its sixth month birthday, I ran the full battery of tests including ammonia (0). All is doing very well. On Sunday, I set a timer for four hours, turned off the skimmer, and added 6 capfuls of Microbacter7 to add some extra bacteria to the system. The timer reminds me when to resume skimming.

Year to date