Snorkeler's Cube
Water params in the right place, but a lot of algae in sump
by
, 07-22-2013 at 08:38 PM (5674 Views)
Long time no post... because long time no good tank maintenance LOL.
Serious now, I've been running the tank on autopilot for a while now....
- Since May 1st, started dosing Balling Plus to move Alk, Ca and Mg up. Just a basic dose of each, to slowly move params up.
- Since late-April feeding with auto-feeder twice a day. By the jungle algae my refugium developed, and the few algae spots that appeared in the display tank, clearly it is too much food...
- ATO refilled weekly, skimmer cup emptied almost weekly. I did have one week when it overflowed... oops...
...
- No PWC in all these months.
So, this weekend I finally measured the water params, refilled the Vodka which was almost running out (got to treat those fish well...) and did a 20L PWC to remove algae from the refugium...
Talk about "algae jungle"... I wasn't able to suck all the algae out, so much there was in that refugium (only had 20L for the PWC)... what the refugium looked like BEFORE and AFTER the cleanup:
Algae Jungle:
At least here you can see the rocks...
Anyway, I turned off the auto-feeder, left the fish without food today and tomorrow I'll restart my normal regime of feeding once or twice a day a pinch from by own fingers.
Not sure if you noticed in the pictures, but, I've got a significant amount of valonias in that sump, so I guess I'll buy a pair of lucky Mithrax crabs and let them have the time of their lives eating all those valonias.
What about water params? Well, I was VERY careful to execute the tests with maximum precision. Had to throw away the Alk test twice, the Ca test once and the Mg test once due to non-ideal drop sizes (following melev's advice in another blog post). It was a pain, but, I think I can trust the results, which are.... (drum roll):
- Salinity: 1.026
- Alk: 10.4 dKH
- Ca: 575
- Mg: 1225
Yes, finally Mg within normality!!! I guess I can dial down the Alk and Ca dose a little bit, which I might do in a few days when I get some time.
So, if I control nutrients by feeding less, do new PWCs to export the algae that is left in the refugium, get a new MIthrax crab pair for the refugium, get one more Mithrax for the display tank (only one left, eating slower than ideal) and get some more cleaning crew (their numbers have dwindled) I might be able to get the tank to a good water quality and algae free state in a few months.
Prospects looking good, yes, looking good.
Tank keeping with little time to dedicate to maintenance is a patience game. And I like it.
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