melev

It's been an interesting week for the reef.

Alkalinity
Testing alkalinity, I noticed that it was getting a little low, probably around 7 dKH rather than the normal 8 dKH. To raise it up slightly, I adjusted the pH controller from the 6.5 setting to 6.2 instead. The next day, I checked on the calcium reactor to find that nothing was coming out. Annoyed, I opened up the needle valve a quarter twist and flow resumed. The following day I checked on it again, and again no effluent. I opened up the valve once more. Looking at the tank, I spotted two areas of the large Birdsnest colony turned pure white. Ugh. Fortunately, it was maybe 10% of the colony, but I knew it would progress more before it stopped. Checking the Alkalinity level of the tank again, it showed the water was measuring 6ppm.

Opening up a new box of baking soda, I baked it in the oven for 45 minutes at 375° F to drive off trapped CO2, let it cool and then mixed up a couple of cups of RO water with 3 heaping teaspoons of the baked baking soda. Trickling this into the tank buffered up the alkalinity, and I expected the calcium reactor to get back on track. The next day, I mixed up another batch with 2 heaping teaspoons, and the third day I mixed it up with 1 teaspoon of baking soda. Testing alkalinity, it still wasn't holding at 8 dKH, and that birdsnest coral continued to turn more and more white. I saved a few twigs that survived, but the colony is gone.

The calcium reactor seemed fine operationally speaking. There's about 50% of the media it could hold, which should be fine. I pulled apart the check valve of the CO2 line in case it was stopped up, but nothing unusual was found. The effluent of the calcium reactor should be between 19 and 30 dKH, but it was measuring 11. No wonder the tank's number was dropping. I buffered the tank again manually, and left the reactor to get back on track. The pH controller was reset to 6.5 to avoid a spike in the opposite direction.

None of the other corals have looked any different, fortunately. Acros, LPS, anemones, the clam, etc... all seemed well. Alkalinity has risen, higher than I'd like with the latest measurement around 12 dKH. Thus, I'm going to still have to fine tune this to balance out the proper effluent rate at the proper strength to get it back to 8 dKH. It was sad to lose that one colony, but I'm glad it was only the one and not multiple losses. Birdsnest grows quickly, but it is also one that heads south fast with little chance of survival once the tipping point has been reached. I chose not to handle the distressed coral, hoping it would stop on its own. Once stabilized, I could later cut off what had died and watch it regrow. It didn't work out this time, but messing with dying corals rarely yields satisfactory results; this is why I keep my hands off as long as possible to avoid adding even more stress to the situation.

Salinity
Salinity is measuring at 1.027 sg, or 36 PPT, using the Milwaukee digital refractometer. A little bit higher than two weeks ago.

pH
The probe I've used for the past year has been reading too high, providing numbers that others would envy. I knew better, and soaked the probe in white vinegar for about an hour and cleaned the tip with a toothbrush - like I always have. However, the probe didn't work any better; if anything, it was even less believable. I ordered a new probe, which has been installed but it is measuring far too low for me to believe. I picked up some calibration solution, and will get that taken care of tomorrow.

Nitrate
Having not tested this parameter in over a year, I was curious what level it might be. I was sure it was low because of the coral growth, and because I expect low numbers since I use biopellets. The kit shows yellow as zero nitrate, and it was very close to that color. The card offers 0, 5, 10, or higher. I'd say it was 3ppm. Considering that the reef gets three meals per day, using both pellet & flake food as well as frozen every night, plus a half sheet of nori is clipped in the tank four days a week, I'm very pleased to have this low number. Biopellets work.

Biopellets
When the pump is off, the reactor had about 1" of Vertex NP biopellet media left, so it was time to refill it. This time, I'm using Thrive's Crush biopellets. I won them in a club raffle and would like to see how they work. The pellets come in a foil pouch that's waterproof. I cut off the top of the package and filled it up with RO water to presoak the media for 24 hours, which was even more handy than pouring them into a container and adding water. Soaking them helps avoid clumping and reduces the tendency for pellets to float in the reactor initially. The next day, I poured in 500ml of Crush, and time will tell if they work as well as other brands.

Skimmate
The Skimmer Swabbie makes me lazy. It keeps the skimmer's neck clean of sludge and I empty the cup when it holds about a gallon of skimmate. Last night, the tank was fine, the skimmer operating normally, the weather is stable and the cup held about half a gallon of waste. Instead of dumping that out, I slept. When I got up this morning, the skimmer was overflowing and the system was quite cloudy. The waste was reintroduced into the tank, at least in part. I believe the anemones spawned, and that triggered the skimmer to overflow. I must have caught it early though. I cleaned out the cup, reset the skimmer again and within a few hours the water was crystal clear again.

Corals
When a friend stopped over today, visiting when all the lights were on for a change, he was really impressed by my reef. He knew it was my temporary setup, but couldn't help remark how nicely everything is doing regardless. He even was calling dibs on a couple of corals. I'm happy to see the recent corals I've gotten in the past 60 days are doing very well. Acros, Montis, Pagoda and more... and will look great in the 400g.

Aquarium
The last I've heard from Marineland, they expected to ship the 400g to me by the end of April. This is May 9, and I've not heard anything else yet but I do think I'll get it this month. At last, right? Once it is here, I have to get help bringing it in and onto the stand, get the rockwork aquascaped on the acrylic support system, add the rinsed sand, transfer the livestock, get the 60g plumbed in, aquascape and add the anemones, and then breakdown and remove the 215g from the fishroom. It'll be a lot of work, but it'll be great to finally get things back to the way they were, get my house back to what I'd intended, and enjoy my reef.

I recently uploaded a short video to facebook showing how I feed some banana to my reeflings. They love the occasional treat. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=2&theater