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been a while since I posted, sometimes you just get burned out and need a break, work is really busy and I'm trying not to mess with the tank to much.. anyway, my tank has been doing so-so.. I dosed interceptor a few times a in Jan and once in Feb and I think I may have suffered a mini-cycle after that, I'm getting some macro growth and patches of bubble algae that just keep getting bigger. seems to have gone in cycles the last few months, algae starts to grow and then starts to die off a bit, then comes back again.. I have 2 little patches of HA also, one on the front glass at the bottom, and another in one of the back corners of the tank. I syphon it out and it just keeps coming back, not at plague proportions but enough to look ugly..
Tank is 30gal, total water volume around 40gal. I use 1 cup zeovit - cycled 3on/3off, 1/3cup carbon. I recently swapped out the reactor pump from a 85gph@0' eheim to a rio-400 (100gph@0') as it appeared there was not quite enough flow through the rector..
now for the dosing story... I was dosing 1 drop bak/1 drop food EOD, 1 drop start 2x/day (less if there is algae on the glass), following the dosing guidelines I dropped back to 2x/week after 2weeks of new media, and I just wasn't seeing the zeolove in the tank.. so I've been watching things and dosing 1 drop bak/ 1 drop food every day, along with the start.. I check to see if there is any tissue loss at the base/tips and I check for colour before dosing but so far nothing more drastic than a little brown fading.. my a.valida that was coloring up decided to stop and go all pale on me again...
The bottle of bak I have is past 6 months and has fuzzy lumps, but there is no smell coming from the bottle..
One thing to note, although how relevant it is remains to be seen, the ORP reading was around 330-350mv when I was dosing 2x/week, now that I've upped the dose it sits around 420mv..
I saw a post from Madison (and now I can't find it) with dosing for his frag tank, my tank is the same size, and it seemed a lot higher than what I have been dosing.
so, on to the question... which is better, more less often, or less more often when it comes to bak/food. I'm thinking of doubling the dosage but wondered if I should still dose bak ED or EOD until I find the right amount.. I have been in phase 1 for the last 8 months it seems, either that I just flip flop from phase 1 to 2 and back to 1 again. Last time I measured PO4 a few weeks ago it was up at 0.07, I had it down at 0.04 in October last year (was 0.06 in Sept 2004), but I don't seem to be able to get down near that any more, and I find it to depressing to test PO4 on a regular basis.
this tank has no fish and gets no food, LR gets blasted every couple of days, 100micron filter sock changed weekly and 10% WC weekly - haven't missed one yet. RO/DI TDS 0, and Oceanic salt.
any and all dosing advice appreciated.
Tank is 30gal, total water volume around 40gal. I use 1 cup zeovit - cycled 3on/3off, 1/3cup carbon. I recently swapped out the reactor pump from a 85gph@0' eheim to a rio-400 (100gph@0') as it appeared there was not quite enough flow through the rector..
now for the dosing story... I was dosing 1 drop bak/1 drop food EOD, 1 drop start 2x/day (less if there is algae on the glass), following the dosing guidelines I dropped back to 2x/week after 2weeks of new media, and I just wasn't seeing the zeolove in the tank.. so I've been watching things and dosing 1 drop bak/ 1 drop food every day, along with the start.. I check to see if there is any tissue loss at the base/tips and I check for colour before dosing but so far nothing more drastic than a little brown fading.. my a.valida that was coloring up decided to stop and go all pale on me again...
The bottle of bak I have is past 6 months and has fuzzy lumps, but there is no smell coming from the bottle..
One thing to note, although how relevant it is remains to be seen, the ORP reading was around 330-350mv when I was dosing 2x/week, now that I've upped the dose it sits around 420mv..
I saw a post from Madison (and now I can't find it) with dosing for his frag tank, my tank is the same size, and it seemed a lot higher than what I have been dosing.
so, on to the question... which is better, more less often, or less more often when it comes to bak/food. I'm thinking of doubling the dosage but wondered if I should still dose bak ED or EOD until I find the right amount.. I have been in phase 1 for the last 8 months it seems, either that I just flip flop from phase 1 to 2 and back to 1 again. Last time I measured PO4 a few weeks ago it was up at 0.07, I had it down at 0.04 in October last year (was 0.06 in Sept 2004), but I don't seem to be able to get down near that any more, and I find it to depressing to test PO4 on a regular basis.
this tank has no fish and gets no food, LR gets blasted every couple of days, 100micron filter sock changed weekly and 10% WC weekly - haven't missed one yet. RO/DI TDS 0, and Oceanic salt.
any and all dosing advice appreciated.
Can you give a description of your corals--light or dark? Appearance of the tips--any tip lightening, thinning or recession? Can you give us current parameters of your reef, along with nutrients levels? Thnx. Bob
P04.17 is very high
Plz. check your product water TDS. Without fish or nutrient import[assuming no addition of uncured, or "bad" LR] either your source water is high in chloramines, damaging the RODI membrane, with leaching back into the product water, or your zeo-filter flow is not correct--it must be <50gph. Plz. measure this, as if these are the problem & go undetected, one will never reduce the nutrients, improve color, etc.
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