Aubrey’s Acros

[Reefdom]

Test results after the 20% WC
Alk - 8.3
Calcium - 415
Magnesium - 1350
Potassium - 400
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - 11 ppb (0.03)

I am now thinking about what other KZ additives i can include, if any would work well at this stage.

Also noticed my Trochus snails spawning this morning. The tank is very milky but the chromis seem to be finding something to pick out of the water.

With the removal of a handful of corals i am keeping a close eye on my KH level and will work to slowly bring this down over the next month.

Whilst corals look ok, polyp extension could be better and i wouldnt mind growth speeding up a little

The turban snails are already doing a great job on any algae in the tank.

[Reefdom]

My ICP has come back and shows elevated Tin in my source water and tank. I believe the Tin in the tank is from source water as no other metals are elevated in the tank but where could it be coming from.

My ICP from May had zero Tin and was perfect so I am a little confused where this is coming from. The level is quite high but the tank seems to be fine considering I use 10% a week for water changes and about the same again in weekly freshwater top off.

I am considering a testing error or contamination but ATI seem convinced my RO unit is bad and upgrading it is required. They suggested 1litre of resin for each 10 litres per hour my unit produces, which means 2litres of resin, or about 3x DI pods.

I will leave things a month and test again and if no improvement I will have a further look into this.

[Reefdom]

WC done with an element of nervousness due to the high Tin in my RO. Although still not convinced its a genuine reading I cant help but hold my breath. Normally a WC would be the best solution but the issue is in my RO lol.


The tank didn't crash after the WC and infact, everything continues to look fine. fresh ATO water has been in for 3 days now to no effect so i'll be waiting to retest via ICP in a month of so.

For the past 3 weeks I have been running an almost full dose of Zeostart but I am not convinced this is best for my tank. I've seen no reduction in Phosphate, although nitrates stay low. I do get a fair amount of brown mulm/film on rocks and green fil on glass. I waited a few weeks with the higher dose to see what may happen but I I have a feeling my tank does not need a dose that high. I've turned it down from 0.4ml a day to 0.3ml a day spread over 2 doses. This is a smidge over what I was running previously to good effect so I am going to give this a few weeks to settle and see if it helps whilst monitoring phosphate.


I am quite happy to hold off adding anything further as the tank does not look like it wants for anything.

With the ICP showing that Potassium was higher than my test kit, even after calibration from a reference solution I have reduced the dose slightly. (Test kit 400, ICP 420) I will allow it to fall slowly to 380 on my test kit as I believe Potassium can be food for algae too (NPK were the main additives in my old planted tank).


The Nero 5s were given a good clean again and all glass sides scraped again. My goal of keeping these wave makers clean as much as possible is already getting boring. If only I had enough for 4x MP40s lol.

Colours are slowly coming back

Pre water test results

Alk - 8.3
Calcium - 420
Magnesium - 1335
Nitrate - 0.2
Phosphate - 9 ppb (0.03)

More waiting, more patience. At least the tomini tang is actually grazing now lol.

[Reefdom]

The tank is improving but still not where it was.

The reduced Zeostart dose seems to be keeping nutrients down. I tested a water sample fro the tank with 1 drop of zeostart added and found a fairly high nitrate reading. Whether the nitrogen in the test kit is infact nitrate or some other nitrogen source it certainly helps me understand how to best use this.
I feel the zeostart dose should be used to control phosphate, as odd as it sounds. By including nitrogen with the carbon source, it supports phosphate removal. Higher phosphate, (with low nitrogen), build up to a higher dose of zeostart. Phospahte bottomed out, reduce zeostart dose. THis is my theory and i will be trying to manage nutrients with this approach.

I have also noticed that with my reactor flow at 180lph I did not get any mulm released when shaking the zeolites, even if they were only shaken once a day. Since lowering the flow back to 120lph (just over half the recommended flow rate) I now get the mulm released. We will se if my tank runs better on lower reactor flow and lower dose of zeostart.

Colours are coming back after the h2o2 episode.

Unfortunately my A. Florida RTN'd. It has struggled since i got it and after a tiny dose of A-Balance, i woke up the next day to a white frag. This is the second time i have dosed A-Balance and a coral has started to strip. It may be coincidence as other things were changed in the week(s) leading up to it, it may be a number of factors that add up to this outcome or it could be elements in A-Balance that some corals dont like.
For the record the dose was 3 drops (0.15ml) the dose for my tank is about 3.5ml. I need to find out what trace elements are in this. It is not compatible with the KZ coral colour 1-4 so i assume this is due to overlap with some trace, but which ones, who knows.

I had a closer look at Zeofood Plus. If you look closely you can see tiny specs of something in the solution. I wonder what it is.

Currently dosing:

Zeolite - 500ml @ 120lph
Zeostart - 0.1ml twice a day
ZeoBak - 2 drops in coral snow every other day (to help get rid of cyano and reduce po4)
Biomate - 4 drops in coral snow every other day (to help get rid of cyano and reduce po4)

This weeks post WC numbers:
Alk - 8.3
Nitrate - 0.2
Phosphate - 4 ppb (0.01)

[Reefdom]

No idea whats going wrong. I think I have dino and although all corals look fine, are growing and PE is ok,the tank looks a mess, dirty, and slimy.

I have removed the filter socks, added some copepods to try and allow diversity to increase and circulate throughout the system without removing them through filter socks. I will use the socks during water changes or blowing off the rocks and then remove once the water has cleared.

Only dosing zeostart, 0.3ml a day (split between 2 doses), zeobac and biomate.

Other this I am just going to leave it alone, blow off rocks periodically and let the system do its thing.