not looking to good

[lildingy]

my zoas are not looking too happy :(

my water test are not showing anything really wrong and my acans seem to be flurshing.

amio 0
natrites 0
natrates round 5-10
but my ph seems to have dropped off a heck of alot when i swiched from using tap to using water from a windmill. right now before the lights have come on it is sitting at about 7.6-7.7 i would guess from the test this morning. My cal is a little low also i think it was running at like 380 a couple days ago.

would this be what is stressin them out? any other suggestions? i was thinking about drippin some kalk but i have never done this before and would have to figure out a way to drip it with a milk jug or somthing.

[allan]

Dude,

Your fuge light, that on a reverse cycle?

I'd definitely add some kalk, get an iv line set up and rig it to a container with some kalk mix. You could also use some two part...

I think if your calcium is up to 400 or so your ph should be a bit higher. I wouldn't attempt to try to raise your calcium using kalk. Were I in the same position I think I'd try a few water changes until my calcium is at the right level and then begin dosing kalk to maintain it... with weekly water changes. Small tanks are tricky.

[lildingy]

yeah i bought a little reptile timer that flip flops the lights and have got rid of most if not all my macro (RIP). I really don't know what else to try atm i have put a sock of carbon in and have been running the skimmer a heck of alot more. I am at kinda a loss. On the other hand the acro is starting to get purple again after browning almost compleatly and my acans are looking great! maybe i'll try to move some of the flow away frome them a little see if that helps anything. You think i should try to buffer the tank to raise the PH some?

I thonk i will go to the lfs today and see what i can find to do something.

[rrasco]

Everything in my tank is extremely happy, except my zoas. I have never figured it out.

[allan]

Hey Clayton,

Your macro is gone? Did it die off or did you take it out? I'm not sure what the rule of thumb is with macro, but the way I grow it is to let it grow until it's growing up and out of the water. Then I know it's pulling as much out of the water as possible as well as oxygenating the water. When I trim it back I do no more than half a bucket full at the most. Not sure if I'd do the same thing with anything other than chaetomorpha, for fear of it releasing back into the water column. But with the chaeto, it just keeps going. The extra oxygen in the water helps with PH as well... I think. :/

[350gt]

Before dosing anything.. Have you checked you mag or alk?



Only reason I ask is cause I could never get my zoas in my display tank to grow. They would shrink and dissapear... Then I bought a test kit and realized my alk was low... I bought some kent liquid buffer, not the PH but just the alk, it says it stabilizes your PH... Dont know if there's any truth to that but it seemed to work, my ph is now steady at 8.1 during the day and drops to the most 7.9 at night but mostly at 8.0.... Unlike before...

My alk, I forget how low it was and I havent got around to testing it lately but zoas are now holding strong. I even added some I bought recently to see how they did.... And all looks good... Hoping that's all it was...

Good luck to you......

[lildingy]

I may pick one up. I am in corpus crispy now bout to hit the fish stores. I have never tested for it, but i do dose kent coralvite bout once a week per directions

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[350gt]

I bought the red sea test kit and have been extremely pleased...


This is the buffer I bought....
http://www.kentmarine.com/products/kent-probuffer-dkh.htm

Ofcourse I wouldn't suggest adding it if you haven't tested... But it seemed to work for me...

I have kalk and 2 part sitting in my box o goodies, just to lazy to figure them out... Lol

[lildingy]

Thank ya very much, i will see if i can find ione todau

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[lildingy]

Well i bought the wrong stuffs. I bought calcium chloride instead of cacium hydroxide. I guess i can still use it to add ca but will still need to get some more test kits and figure out the ph situation. thank you guys for your help, i don't know who i would ask all these questions to if yall guys were not here.

[EpicWin]

Before dosing anything.. Have you checked you mag or alk?



Only reason I ask is cause I could never get my zoas in my display tank to grow. They would shrink and dissapear... Then I bought a test kit and realized my alk was low... I bought some kent liquid buffer, not the PH but just the alk, it says it stabilizes your PH... Dont know if there's any truth to that but it seemed to work, my ph is now steady at 8.1 during the day and drops to the most 7.9 at night but mostly at 8.0.... Unlike before...

My alk, I forget how low it was and I havent got around to testing it lately but zoas are now holding strong. I even added some I bought recently to see how they did.... And all looks good... Hoping that's all it was...

Good luck to you......

Interesting. I've always found zoas to dislike higher alk. Mine did not like when I started dosing Kalk. I had to dose in small increments to make them happy

[350gt]

Ya, Im not sure if thats what it was.... But now my zoas actually are spreading a bit...

[allan]

Interesting. I've always found zoas to dislike higher alk. Mine did not like when I started dosing Kalk. I had to dose in small increments to make them happy

I always an tell when I dose too much kalk because my zoas stay closed for a few days. I haven't done that in years though. Basic rule of thumb for my tank is two spoons daily, often skipping weekends and only at night.

[350gt]

I always an tell when I dose too much kalk because my zoas stay closed for a few days. I haven't done that in years though. Basic rule of thumb for my tank is two spoons daily, often skipping weekends and only at night.


2 spoons to how many gallons of water?

[allan]

400-450 gallons, when I was in the 190 I used one scoop.

It isn't always the volume of water, but also your demand that dictates how much you dose. If I didn't have any sps or lps I would probably just rely on water changes. But because I've got a bit of sps in there I found increasing it to two scoops daily really helped the sps grow. I also do a 15-18 gallon water change each weekend.

[350gt]

so you just dump it directly to your tank?

[Scutterborn]

He showed me how he does it. I was curious as well. He mixed it ( shook the living heck out of it ) Ina separate bottle mixed with RO. Then dumps it into the return section of the sump.


- Ben -

[allan]

Sorry. Misunderstood your question.

Ben is correct, I mix the kalk into a liter bottle, shake it, and pour it into my return area of the sump. A few moments later my returns spew out a cloud of kalk laden water, two or three minutes later the water is clear again.

I've been dosing like that since the end of '09. For about a year I had used the Todd method and kept my top off saturated. But the lines would kalk up and stop flowing.

Timing is important, ping advised that I should dose in this manner half an hour after lights out... But I'm asleep by then except for the weekends. So I typically dose around 4am.

Not recommended for everyone, but if used sparingly its a wonderful chemical.