Jestersix

Now that my KH is up, help me keep it there

Kalk, that's it. I just tested how much kalk is dripped every 45 minutes and it's only about 15-18ml


Here's the fancy water test chart since January 22nd.

http://badbread.net/dada/
 
**UPDATE**

Still trying to get my Alkalinity up. I have been and the plan is to drop (since February 1st or so)about 10ml of the alkalinity part of randy's 3 part every 2 days or so. Adding 5ml of that via a syringe by hand drop by drop raises my PH by about .04, so I have been doing it once in the morning and then again at night. That seems to raise my alkalinity by about 1-2dKH which I realize isn't enough to catch up. I'm thinking of upping the dose to 7-8ml until it catches up.

· I have stopped dosing kalk as my PH levels haven't dropped below 7.8 or above 8.2 during a 24 hour period.
· Slowly brought my salinity up to about 1.026 by dosing a super, super concentrated salt mix (probably about 3-4 cups of salt into a 40 or so ounce bottle, dripped very slowly over the course of the week
· That in turn (I think) raised my magnesium levels and kept my calcium levels even because the calcium level has steadily increased since I started getting my salinity level up and the magnesium has as well.

Coralline on my rock has exploded... Well I think it has, unless I'm just more conscious of it now or something, but a few rocks in the tank have some really nice purple/pink splotches all over them that seem to increase in color and size every day.
 
Psychosomatic coraline growth....


Not unheard of :) I have Psychosomatic coral growth.. :LOL: :)
 
It's crazy, I'm also dosing Alk in my 14 gallon frag tank, and I swear every 2-3 days there is a new splotch on the glass that needs to be scrapped off. My black eggcrate is also starting to get covered up....

But really, I don't know if its just me looking for it more often now or it actually happening... Maybe I should take some pictures and compare that way. ;)
 
DAMNIT. I spoke to soon.

Dosed about 15ml of the Alk part last night, PH was at 8.07 before bed and when I woke up it was way down at 7.66 or so...

So I turned the kalk dosing back on...

Tested my Alk this morning and it was at 9
 
Do you have a macro fuge on a reverse light cycle? That low pH can be from the respiration change from O2 to CO2 in plants.
 
I'm going to test it against a test kit tonight, that was my next step. My tank does strange things, maybe its cursed or something.
 
Hmmm, have you tried...

exorcism.jpg


You can also go to this site to learn how to remove curses....

http://cursecleanse.com/spell_ingredients.html
 
Dude, I think you are starting to experience "Over Fiddling" syndrome. The more you tinker, the more confusing things get, eventually you don't know what change is causing what, and you start adding things to "fix" the things you did before!

Maybe step back for a day or two and look fresh at the situation.

I have a hard time not fiddling as well, it's part of the fun of reefing, but I know sometimes I go overboard.

V
 
So I took 2 days off from testing/doing anything to the tank.

KH dropped 1.5dKH
Calcium down 20
Mag stayed about even

I just rigged up a "badbreads super I hope it's fail proof kh doser"

Basically a gatorade bottle with two airlines cemented into the cap, one under water the other as kind of like an air valve.
2 air valves on it, one controlling the drip rate and one controlling the amount of air that enters the bottle.

Basically set it up so even if the air valve controlling the drip rate fails, the air intake air valve keeps back pressure and will keep the drip super slow. I tested it and it worked very well, here's to hoping if it ever fails it actually works.

Probably drips about a drip every 2 minutes of slightly watered down Randy's 2 part Alk additive. I think I put about 20ml's in the full gatorade bottle.
 
[flash=200,200]http://badbread.net/amline/amline.swf[/flash]



Parameters are as follows:
Alk Calc Mag SG
7 Feb 2009 6.00 400 1350 1.0260
~water change morning of 2/10
10 Feb 2009 9.50 420 1450 1.0265


I'm going to be picking up some dosing pumps from Erin this weekend, I hope to start working on getting them dialed in and dosing soon after.
 
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