Reef nutrition

Rygh's 250 gallon - Rev 3

New UV sterilizer did its thing!
The water was really cloudy last night. Huge bacteria bloom.
Turned the UV on, and crystal clear this morning.
Turned it back off though for now. Adding nitrifying bacteria, so don't want to kill that.
 
I’ve been against using uv for a long time thinking it was useless, but seeing them properly sized with the correct flow, they seem to have some good results.

It is definitely useless at too high of a flow.

But UV is no miracle cure. You need to be reasonable on what to expect.
Will it cure Ich, reduce Nitrates/Phosphates - NOPE.

I see it having two uses:
1) Keep water crystal clear, and eliminate yellowing.
2) Act as an insurance policy of sorts.
  • Eliminate algae blooms.
  • Eliminate bacteria blooms.
  • Reduce the chances of Cyano/Dinos/other bacteria.
  • Reduce the chances of the spread of ich and other diseases if I get them.
 
Tidbit on UV:
It also acts as a 57 W heater.
Pretty much all the energy ends up as heat in the water.

On the plus side, since I need to heat the water anyway, the energy is net-zero.
But I do plan to hook it up so that it shuts off when water gets hot during the summer.
 
THE FISH ARE BACK IN
:):)
And a few of the back row of rocks, which the fish are all hiding in.

fish1.jpg
 
Well, because of calibration fluid issues and Apex salinity measurement, I overshot the salinity.
Not by a ton, only 36-37.
But enough that I have to do quite a few small water changes, replacing salt water with RODI.

Not sure what it is, but my Apex salinity measurement sometimes just is off.
Like below. Around noon, I added the very well cleaned rock to the tank.
Nothing else. No salt.
And salinity jumped like crazy. (To the correct value)
Weird.

salt.jpeg
 
I changed my Quarantine system a little bit.

Before, I pumped water from display tank, to QT, and let overflow and gravity fall
back through a 5 micron filter to display tank.
Non stop high volume water changes.
But it means replacing filters. Not expensive, but if I forget, and they clog, it will overflow
unfiltered into the main tank.

So now it is on my automatic-water-change.
As it does AWC, it pumps water out of display tank and into quarantine tank.
That overflows and now goes out to a drain to be disposed of.
Far less water than before, but a lot safer.
And at around 2 gallons/day, in a 20G QT, that is 10% per day, which should be plenty.
 
Well, because of calibration fluid issues and Apex salinity measurement, I overshot the salinity.
Not by a ton, only 36-37.
But enough that I have to do quite a few small water changes, replacing salt water with RODI.

Not sure what it is, but my Apex salinity measurement sometimes just is off.
Like below. Around noon, I added the very well cleaned rock to the tank.
Nothing else. No salt.
And salinity jumped like crazy. (To the correct value)
Weird.

View attachment 9999

Air bubbles in your probe? Is it near your skimmer or drain pipes.
 
Air bubbles in your probe? Is it near your skimmer or drain pipes.
I did shake it and clean it when I was having issues the day or so before, but maybe.
I have had similar issues before when adding fresh salt water. Might be something to do with that.
 
Can you swap the plumbing for your awc so that it draws in your ro water instead of sw until your salinity drops back down? Just remember to swap it back.
 
Did some water testing during lunch break.

Salinity is good, a bit over 35, but barely.
Magnesium was a bit low but ok at 1300. Added some.
Calcium was great at 480.
Alk was low at 7. Fixing that, but slowly.
Ammonia and Nitrite are not zero, but pretty close. Both < 0.25.
Nitrate was zero, which is a bit surprising.

So a bit of tweaking needed, but overall quite happy.
 
Fish are in there but no coral yet right? I don’t think the fish care if the alk is raised quickly.
Corals are not in directly, but are getting water from main tank now, through auto-water-exchange.
My QT is a bit small, and I put a lot of the old corals in there, so can't really keep it separate long term.
 
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