Max’s 30 gal
- Thread starter max_nano
- Start date
EBJ
Supporting Member
That's probably better to go with than potassium nitrate unless you want to raise potassium a little. I use a trisodium phosphate solution sometimes for phosphate.I ordered sodium nitrate and will mix that up to dose, it will be similar to neonitro from bright well according to Telegraham on YouTube. According to this calculator I will get .29ppm/mL from this solution with my tank volume so I won’t need to dose very much, I might start with 4mL and see how that impacts the dinos.
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I wouldn't raise nitrate by more than 0.5 ppm at a time. Should wait a week or so before raising it again. Apparently the mobile dinos that disappear from surfaces at night can be easily killed with UV. Don't know what kind you have.
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max_nano
Supporting Member
Yes I also ordered a UV, good to know about only raising it slightly I’ll plan on dosing 2mL for a roughly .59ppm increase. I have also set my lights to be off for today and will probably keep them off tomorrow, then the UV will arrive and I can try turning them back on Sunday morning after running the Uv at night.
I also am working to blast it with a baster and collect it in a poly pad in the overflow. I also just got some Tisbe pods from Algae barn, I don’t know if they help with Dino’s but someone in a thread about dealing with them mentioned adding pods to attempt to help and I wanted some anyways for possibly getting a mandarin at some point. But I’m not ready to dose them frequently and I don’t want to add another fish without a top after losing my blenny
max_nano
Supporting Member
I’m keeping my GHL pH probe new in the box until I decide if I’m going to switch to the p4. So I want to get the pH from my KHG. I just put it in the eng mode to change and successfully updated it but should warn other KHG users that the back button is right next to the clear sd button when eng mode is on. So now I have no more history, but that’s fine it was only setup for a day or two.
max_nano
Supporting Member
I did a little more testing with the par meter. I really feel lame putting my radion at just 20% but I also don’t want to bleach my tank just for more efficient utilization of the light. I get 400 under the radion at the water surface and a large spread of 250-300 par that runs parallel with the radion, it doesn’t seem to spread outwards as well as it does long ways.
This should be plenty of light for growing sps in the center of the tank where there is the most flow since the higher structures don’t block the Nero pump.
I ended up raising the light to 11” off the surface, I have a lot of spill at that height but it allowed the light to be less hot spotty. I like how easy it makes top down shots. You’ll see I also added a eheim surface skimmer, I noticed some film building up if I placed the Nero lower and I want to be able to have it low keeping detritus in the water column to be filtered in the back of the tank when it goes over the overflow.
here’s a top down, I am going to turn the lights back off in hopes or reducing the Dino’s
This should be plenty of light for growing sps in the center of the tank where there is the most flow since the higher structures don’t block the Nero pump.
I ended up raising the light to 11” off the surface, I have a lot of spill at that height but it allowed the light to be less hot spotty. I like how easy it makes top down shots. You’ll see I also added a eheim surface skimmer, I noticed some film building up if I placed the Nero lower and I want to be able to have it low keeping detritus in the water column to be filtered in the back of the tank when it goes over the overflow.
here’s a top down, I am going to turn the lights back off in hopes or reducing the Dino’s
max_nano
Supporting Member
I think I’m going to order the marine depot organizer so I can get all of it above the tank and then I want to have plastic builders make a shell to put around it, I’m thinking mirrored acrylic maybe or smoked. But for now I’m laying out equipment on a piece of plywood, the flow in the AIO section is pretty slow so there isn’t any splashing that I’ve noticed, but I do want to get stuff above the tank so I don’t need to worry.
max_nano
Supporting Member
UV, manual removal, adding pods, feeding more, and who knows what else seemed to work to kill off the Dino’s. I’m going to mostly attribute it to the UV. I am going to try the nitrate dosing and see if I can take the UV off, otherwise I’m going to look for an external uv option, but it may be difficult with my sized tank.
I would feed more instead of dosing nitrates but I don’t have the room to add much more fish and I don’t want to risk Adding anything until I add a top
I would feed more instead of dosing nitrates but I don’t have the room to add much more fish and I don’t want to risk Adding anything until I add a top
henergizer
Guest
I ordered sodium nitrate and will mix that up to dose, it will be similar to neonitro from bright well according to Telegraham on YouTube. According to this calculator I will get .29ppm/mL from this solution with my tank volume so I won’t need to dose very much, I might start with 4mL and see how that impacts the dinos.
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I'm pretty much in the same boat dealing with dinos. Tried upping feeding but with two fish in a nano, that can only do so much.
I would also suggest getting a better test kit than the API. I read a horror story where someone kept on dosing nitrates and the API test kit would show 5-10ppm. Person got a different brand and the nitrates were actually 20+.
Also, not sure if it was mentioned previously, but, as you dose nitrate also watch your phosphate levels since that will drop. You wouldn't want to bottom out your phosphates
max_nano
Supporting Member
My ATO sensor got bumped too low when I was moving my powerhead which caused the feed line for my KHG to be out of the water so it sucked in air instead of tank water.
this led to the sw > error. To resolve this I looked at the manual and used the sw degas option to refill the feed tube once I had it submerged again. After doing this I was able to test again.
some things to note:
this led to the sw > error. To resolve this I looked at the manual and used the sw degas option to refill the feed tube once I had it submerged again. After doing this I was able to test again.
some things to note:
- This causes the aim module to send a low reading to my GHL, like 5dkh so I would be careful when programming automatic dosing based on that value, there should be a backup like a maximum dosage or something
- The error continued showing up on the display so I kept trying to resolve it, but Alex from Dr. Bridge told me I just need to reset. This can be done by either holding button 4 or by selecting reset on the admin page, I tried refresh but that wasn’t the correct one
ofzakaria
Guest
If khg pulled air or the line if blocked, thw khg will stop testing to save on reagent and show sw error. As you said either rest from web interface or press button 4 for 3 sec.
The best way to protect yourself if you are controlling a doser based on a kh tester, is to have the doser programmed with whats enought for a day dosing or bit more than regular amount for a day dosing. This way if the twater failed the doser will simply dose the needed amount of solution not more.
Thats one of the reasons I would not trust something like trident control a peristaltic doser (dos) for me, cause if something went wrong I do not want the doser keep dumping solution.
I would trust a doser that is part if the tester bot separate. This way if twster errors out, at least doser will do so as well..
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max_nano
Supporting Member
Yes, I think it’s good to have a handle on the alk intake and keep that schedule manual. I’m still adjusting dosage now, especially as I’m running out of All for reef and switching to kalk temporarily while I research options.
My plan is to have my dosing schedule and use the khg to monitor and maybe use it as an upper limit stop, so if the kh goes too high it will stop the dosing.
@ofzakaria Im going to let you try ATI and learn vicariously through you, for now I’m considering b-ionic 2 part or the DSR method (Dutch synthetic reefing).
DSR seems interesting as it is a 4 part system which dose not require water changes, I’m skeptical and need to research it more but their inventor has some impress show tanks from running that system no WC
ofzakaria
Guest
You do not have to have the exact dose. An estimate is ok and it will not cause a big alk swing.
So far am impressed with the ATI essentials. 2 bottles comes with 25 element...pretty impressive. I'll run the essentials program at first, then over time I might also run their nutrients program..
ofzakaria
Guest
Recently I learned that kalk can actually bind po4 and later release it when po4 drop in the system. Ao now am not big on kalk..
2 part B-ionic will.be better option in my opinion
Coral reefer
Past President
I’ve got a bunch of soda ash if you need some for a bit.
max_nano
Supporting Member
Kalk seems to be working well so far as I’m transitioning off AFR. Alk dipped when I had the ATO error which caused the testing to stop, but it’s been consistent between 7.4-7.6 now so I think I got the dosing schedule all set.
I’ve been working on bringing stuff to the front panel since it’s what is visible from the most angles in my apartment. I have a bad track record with torches but I really want one front and center where the hammer is. I think my previous torches died due to one being a risky frag from the start which Neptune sold cheap because James said it was iffy after a mishap fragging and the other experienced both nutrient and alk steep dips. I think if I can keep acros alive I shouldn’t have issues with torches?
We will see, I’m on the hunt for good deals I want something with a standout color but those dragon soul and holy grails are pricy. I might try another torch with less hype so I’m not paying for a name when taking the gamble on the coral type I have a bad track record with.
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I’ve been working on bringing stuff to the front panel since it’s what is visible from the most angles in my apartment. I have a bad track record with torches but I really want one front and center where the hammer is. I think my previous torches died due to one being a risky frag from the start which Neptune sold cheap because James said it was iffy after a mishap fragging and the other experienced both nutrient and alk steep dips. I think if I can keep acros alive I shouldn’t have issues with torches?
We will see, I’m on the hunt for good deals I want something with a standout color but those dragon soul and holy grails are pricy. I might try another torch with less hype so I’m not paying for a name when taking the gamble on the coral type I have a bad track record with.
Whites:
Blues: