Dear BAR,
I have a 60 gallon mixed reef with sump. Things have been going along just fine, but in the last 3 weeks, I've started to get a ton of white precipitation on all my pumps, coating the sump and even on the walls of the display tank. About a month ago, I started to dose 2 part much more heavily as the corals seemed to be responding to the season? or maybe my tank had finally really 'settled in' and were really drawing down Ca and Alk. My tank is about 1.5 years old. Before the transition, I was dosing about 75ml of BRS 2 part daily, but in the last month this increased to almost 400ml of each per day.
I've asked a couple of LFS, and they seem to think there is some sort of ion imbalance, but the explanations have been 'cloudy' to say the least. I tried to find a good thread on this topic through BAR, but failed. If there is something here, please point me to it.
My parameters have been:
Mg at 1250-1400
Ca 400-500
Alk 7-9
I've started to do a series of large water changes to battle this mysterious ion imbalance issue. I did 15 gallons yesterday, and I plan to continue this volume every day or other day for a bit unless you guys think this is a bad plan.
I also ordered a Calcium reactor 3 weeks ago because i was tired of dosing. It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm going it will now also cure the imbalance issues and help me avoid heavy dosing.
Any help or proper explanation would be greatly appreciated.
Here's a couple pics of the tank. Most corals look pretty good although my rainbow monti and my scans are quite unhappy.
Best wishes and thanks in advance for the help,
Beignet
I have a 60 gallon mixed reef with sump. Things have been going along just fine, but in the last 3 weeks, I've started to get a ton of white precipitation on all my pumps, coating the sump and even on the walls of the display tank. About a month ago, I started to dose 2 part much more heavily as the corals seemed to be responding to the season? or maybe my tank had finally really 'settled in' and were really drawing down Ca and Alk. My tank is about 1.5 years old. Before the transition, I was dosing about 75ml of BRS 2 part daily, but in the last month this increased to almost 400ml of each per day.
I've asked a couple of LFS, and they seem to think there is some sort of ion imbalance, but the explanations have been 'cloudy' to say the least. I tried to find a good thread on this topic through BAR, but failed. If there is something here, please point me to it.
My parameters have been:
Mg at 1250-1400
Ca 400-500
Alk 7-9
I've started to do a series of large water changes to battle this mysterious ion imbalance issue. I did 15 gallons yesterday, and I plan to continue this volume every day or other day for a bit unless you guys think this is a bad plan.
I also ordered a Calcium reactor 3 weeks ago because i was tired of dosing. It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm going it will now also cure the imbalance issues and help me avoid heavy dosing.
Any help or proper explanation would be greatly appreciated.
Here's a couple pics of the tank. Most corals look pretty good although my rainbow monti and my scans are quite unhappy.
Best wishes and thanks in advance for the help,
Beignet