new lighting / sand bed clumps / calcium ?

[Minh Nguyen]

You should add live sand, add sands from other tank and other kits to increase the number and diversity of the creatures in your sand bed. I would not add kalk or Ca or Alkalinity to your tank unless you test and find that it is on the low side. Once the sand become live with the creatures living in it, it will not solidify.
minh

 

[mattseattle]

well i have tested Ca, Alk and all and it's been flucuating quite a bit. see my above post. my alk was about 3.3 last night and this morning it was down to 2.8. my Ca went from 410 to 390. i am assuming my magnesium is low but since i don't have a test kit yet i can not verify it.

as far as the sand, yeah i've bought live sand and added some other live sand from the aquarium club. i think i'll also purchase a kit to see the sand soon unless i can find some volunteers to give me a cup or so of their live sand

 

[Minh Nguyen]

I would not sweat the Mg level. I have never check Mg in the years that I keep marine aquarium. Not even once. Magnisium doesn't get take up by coral with any significant amount. You should not have to add it to your tank.

The same goes for Strongtium. I only replace Ca and Alkalinity to my tank with Ca reactor using crushed coral. My thinking there is that what ever coral take up from the Ocean will be release back when I disolve the coral skeleton with CO2. It also the cheapest Ca reactor media.
Only draw back is the posibility that it may be high in phosporous. I have no problem with phos so I choose not worry about it.
Minh

 

[Minh Nguyen]

my opinion regarding DSB

For me, I love my DSB. I can keep very delicate corals like Goniopora and grow SPS very quickly. I add a huge amount of Ca to my tank to support my coral growth and my corals are growing out of the tank. My fish are all doing well and breeding the tank. My Banggai cardinal even grew up and mature in my overflow box without me feeding it.
DSB is very efficient at handling Nitrogenous waste. In keeping Marine tanks, I never have undetectable nitrates without a DSB, and never have detectable Nitrates with a DSB. It also provides lots of live food for my tank animals. I got a deep, deep sand bed that is about 6 inch in my sump and average about 10 inch in my tank. The surface area is 34X96 in the tank and 18X48 in the sump. I did seed it very well from many tanks and about 20 gallons of deed mud from the Corpus Christi bay.
I do know the limitation of the sand bed and deal with it accordingly. I change water 25% every 2-3 months (120 gallons). I have three 65 g Rubber maids to mix the water. I have another RO system in my garage to get the RO water needed. I grow lots of algae, mangroves, and sea grasses in my sump. I light my sump with two 250 W MH and harvest the macro algae very regular. I know that what going to the tank got to come out in order to balance the tank. I got a large skimmer for my tank also. The way I think about it, I got to take the same amount of Biomass out of the system as I out into it or very close to it.
My DSB work well for me. If I have to change the DSB out every 20 years, then I will. I don't see evidence that my DSB is causing problem for my tank. I know that my coral are doing great and will keep my DSB until my experiences tell me otherwise.
The important point here is that our tank, as a close system needs to have balance. We cannot add thing into it forever without removing it and expect it to stay in balance. One need to know that the DSB does not export phosphorous well and we as aquarium keeper need to deal with it. I keep my deep sand bed, not because I think it will last forever, unless I have method to remove the phosphorous from the tank. I keep it because I can have much higher biomass density in my tank with it and thus can keep delicate, hard to keep animals.

In living organisms Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium are there of the most important elements beside Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Of these phosphorous is the only one that we cannot get rid of automatically in a aquarium with DSB. One just has to have other method of export the phosphorous from the tank. As I export phosphorous from my tank by various mean, I also get rid of the micronutrient like trace element and keep them from get to toxic level in my tank. I also do not intentionally add these trace elements (Iodine, Strontium, trace element soup etc.) in to my tank.
There have been many DSB bashing lately. IMO, that DSB is a very successful method of keeping aquarium. But it is not a magical way to keep your aquarium in balance. It just helps me to keep my animal thriving. It keeps the conditions of my tank much close to nature. That is why I use DSB in my aquarium.
Minh

 

[mattseattle]

i dosed a little magnesium yesterday and when i checked my calcium level today it was the same as yesterday. my alk level did drop but only slightly.

today my alk is 3.09 / 8.6 and my calcium is 430.

anyone else have any other advice for me? should i not drip kalk while my sand bed is still new?

 

[mattseattle]

bump - anyone?

 

[mojoreef]

Hey Matt maybe I can add a little bit to help out. On your chemical balance. All the elements that make up your water play a role in the whole make up and in the individual make up. Adding individual elements seperately is shot in the dark. cal and alk are major players but mag. and the rest play a large role to. With the smaller elements such as mag. and stronium they should be replenished enough if you do regular water changes. cal and alk are the main elements that get consumed the fastest.
So here are a couple of thing you should do.
1> go out and get an Ionically balanced additive (2 part) I like the warner amrine products. Use these product and nothing else until you raise your levels in a balanced manner. Once you have raised the levels to what yu want then you can go back to a kalk add if that s the way you want to go. Base the ammount of the j\kalk you use on what your tank is consuming. ie: if your tank by measure is using 50 ppm of cal a week and 50 ppm of alk then dose that ammount over a weekly span.
2>never dose anything unless you know you need to. SO stop the mag. What magnesium does is that the ion from it coats the carbonate ion and thus stops it from percipatating the calcium. So blankly doseing in can hurt your make up.
3> as mentioned above on the sand. the lack of stiring is the main cause of it. Just because the sand has bacteria does not mean it will get stirred. Only critters such as worms/pods/cukes/snails and so on will stir it and keep it from clumping.

hope it helps

mike

 

[mattseattle]

yeah, that information helps.

first off i'll do another water change. i did a 20% or so a week ago but i'll do another one this week.
after that i'll get a 2 part additive and get the levels where they need to be.

as far as the sand i see tons of worm holes and other life in the sand. i have a conch that stirs the sand pretty well. i am still noticing some clumping of the sand so i think i'll probably buy a kit from ipsf or something to add more life to the sand bed.

thanks guy for the information!