Still not happy with my SPS coloration

[cwegescheide]

Oregon Tort

This should be enough to document the corals recovery (hopefully) now that I am working to get the PO4 down from .14 and added the Litermeter to hopefully keep the Alk in the 8-9dkh and stable.

Chris

 

[cwegescheide]

Oh before anybody says anything I know the efflo got the heck stung out of it by the frogspawn...

 

[cwegescheide]

OK a little update!

Now I know its not my imagination. Its been three weeks running GFO (Rowaphos) and I can tell that my corals coloration is definatley improving. Several corals in my tank have shown a nice improvement already. Others I can tell a slight improvement.

My Cali Tort WAS pretty browned out in my tank and last week I thought it was wishful thinking but now its obvious that its getting its color back. I also have noticed that my pink stylo is really getting PINK on the tips of the coral much more so than it did. Other corals I can tell a little bit of difference but not much yet.

Also I will say I'm really liking the Litermeter so far. Since I've figured out how much Alk my tank uses every time I test my Alk its been (130 - 132ppm) for almost two weeks now. We will see what happens as time goes by. I'm thinking I'm going to raise my Alk to about 140ppm / 8 DKH and keep it there for a while.

I'm still having a little trouble keeping my nitrates down without doing water changes every week. Thats getting old so I am thinking about putting a sulfur denitrator on my tank (I've got a spair Ca Reactor I was thinking about turning into SD) I cant seem to get my Nitrates down below 5ppm.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[cwegescheide]

A little weekend update..

Well I finally made it to the LFS Saturday and had my po4 tested with their Hanna Meter. Its came down from .14 to .06 I'm happy but I've still got a little ways to go.

So I was standing there at the counter waiting to get my p04 tested and look up and see the ATB skimmer sitting there. Got to talking to the owner about them and I told him I have a small ER skimmer, I think its the ER 80 model. He's like "oh man this skimmer will kick the crap out of that thing" so I asked them to measure the skimmer for me to make sure it would fit inside my sump. Bingo! No problem. I've got 3/4" to spair lol.. I pulled the trigger. I decided againster the Bubble King for a couple reasons. For 1 I've heard mixed reviews about them and they seem kindof finiky. Also I like my LFS and I try my best to buy from him if at all possible. I know he stands behind his products. He's a great guy. I can already tell this ATB skimmer is a MUCH better unit than the ER I had. I have this skimmate in the bottom of my cup already that is BLACK as molasses, maybe 1/4" and i just hooked it up last night.

I'm looking forward to coming home friday to a full skimmer cup of some nasty skimmate!

I'll post pictures of it next week.

Happy reefing,
Chris

 

[apollothesun]

phosphate dosage

im having the same problems. how much phosphate (cups) do you use on your tank? when do you change it? whats the flow rate through your tlf reactor?
thanks

 

[cwegescheide]

Umm I'm using about 3 - 4 cups of rowaphos in my DIY phosban reactor. I used an RO cannister with a replacable DI cartridge as my phoban reactor. I started out with a low flow, barely seeing the media move, then I cranked it up to a pretty good flow after a couple weeks. From what I understand you have to be careful using GFO in the beginning cause it can stress/kill your corals if you shock them too quickly.

 

[pammy]

Hi Cwegescheide. How do your SPS corals look now? I'm going through the same thing, and just added a TLF Phosphate Reactor yesterday. I also had no PE, so just removed my Coral Beauty yesterday, that I was catching occassionally nipping at the SPS.
Thanks!
Pam