SteveM

The brown stuff in my tank is usually like a cross between a dusting and the stringy stuff. It's not real bad and it only shows up on the sand about a week or so after I do my bi-weekly water changes. I also get a very little on some of my rocks. I usually clean it all off when I do my water changes. As I said it's not real bad but just bothersome. I have been trying to figure out the cause of it and that's why I sent off the water sample. I did the one time test just see what they had to say. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and maybe run a little more of the PhosBgone in my reactor to see if that helps. Any suggestions for the right amount of carbon and GFO in a reactor? Currently I have been using about 1 1/2 cups of PhosBgone and 2 1/2 cups of carbon.

I decided to send off a water sample to Aquariumwatertesting.com to see how their results matched up to my test kits. I have also been have a little bit of a problem with brown diatom algae and have not been able to figure out why. Here are the tests and results. MY TESTS Calcium..............................456.......HACH Kit Calcium..............................380.......Seachem kit Alkalinity.............................9.8.......Instant Ocean kit Alkalinity............................11.5......Salfert kit Magnesium........................1410......Salfert kit Nitrate...................................0.......Salfert kit Nitrite....................................0.......Salfert kit Phosphate..........................0.03......Hanna Phosphate meter Aquarium Water Testing Results Calcium..............................388 Alkalinity............................11.8 Magnesium.........................1425 Nitrate..................................0.7 Nitrite................................0.005 Phosphate...........................0.03 Also tested Silica...................................1.0 (High) Potassium...........................346 (Low) Boron..................................3.0 Strontium............................9.1 Iodine.................................0.06 Copper...............................0.01 Molybdenum.......................0.00 Ammonia...........................0.001 Overall I thought the results were pretty close except for the HACH calcium test. I thought that was supposed to be a very accurate kit but the Seachem was much closer. (Almost exact.) The best information I got out of this was that my Silica levels are to high. It says that could be as a result of my RO/DI water but I have been keeping the filters replaced and put some new ones in only last month. It also says that using a commercially available phosphate remover may help but I run a reactor with carbon and PhosBgone so I'm not sure what else to do at this point. Anyone have any suggestion about lowering the Silica levels???????

Thanks everyone. The six line pic is my favorite. It was just a lucky shot, that guy never stops moving. Chip, I'll say hi for you.... to Steve...

Had a chance to take some new tank shots tonight. Enjoy.......

I run both in the same reactor. I put the phosphate media on the bottom and the charcoal on top. I change mine out every 4 weeks.

Chris, Stop by any time to pick a few things up.

Group buy is up in the members section.

Cool, I will contact them about a group buy and post what I find out. If anyone else is interested let me know.

Thanks James, that's what I was looking for. I will also be ordering one.

Has anyone seen the rocks that have magnets in them that you can hang on the back of your tank? Anyone know where to get them?

Chris, looks great!

Thanks for the offer. I will not be at the social since I have to work. I have seen the results charts then send and they look good. I was just wondering how it all compared with the "usual" tests kits we use but that was already asked. I am considering using the Reference Kit they have just to see how it matches up.

Does anyone have any experience with AquariumWaterTesting.com?

Chip, that was the only thing that was different. No evap change or kalk change. Even though it kicked back on while it was at 6.3 I think that the amount of time it took to go from 6.40 to 6.30 and then finally kick back on was just enough time to let the tank ph drop a little. It can get as low as 7.85 at night so it would not have taken much to get it to drop lower. It is the only explanation I have for the ph dropping like it did.

No, it's just a yellow/green millie.

Will the Radiums run off of ARO electronic ballasts?

I was looking at my tank tonight and decided to break out the camera. All pics are taken under actinics with my Nikon D80. It's almost impossible to get the colors exactally right but these are pretty close. Hope you like them.

Chip, don't you think that just as a safety feature it would be okay to do this to keep the ph from getting to low? Should it happen I could always control the flow off and on via the ACIII until I could get home to fix the problem.

I have a 110gal which is 30" deep and that is one reason I like the XM 10K bulbs. I am just getting very good color with them. I have the ARO electronic ballasts, does anyone know if they will run the Radiums, and if so will be okay on my tank? I have even considered adding another 250W to my tank to give me 3 bulbs or switching to 2 400W bulbs. Any thoughts?

Submitter:SteveM Location:My 30gal frag tank Camera:Nikon D80 Subject:SPS acro with white polyps

Just wondering if anyone runs 250W XM 15k bulbs. If so how do you like them? I am running XM 10K now and would like a little better color. Not sure if I want to jump to 20K though. If anyone has a couple of these bulbs laying around and wouldn't mind me borrowing them to see how they would look on my tank please shoot me a PM.

I run one and love having it. It keeps my Cal and Alk perfect. I tried dosing two part but it was a pain to keep everything balanced.

Great ideas, thanks. I think I may do both. Add the second setting based on the tanks PH and also plug the feed pump into the DC8.

I use the GenX C.R.M. large media and I found that if I go much higher with my PH settings it will not dissolve the media. The PH in the reactor had dropped to 6.30 when the tank PH dropped to 7.66. Once the solenoid kicked the CO2 off the tank PH began to slowly rise. My normal range on my graph for PH is between 6.40-6.48 so if definitely stayed on to long. I do have that exact alarm code set but luckily for me it didn't get low enough to kick it on.

I have my ACIII programed as follows to turn my CO2 on and off for my calcium reactor. If pH2 > 06.46 Then CO2 ON If pH2 < 06.41 Then CO2 OFF Tonight while I was at work I just happened to check my ACIII from the internet and noticed that my tank PH had dropped to 7.66. Apparently this happened from the CO2 not shutting off. Luckily it kicked off and the PH slowly came back up to a normal range and nothing was affected by it. Is there anyway to create a safeguard for a CO2 solenoid that sticks and does not shut off when the command for the CO2 OFF is given?