lnevo

You want a weeks worth of measurement to compensate for fluctuations like that and standard deviation. You could easily cut that down to 3-4 days. What i did was drop the current dose by what your trying to increase and see what your target maintenance dose might be. If it drops from where you want , add a bit more to next days dose. Then you can let it drop for a few days measure again, set your dosers for your dosage or keep hand dosing. Dose a bit extra to get back to your target level which is what you just did. Basically just tuning it a few times to get it just right.

Linkias fromias chocolate chip, sand sifters. I think the only ones they dont eat are brittle stars which are too fast

Hey all, I proposed these questions in MR but I thought that you guys would probably have some very different and valuable feedback to these, so here goes... Sunday I purchased a Harlequin shrimp to take care of my asterina "problem". I have a few questions regarding long term care and looking for opinions. First off the asterinas have been up on the glass en masse. Should I be collecting them and transfer to the sump to keep a population going? If your feeding them asterinas, can that be a long term diet? How many asterinas would you need to feed them on a regular basis? Asterinas aside, I'm thinking of getting some chocolate chip stars and keeping them in the fuge area of my sump. I heard you can rotate breaking arms off of them. How many can you keep in a small fuge section like that? Would i need to feed them separately or can they scavange what makes it down there? And if you feed them whats the best way to do so? My other option is to get sand sifters but theres no sand in the fuge so it would have to be like a once a month purchase and just toss in the tank. What do you guys do to care for harlequins long term? Oh and do you keep them solo or in pairs, I'm thinking of getting a female to join the male I purchased. Thanks in advance

Take a look at this one. I've heard some issues with the one you mentioned after power outages needing to be recalibrated. http://blog.aquanerd.com/2013/09/hydor-smart-level-controller.html

Take a look at this one. I've heard some issues with the one you mentioned after power outages needing to be recalibrated. http://blog.aquanerd.com/2013/09/hydor-smart-level-controller.html

Theres not really much difference between in 5ppm but the dosage sounds right for that difference and consumption. When I started it was at 20ml back in august. I'm now at 40ml and probably need to increase...havent tested in a while.

+1 for Set and forget. I don't see much change after a WC and corals don't stop growing when we change water...in your case its definitely good to wait at this stage. That .7 or whatever the difference is is what you should be tracking for your maintenance dose. Once you have it at your target level you'll be pretty close to what that number should be and you can dial back to that.

You can have mine...don't like the way he stares at my clownfishes

Why not soda ash if your worried about ph? The ph should balance out fairly quickly. I usually tested the next day.

Thanks! Definitely feel welcome here Having gone through the exact same process just a few months ago, I definitely learned a lot that i can share.

I gotta agree with zygote2k. I was expecting a factual (aka mythbusting) explanation regarding tank size and fish growth and instead got accused of being a horrible aquarist by keeping a tang in my 65g.

Yep

The first field after osc is the offset. I would put a 5 minute or 30 minute offset on one of them so they aren't dosing at the same time... You dont want them at same time or they can precipitate unless the outputs are far apart.

Good luck!!

Sorry just thinking on what I said, and since co2 in the air and water does play an influence, it technically can balance out if your fresh water is high enough but that wouldn't be the case for calcium and either way you are making big swings by doing so. I would still recommend supplementing especially considering that if your balanced in the 5s its not really the best level to be at.

If you have any kind of consumption it is mathematically impossible to maintain those levels through water changes alone. Just look how your 5G water change with 9+ dkh fresh water hardly made a dent to your tank. At some point your water was at least 9dkh when you started and hasn't been able to "maintain" that. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/

Yeah looks spot on. Comes to about 22ml/day of consumption. You probably will need more but starting there is perfect.

I still think you should just go with the same amount of cal solution as alk. Especially when you look at the difference from 4/7-4/8 vs the difference of 4/8-4/12. You can always dose more and as long as your calcium is not plummeting you should be fine.

For the record theres an I2C compatible PAR meter being released by Reef Angel. This is pretty cool Alan. If I ever go Co2 reactor I would definitely look to build one of these!

They have have the Coral Reef Alliance as an option

Man, on Manhattan Reefs you would have had about 100 different things to say plus people pushing you to a bigger tank with links to good deals in the FS forum. I think you guys must have all your wives on this forum with you

Thankfully Alk is actually one of the quickest test we have to perform other than ph!

I've been using RC along time now and I've NEVER seen the 11-12dkh that people claim. 9 seems on point to me. You definitely want to split that 71.4ml. You dont want to change alk more than 1.4dkh/day and I shoot for 1dkh. I would go with 15ml /dose AM and PM if not 8ml/dose to get started.

I don't think its a smarts issue. It's overwhelming especially when you've got that "everything looks good" factor. Good husbandry and frequent water changes will do that to you... Messing with what works is the hard part. One of the reefkeeping.com articles on WC shows it best that even with constant WC, with a slow steady alk/cal consumption you cannot maintain the same levels with just WCs so some type of supplementation is just inevitable.