Susan's RMS Max C250

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
@Crowther Will check that out. I don't want 0 nitrates though. Just not 20-40!
I would Stick with the Nopox just need to give it time as it can take weeks before it starts to come down but for it to work properly you need to stick to the instructions and the correct dosage,

i'm myself now I've been on Nopox i'm coming up to 5 weeks now and as only just started to drop from 50 to 25.


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Susanedw

Well-Known Member
Update: Ordered a canister filter for the refugium as the hob that came with the tank is not very effective (being polite here) and I'm weeks away still from getting tanks plumbed together.

Hooked it up and already my tank is clear and has really nice water flow and ariation on the surface which it didn't have before. We'll see if it helps with the cyano as the refugium is going thru that stage.

Came with a spray bar which spreads the flow. when I get my tanks connected, may keep the canister and just take out anything that can trap pods like the filter floss and sponge. Am also wondering if I couldn't hook the chiller, when I get one, to it. Out flow of filter to inlet of chilller. Would make that so much easier if feasible.

I put rubble in the bottom basket, bio balls/ceramic ring mix next, carbon and purigen in the next up, the carbon and floss it came iwth next, and the sponge and floss on top.
 

Susanedw

Well-Known Member
Tank update. Main tank not much change. Still very high nitrates but this afternoon, down to maybe 20 instead of 40-50. Using Nopox for 2 weeks and still high. Had some trace phos but today it's back to 0. Doing weekly water changes from twice a week. Didn't notice any difference in nitrates from dong more often. No nitrites so that part of the mini and unexpected cycle is done. Didn't test ammonia, figured if nitrites 0 it'd be prob. 0 as well.

Duncan closes up on me here and there, esp. after lights come on. My scooter blenny prob. irritates it as well. gonipora looking very nice and my two colts seem to be doing well. Green star polyps closed for the day. Notice they do that at times. Acro doing nice, the small one not so nice. Rest are suviving. Anemone still handing in there. Not sure how. No tentacles.

Fish all seem happy. Feeding just once a day. Tank and gold head sleeper goby rule the tank pretty much. Occassionally the bicolor blenny defends it's rock. Kole tang dug out a larger opening beneath a small cave. He decided it was a place for him to zip back and forth! First time I say him under there I thought it was stuck, and maybe it was but I blew out some sand. It used to go through on its side. Now it is nice and deep...

Display refugium clear of cyano. I used chemi clean. Will do water change today. Macro algae seems to be doing okay. Have lots of debris on them. Haven't glued any of the rubble rock to the rockwork yet so can put direct flow on them. Added a powerhead above so they sway and added a canister filter that is doing a great job (esp compared to that awful hob bio wheel) until I can hook two tanks together. Might keep it going after using rubble rock inside once I add pods (take out floss so they don't get trapped)

Happy with my set up. Can't wait to have a pristine and clean tank and no icky algae. Seems to be getting brown and dryer looking, same with the patches of cyano

display refugium
20170427_185409_resized.jpg Acro--is that a stinger?
20170427_100038_resized.jpg Main Display with window reflecting--tank is not see thru....
20170427_140425_resized.jpg
 

Susanedw

Well-Known Member
Started dosing nopox and vibrant to deal with high nitrates and horrid algae. My good acro showing signs of not being as happy.

Also, very strange, my colt frag, the one that fell off the piece I bought which had been doing so great start since I refragged it started receeding at the base--like 4 inches of dead stuff with a bit of pink and shriveled branches. Went today to cut off the bad and found it had really gotten worse overnight. I now have a piece with less than an inch of good stem. Glued it to a frag. Wasn't looking so happy where it once was so I moved it a bit higher toward the light and more flow. Branches extended so it is happier. Hope it makes it as it is a fav.

Overall, most of the corals are not as happy today. gsp all closed up last few days, duncan opens and closes and the other colt looking okay but not as tall or spread out. Even the goni took a long time to open up today

Dosing kent and or alk as needed as alk always falls to 7 or even 6. Was 9 today. Cal 380. And that is a day after a water change. Mg is 1000. dosing a bit every day to get that up but not as much as it says--want to take it slow.

Did notice nitrates came down from yesterday but didn't test again tonight to confirm

Refugium getting algae. Using vibrant there to head it off. Am going to try to go the recommended dose and time. If the main tank doesn't show results in 2 weeks, I'll go to once a week but keeping an eye on my nitrates. If they start dropping, i'll stop the nopox when they hit 5 or use it a few times a week between the vibrant.

Need to get my super glue out and start gluing down the macro algae I glued to rubble rock and just set on the rocks. Have to watch flow or the rocks fall so time to glue them down.

Spotted some purple hard stuff on one of my return outlets. Pleased to see coraline coming but not on my outlets....

All fish and such behaving normally.

looking forward to getting a nice clean tank eventually!
 

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
Hi there
With the Nopox you're not meant to stop and start The idea is once you get down to a level to where you want you Drop the dosage to a maintenance level dose that daily to hold it at that level,
Also your magnesium level is extremely low you need to get that up to around 1350 by doing that this will also help towards stabilising your KH and Cal. If all these three are unstable this will Play a big part towards upsetting your corals.

You need to remember Keeping things stable is the key towards keeping corals happy[emoji846]


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Susanedw

Well-Known Member
@mr_tap_water thanks. I'll up the daily mag dose to get that up. The bottle called for 1ml per gallon daily to get it up to 1250-1350 but I thought that was a lot to do so was doing much lower every day. I've been doing 10 ml.
 

Susanedw

Well-Known Member
@mr_tap_water Okay, thanks. Will up the daily until I get a good reading. I'll split it into 2 doses, morning and evening and ck numbers before night dose.

Everybody (corals) seem much happier today. gsp opening, torch extending, 1 acro lots of tentacles, duncan open, colts okay--hoping the little one pulls through, goni opening but closed now prob. because scooter blenny crawled over it. Nitrates down to 10! Finally!
 

SPR

Well-Known Member
Hi, as said above once you start dosing NoPox you continue and don't stop it. You are basically feeding bacteria which will then deal with the nitrates for you. If you stop feeding them then they will die off.

Once you get to the desired nitrate level, then you adjust the dosage accordingly and then keep it in check.

Also watch your phosphates. I've been using NoPox for over a year and it's very good at Nitrate, but not so good at phosphate, although if you heavy 'wet skim' this will improve the phosphate reduction.

It might also be worth looking at a dosing pump for your foundation elements, Ca, Mg, Alk. Corals do not like swings in parameters and they will let you know very quickly. With an auto doser it will make your life much easier once calibrated with dosage etc, and it will make the corals life much better. You can also dose NoPox this way. Stability is one of the keys to all of this and avoid constant changes.

On the Mg, (or any tester) if you get an 'odd' test result just double check it as the Mg test kits are for whatever reason extremely sensitive. I know from experience when I got a low reading and added loads of Mg, and then tested and it was off the scale!
 

Susanedw

Well-Known Member
@mr_tap_water so far no phosphates and I know I should have some. I'm assuming I need to wet skim for as long as I use the nopox? Will check into dosing pumps. Not sure I know how to do all that quite yet <g>.

My mg is consistently low. I'm using the kent mg product and I'm going to double it. It raises the mg by 18 so I'll start dosing twice a day until I get it higher. Used the kent 2 part last night and dosed the regular mg yesterday and the mg was still at 1000 today.

Cal at 390. Will order a cal supplement just to get it up where it needs to be. Alk was at 10.4 today and it'll go down each day. Not sure how often to use the kent 2 part. When it's gone, I'll get a cheaper product (meaning more for the same price) I wanted to start with something small in case I didn't need or like. Feel like I'll never know it all with this hobby <g>

no3 down to 5 today. Yesterday at 10 in the am, back to 20 at night, so will ck it again tonight to see what to dose. I know the vibrant will also lower nitrates. I'll be very pleased if I'm at the 5 mark consistently.
 

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
With the Mg, Kh, Cal, these all drop Daily at different rates this is why if you're keeping corals you need to be dowsing Daily at the right amounts,
With your protein skimmer to wet skim quite easy by opening up the air tap to let more air into the skimmer which causes bigger bubbles to make a wet skim and can even only if needed Lowering The skimmer or skim cup as well.

With your No3 its best if you can to test at the same time of day because different feeding times my tribute to different readings at different times of the day, also Nopox it's just about tweaking the right amount of mils Daily to keep the No3 within the range you want.


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Susanedw

Well-Known Member
@mr_tap_water I have the skimmer air tube completely open. What is the difference between wet skimming and a dryer skim?

I will start cking into dosing--have to figure out how to know what to dose each day of ea and see what's out there for equipment
 

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
The difference between wet and dry, wet has more of a watery substance, and should fill your skimmer top within a day or thereabouts where the dry is more of a thicker substance and can take up to a week or more to fill the Collection cup.

Figuring how much to dose daily is down to having to test daily for each one,
For instance if you test for magnesium and it reads 1300 then test the next day at the same time if possible and it reads 1280 when you know you're roughly using 20ppm a Day,
then your know how much your need to dose Per day going by the instructions on your product, you may need to keep testing for a few days after until you've tweaked it right.


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Susanedw

Well-Known Member
@mr_tap_water I should have asked what is the reason/advantage for either wet or dry skimming. Up until nopox I set the skimmer for more of a dry. Now it is wet. How does that affect the tank/what difference to the tank whether you do wet or dry.
 

SPR

Well-Known Member
@mr_tap_water I have the skimmer air tube completely open. What is the difference between wet skimming and a dryer skim?

I will start cking into dosing--have to figure out how to know what to dose each day of ea and see what's out there for equipment

There are numerous ways of setting up for dosing, but I do it by taking the readings on day 1, then leave it 4-5 days and then take reading 2. Then you can work out the average daily usage per parameter.

I then top them back up to where they are supposed to be by adding the foundation elements.

Then I switch on the doser, set for how much I want to add per day, Test again in about another 4-5 days and then adjust the dose.

I always try and start around 50% of what the daily dose might be and then gradually increase/adjust over the next weeks until it stays fairly constant, but without 'chasing numbers'. It's easier to add more rather than take out hence starting at 50%.

After researching on here and elsewhere I went for the Kamoer 4 channel doser. They are not cheap but it's very good and very easy to use and change settings etc.

As far as wet/dry skimming it's maybe personal preference but I do know Red Sea told me to wet skim to remove more phosphates when using NoPox. I prefer to add Rhowaphos and I go for middle of road between dry and wet skim, as the rhowaphos keeps phosphate at '0-0.03ppm ish' and I can feed my fish properly. I also only need to change it around every 4-5 weeks or more.
 

Susanedw

Well-Known Member
thanks @SPR I don't seem to have a phos problem--no testable amts anyway with the test kit I'm using which starts at 0.25 (hagan). Maybe I should get another one to double ck. So if no phos. or problem with high, I can cut the wet skimming or meet in the middle? I have high nitrates but they seem to be coming down.
 

SPR

Well-Known Member
Do you mean 0.025? If you mean 0.25 then you have may high Phosphate. Should be around 0.03ppm?

If it does start at 0.25 then get a different one like Red Sea Phosphate Pro, hanna checker etc which within error margins start at 0.

Just keep up with the Nopox and if you do have 0.25ppm Phosphate id wet skim unless you go down the gfo route


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mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
@mr_tap_water I should have asked what is the reason/advantage for either wet or dry skimming. Up until nopox I set the skimmer for more of a dry. Now it is wet. How does that affect the tank/what difference to the tank whether you do wet or dry.
Hi there
The reason behind having a wet skim First of all is what is recommended by Red Sea, because as
The Nopox does its job The end result needs to be taken out quicker along with other organics and also takes out more water at the same time so I believe Plus you need to keep an eye on your Sg because of the amount of water you're talking.


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Susanedw

Well-Known Member
@SPR I haven't tested my phos that high, that is just the lowest the test kit measures. Normally there is a 0 reading per that kit, or occassionally the water will have a blueish tinge but so faint it's hard to tell and def. not at the 0.25. I'll order another phos kit.

@mr_tap_water Thanks and gottcha
 
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