[lgerold]

Hey!

I started our reef tank in early February. We've been adding corals, anenomes, fish, and other inhabitants since starting the tank. Physical details below:

125 gallon long tank (6 ft long, 24 inches tall.)
29 gallon gallon tank along side as refugium w/pc lighting (55 watts) 24/7.
2 1/2" depth of sand bed - combination of oolitic and aragonite.
Lots of live rock - I suppose 300 pounds is not an exaggeration.
PC lighting - 325 watts actinic 9 hours daily. 195 watts 50/50 5 hours daily.
2 protein skimmers - started with Bak-Pak style, added an AquaC Remora
Water flow provided by:
3 250 GPH powerheads positioned behind the LR.
450 GPH overflow from refugium
1200 GPH (I'm sure reduced to more like 900 GPH) flow over the top and
behind the LR using a SCWD (and 2 sections of 2 1/2 foot loc-
linespray bar) , alternating right and left side of tank.
Marineland HOT filter used as carbon filter without filter pad.
Temp maintained at 77 degrees
Top Off by RO/DI water
Salinity kept between 1.0235 and 1.024

Present inhabitants: Accumulated since February.
fish: Large yellow tang, small hippo tang, royal gramma, three spot
wrasse, firefish, lawnmower blenny, 4 blue green chromis, 2 tomato
clowns, scooter blenny, mandarin, 2 cleaner gobies, and some sort
of bottom dwelling goby.
90 or more assorted snails (I've lost count of how many we've
bought, and how many have committed suicide by leaping to their
death on the sand)
20 tiny hermit crabs
3 emerald crabs
2 porcelain crabs
1 strawberry crab
2 serpent stars
3 feather dusters
4 anenomes - one unknown (grew from live rock, NOT aiptasia), 1 carpet
(new), one beaded, one condy (tentacles quite short though).
1 flame scallop

Corals - lots of mushrooms, 3 colonies of buttons, 2 open brain corals,
1 long tentacled plate coral, 1 really long tentacled fungia, 1 short
short tentacled plate coral, 2 leather corals, 1 colony of blastomussa,
1 large elegance coral, bubble coral, hammer coral, galaxia, 3 colonies
of star polyps (large colonies), maze brain coral, xenia, scroll,
1 ricordia, and 1 cynaria. Also, two orange sponges - ball and branch.

As for the appearance/health of the tank, shortly after starting the tank up, we ran through an outbreak of diatoms, followed by some cyano problems. After the cyano (which we cured by adding alot more water movement), the only problem has been with a stubborn case of hair algae. That has actually been slowly improving over the last 2 months or so. At it's worst, about 70% of the bare rock was covered by hair algae - and now it's down to about 20%.

When we started the tank, PH was a huge issue. Perhaps. My test kits showed that the water from the tap was 7.8 PH. We started the tank using tap water, not RO/DI. Water in the tank ran from 7.6 to 7.8 Test kits were new, Tetra and Nutrafin. Not the best tests, but they concerned me. I took a sample of water to Minneapolis (3 hour drive) and a fish store there, staffed by an incredibly knowledgeable guy, checked the water and his tests showed 8.2. Good! I bought an electronic PH meter, calibrated it, and the PH has been running consistently 8.0 to 8.2. That is, until the PH meter's batteries ran out on me. I hadn't checked the PH for a while now. (Beating head on wall.)

Before figuring out that the PH was actually (or maybe) not low, as a foolish beginner, I attempted to boost the PH using some powdered PH boosting chemical. The PH refused to budge and of course the ALk and Calc hit the roof (calc 560, alk 5.71). Precip was awful for a few weeks. The alk has been falling all summer, and by last week, it had fallen to 2.74. Interestingly, the calc has not fallen, and tends to run between 520 and 560 mg/l. I suppose that the elevated calcium level has been due to using purple up for fairly religiously for about 6 weeks, until about 6 weeks ago. BTW - it works! The coralline algae grew much faster with it than without.

My concern is with the PH. I realized the other day, when the alk tested at 2.74, that PH could be a problem, with the lower buffering ability. I added one dose of Kent's supper buffer, which brought the alk to 4.5, which I'm more comfortable with, since the calc is still running high. Of course, I had to run out and buy some batteries for my dead PH meter, and after re-calibrating the PH meter, my PH is showed a frightening 7.6 this morning. Right now, light on full for 5 hours, the PH reads 8.0. I checked the PH using the tetra and nutrafin tests, and they both show 7.5, am and pm. The PH meter is acting funny, giving erratic results, so I can't count on that thing either. I'm going to have to take it into a lab tomorrow to hopefully find some more calibrating fluid.

The fish and corals and anenomes are happy as can be. Full polyp extension, happy fish, etc. New corals that we've acquired over the last month have transitioned smoothly.

We've had trouble with the nitrates and phosphates. I ordered a phosphate filter which just came in, and I'll be installing that soon into the refugium. I also ordered a sulfur de-nitrifier. The expert in Minneapolis tells me I have been overfeeding, which is probably accounting for my .5 phos and 44 ppm nitrates. With any luck, I'll have less trouble with that hair algae when the nitrates and phos drops as it should with more water changes and the new filters.

I'm wondering about Kalkwasser? Should I be considering using it in my top off water (1 gallon per day)? I fear that my already high calcium may be a problem with kalkwasser. I stopped using the Purple Up about 6 weeks ago, so I would expect the calcium level to begin dropping soon, though it stayed high before the use of Purple Up too.

I'll let you all know what I find out about that PH. It's hard to believe it can be that hard to get an accurate result!

Lucy