Red and purple coral not coloring up – and in some cases, dying

[fatoldsun]

Maybe it's not tuned right

Well within the realm of possibilities. The reactor is a bit undersized as I said but I had space limitations. I spoke at length with Jeff from MTC and he recommended against a pH controller for it. He developed it so I guess I should have listened but so far I've been too chicken-$h1t to go without it. I may be taking that off next.

 

[spotter]

Jeff does love to talk so there's no such thing as a short chat with him. I put an inline ph probe holder on my pro cal reactor so I could get a better feel for the bubble count and impact on the ph in the chamber. What kind of media are you using and how big is your system?


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[fatoldsun]

90g display +40g sump/fuge. The media is ARM and I'm running low and getting ready to add so I'm open to suggestions. I got it from a fellow reefer so other than him telling me it's ARM I'm afraid I know little else. Also my pH is far from conventional. I have the effluent discharge into a small plastic container. Probe sits in that container. I don't like that setup and I'm ready to nix the controller.
I regret giving up my Kalk rector to make room for Ca. Should have kept both. I dosed some baking soda today to hopefully buy me some time until the weekend

 

[spotter]

The mini cal reactor should be more than big enough for your system but if you're low on media that could be part of the problem. What ph level are you keeping the reactor at?


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[redfishbluefish]

I use baking soda for alk in my tank. Just mix it with fresh RO water until it's clear than add to tank in sump. In my 90, I usually use 6 tsp mixed in a kent carbon container, every 3 - 4 days.

You certainly can use straight baking soda….especially if you have relatively high pH. However, if your pH is running on the low side, cook it first. Put 2 ¼ cups of Baking Soda on a cookie sheet and cook it in the oven at 300 degrees for an hour. Let it cool a little….doesn’t have to come down to room temperature….and dissolve it to one gallon using RO/DI water. This is just like B-Ionic’s Alk solution.

Also, what is your Calc number….High Calc will drive down Alk.

 

[fatoldsun]

The mini cal reactor should be more than big enough for your system but if you're low on media that could be part of the problem. What ph level are you keeping the reactor at?

What's too low? I guess I have between 1/2 and 3/5 in the larger "main" chamber - the smaller (skinny) one is pretty full. I wasn't planning on letting it get too much lower but I thought I could go until about 1/3. As long as I'm asking, when I add, can I add on top of what's there or do I change out all of the old media? Any tips as to cleaning or changing? Should I take everything out and clean the whole system or is it better to leave it as undisturbed as I can? I think I will go with Jeff's original instructions - 50 ml/minute and 60 bubbles/minute. He said it was fool-proof and I didn't listen I'll look tonight and see what I have the controller set to - I think 6.3-6.8 but that's totally from memory. And it's not really inline - I got the idea for my contraption from Melevsreef (Mike Levinson -sp?) so it was tested by someone with way more knowledge than me but it definitely seems inexact and I have about a cup of effluent just sitting in the container at any given time. That seems wasteful and inefficient.

You certainly can use straight baking soda….especially if you have relatively high pH. However, if your pH is running on the low side, cook it first. Put 2 ¼ cups of Baking Soda on a cookie sheet and cook it in the oven at 300 degrees for an hour. Let it cool a little….doesn’t have to come down to room temperature….and dissolve it to one gallon using RO/DI water. This is just like B-Ionic’s Alk solution.

Also, what is your Calc number….High Calc will drive down Alk.

Paul - my Calcium always runs low, always has. When I've tested new water it's also been low which I took to mean my test sucks or my testing skills suck. My tank's at 350 (this week) but I've never been able to get a reading over 390 using my red sea kit. (I have a hanna but it's so sensitive to user error I don't believe I can trust it - I think I'm too stupid to use it. I researched a ton online and it seems I'm in good company - but I guess that's something I should have done before shelling out $50 - hence too stupid to use it... I digress.) Thanks for the tip/ recipe, I will make up the DIY Alk solution and see if I can kick start a recovery while I deal with getting the reactor to behave how I'd like.

 

[fatoldsun]

Holy cow;
So after 24 hours after dosing the baking soda I re-tested Alk - using the red sea, it was 9.0 and with the hanna it was coming up at 10.14. Quite a change from 5.9 dkH

as for the calcium reactor, it's still going through the controller - hopefully I'll "correct" that this weekend. for what it's worth, the Milwaukee is set to 6.4 pH and media in the larger chamber is closer to 2/3 full - the small chanmber is 95% full - not sure if that's low enough to open it up and add or leave it undisturbed. I'm guessing taking off the controller will result in faster consumption since the medis should melt faster...

 

[iTzJu]

check your calcium and mag levels also, you dont want one falling behind or it'll still cuase problems. make sure everything is within range.

 

[fatoldsun]

check your calcium and mag levels also, you dont want one falling behind or it'll still cuase problems. make sure everything is within range.

Any household products I can dose to fix those

 

[redfishbluefish]

Any household products I can dose to fix those

Prestone Driveway Heat.....an ice melt product....calcium chloride. Dissolve two cups in RO/DI water and bring up to one gallon.....again, the B-Ionic recipe. The problem might be finding an ice melt product now since it's seasonal.


EDIT TO ADD: BRS also sells a calcium chloride HERE. Note that this is a hydrated calcium chloride, so you will need 2 1/2 cups per gallon of water. The Preston product is anhydrous, that's why you need less.

 

[MatteZ]

I have 2 full pallets of Peladow at work left over from the winter since we didn't use much this season

http://www.amazon.com/PELADOW®-Calcium-Chloride-50-Bag/dp/B0066TCENU

 

[redfishbluefish]

Wow! For the DIY Calc/Alc users, you’re holding a couple pallets of gold!

Peladow Calcium Chloride is good to use as a calcium chloride source. It too is anhydrous, so the formula is 2 cups to one gallon of RO/DI water. And if you get a 50lb bag….that’s about a life-time supply.

 

[MatteZ]

I have TONS of it. All in 50lb bags!

Wow! For the DIY Calc/Alc users, you’re holding a couple pallets of gold!

Peladow Calcium Chloride is good to use as a calcium chloride source. It too is anhydrous, so the formula is 2 cups to one gallon of RO/DI water. And if you get a 50lb bag….that’s about a life-time supply.

 

[fatoldsun]

I'm a little sketchy about dumping ice melt in my delicate Eco system. But I'm tempted if Paul says its ok I'll give it a shot. Not sure Id know what to do with 50 lbs

 

[jgraz]

Matte any chance you might want to sell some of that.

As to the driveway heat while it is seasonal my past experience in retail shows that most places just remove products like that from the sales floor and store them in stock rooms. The Walmart in Hamilton does this behind the garden department in the outside areas. You may be able to find it there.

 

[iTzJu]

Interested in a bag myself Matt, if you decide to sell them.

 

[Hawkeye]

LOL Matt is plotting to frag the bags...HAHAHHA.

 

[fatoldsun]

LOL Matt is plotting to frag the bags...HAHAHHA.

I'll take a frag bag. I don't need 50 lbs

 

[MatteZ]

I can help you guys out. We can always trade a frag or two for a bag. Every summer I always buy the ice melt from one of my vendors by the pallet. The last two winters have been so mild I barely used any.

 

[fatoldsun]

I tried using the Paul/Randy Holmes-Farley recipe for the B-ionic Alk buffer. It seemed to work ok - I think I needed to let it cool a bit more though before mixing it because I ended up with a rather large "rock" at the bottom of the container. With the help of a strainer and a couple pitchers I was able to get that out. Looking back, maybe I should have left it to dissolve slowly although when I got it out (I used a metal skewer to break it up) it was fairly solid and I'm not sure it would have dissolved without heating the water. I guess its density changed in the water so I’m estimating I lost between ¼ and ½ cup of my cooked baking soda. …there's always next time (unless my wife catches me - the pitchers and strainer worked great to get the clumps out but boy what a mess. Clear spill-over dries to a VERY noticeable white chalky mess on the floors and counter when given an over-night to evaporate - oops, and side note, it's suborn when trying to clean - for the same reason, you can't really see what's there until it totally dries) I will try and figure out how much and how often to dose and see if that is sufficient on its own or if I need to abandon the calcium reactor and move to a 2-part dosing plan. The other option I guess is to manually dose kalk plus the alk and see if that works. I'm not sure why I am so tied to the calcium reactor but I feel like that should work and I'm not sure why my alk is SO low with the relatively small number of frags I have. Maybe the vermitid snails are competing for the calcium carbonate to build their tubes – sadly I have no shortage of those. Still, certainly as compared with some SPS heavy systems I can't imagine I have that much demand unless the stronger lighting is encouraging faster growth which is compounding the demand for Ca and Alk.

Does anyone who runs a calcium reactor also dose as an additional supplement? Or use kalk in any way?

Matt(eZ) - if I move to dose calcium, please let me know (text, PM, etc...) if you still have any of the ice melt available....