FarmerTy

The hope is that I will be able to tweak my nitrate to phosphate ratio in my tank to match the uptake of my macro and bacterial culture within the biopellet reactor. I will plan to add increments of whatever is limited in my system at the time until I achieve target levels with just the biopellets. If my phosphates start creeping higher and my nitrates are at zero, then I will add nitrates until I start seeing my phosphates drop... and vice versa. The goal is to have lower phosphates and a moderately low level of nitrates, without using GFO (iron oxide hydroxide as Sascha mentioned). If I can't ever get the phosphate level down low enough, then I will supplement with GFO at that point and just keep an eye on my nitrates. Ol Aggie, we definitely should have found that out awhile back... I blame you... you're the biologist. I'm just a lowly environmental scientist turned real estate agent. I got the 10ml from the suggested dosing instructions on the bottle. Using their formula, I calculated that 10ml should bring my phosphate levels up approximately 0.05 ppm. The only thing is I have no idea what my actual net water volume is with the displacement of live rock, sand, corals, fish, reactors, etc. In practice, 10ml raised it roughly 0.03 -0.04 ppm... barring the resolution error on the hanna meter itself. I guess I could just plug the resultant phosphate change back into the formula and back calculate my what my net water volume is after removing displacement from the items mentioned above. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

There was a ton of lightning! It was pretty awesome actually. Glad the UPS finally saw some action! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Yikes! My power hasn't gone out for more than 5 mins ever since I bought this house almost 5 years ago! Maybe it's time to move back into the city bud! Hopefully the power comes back on soon for you!

Alright, interesting experiment I have caught myself up in. To sum up, I have determined that my system is phosphate-limited and my nitrates have gone out of control (last read 50ppm). I hypothesized that this occurred because I was unnaturally lowering my phosphates via GFO causing it to be too limited to support bacteria/macro algae from uptaking both nitrates and phosphates in roughly the 16N:1P ratio that the Redfield Ratio has documented. Now we can't take this ratio as an exact number as this is only one type of macro he experimented with and there have been documented experiments showing different uptake ratios for different macro algaes. For sake of simplicity, I'll run with the 16N:1P ratio as a generalized ratio of uptake for macro/bacteria. When my wife was asking me what I was working on, I tried to explain to her the above but it was late and she wasn't interested in me nerding it up with her. She was eating chips and salsa at the time, so I used it as an example. Imagine if the nitrates are the chips and the phosphates are the salsa. If you ran out of salsa, would you still continue to eat the chips? She said no. I said... bingo. The bacteria/macro want to eat their chips with salsa. So in my system, my GFO removed all the salsa (phosphates) and I'm left with a giant bag of chips (nitrates). So what's a guy to do? Well, get some more salsa (phosphates)! Okay, enough with the chips and salsa, but hopefully everyone is following where I am going with this. I picked up a bottle of Seachem Flourish Phosphate. A pure potassium phosphate source with no added nitrates. Below is my phosphate dosing schedule and the corresponding nitrate level at each interval. Please note that GFO has been taken offline since last week and I am currently not running biopellets. I did convert my frag area in the sump into a refugium last week and have a large ball of chaeto and some ulva in it currently lit by an Aqua R series large LED refugium bulb. I have a Skimz Monster E-series 201 unit that is rated up to 550 gallons running and during the experiment, I was vodka dosing (carbon source) and adding about 15 mL of 80 proof vodka a day. No other filtration, media, or water changes occurred during this time. I did do 2 water changes (roughly 20% volume total) when I first noticed the nitrates were >50ppm. Once the experiment below started, it was reading about 50 ppm and I did not perform any water changes from that point on. I will note that I am running a CaRX. Date Phosphate (ppm) -Hanna ultra low range meter Nitrate (ppm) - API 5/9 0.02 ~50 5/9 0.06 (after dosing 10ml phosphate) ~30 5/9 0.09 (after dosing 10ml phosphate) ~20 5/10 0.05 ~20 5/11 0.09 (dosed 10ml phosphate) ~20 5/12 0.05 (after dosing 10ml phosphate) ~10 First, let me say that if I was more serious about the results, I would have stuck to a more time consistent dosing schedule and also used a better nitrate test kit than the API which has very poor resolution and would not have been considered for a true test. As you can see, the general trend is that the nitrates decreased as I added phosphate (Seachem potassium phosphate) and a carbon source (vodka). I wish I could quantitatively say the chaeto and ulva grew in mass but a visual observation will have to suffice. It looked like it got thicker at least. My skimmate got darker as well indicating to me that there was more bacterial growth in the system. For me, this confirmed that my tank was indeed phosphate-limited and the addition of phosphate and a carbon source allowed the bacteria/macro to uptake the superflous amount of nitrate in my system. Am I advocating people start adding phosphate to their system. No way! Just sharing my particular situation and the resulting data I collected as I remedied my high nitrate situation and struck a better balance in my tank by correcting my phosphate-limited condition. I started back up my biopellets tonight and look forward to tweaking my nitrate/phosphate balance once the biopellets are fully online. I'm running with the new Ecobak plus pellets that boasts a new multi-polymer, multi-carbon source formula. Watch out, in a few weeks... maybe I'll be adding some nitrate to the system!

Pending Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Hi all, I goofed and bought these magnetic frag racks and didn't check beforehand if they would stick on 3/4" thick glass. My mistake is your gain! Both for $25. PM is the key. Thanks! -Ty http://www.reefcreators.com/Medium-Clear-Magnetic-14-Frag-Plug-Frag-Rack_p_21.html

Looking good! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Based off the description, it's either cyano or dinoflaggelates. Hopefully it's just cyano... dino's are a big pain! Diatoms are just a brown dusting on the sand and rocks and doesn't really string up... for lack of a better word for it. Haha.

Happy bday! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

It was a good-sized one for sure. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Yowza! I want to start a new tank just to put all your frags in it! Great stuff Don! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Hey Ty, what were you doing last night after dinner? Oh, just dosing phosphates to my system... All in the name of science! Results of the experiment will be posted later this weekend! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Did you get the high capacity one? Or the regular one? Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

I'd go off of BRS' recommend amount off their website and then just use half of that and see how the cyano reacts over the span of a month. If it it's still there, then when you replace the media (monthly usually for me) then use a little bit more and see the results again. Obviously test as you go to see how it affects your phosphates. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Haha, its like you bought your old one back! Except this one has a pH probe port it looks like. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

My pod clients eat fish poop... but only the finest fish poop. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

They'd prefer something maybe on the top of a rock mound, preferable with good flow. Not to close to any anemones, they are always up to no good. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Let me know when the condos are finished. I have a bunch of pod clients that have been looking for something new to move into. Does it have a view? Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

I agree that they will almost surely not like each other but with the size tank, I think they'll carve out a corner a piece and be fine. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Looks great Jimbo! So clean! The blue tip acro is a bottlebrush. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Ty's Blueberry pancakes? Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

I think the hardest part of the equation is also getting one that was handled gently. I've read that damage to their fins during handling increases the mortality rate in these fish. To the point where when Jeremy caught it for me, he used a large bowl and scooped it up instead of a net. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Been running the same setup on my 125 gallon and recently transferred it to the new tank. Great setup! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

They are super sensitive to copper medication and are real hard to train to eat but if you can defy the odds, you'll never have an aiptasia issue ever again. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk