George Monnat Jr

I use an Apex controller checking pH (limewater/kalkwasser pH about 12) and float switches, a pair of 5g buckets and a small pump. The float switches and pump are from autotopoff.com for little money. For long absences like last week, I throw in a 44g BRUTE bucket and mix my kalkwasser topoff in that.

Normally if KH gets much higher than 10 dKH you'll have a snowstorm (abiotic precipitation). Especially if your magnesium is low. I guess if there's no calcium to react with, it can't precipitate out. Did you have a big snowstorm or have pumps die or heaters coated?

I'm really bummed, because I can't make it. My parents are in town with our new puppy, and they've suffered me fretting over my tank already. I just can't break away. I'm considering my 2 tickets as donations to ARC, but if there's someone in need please let them use the tickets and/or lunches.

Thank all of you for the offers. I ran to Hill Country Water Gardens and grabbed a Pondmaster Magnetic Drive 9.5 Pump. It was $55 more than on Drs F&S, but I got it immediately. Only $30 if I paid the fastest S&H, and I still wouldn't have gotten it until Monday.

Hill Country Water Gardens had a ton of pumps on hand, including a 1800 gph in case my return pump dies. They have impellers and parts, so hopefully I can fix the old one as a spare.

Thanks,

George

Yesterday I got back from my vacation, but immediately crashed (it's a long overnight flight). The morning before we left, around 3 AM, my skimmer pump died. I thought the tank would be ok for a week, but yesterday I found my Powder Brown Tang dead and pH is horribly low. I checked KH, and it's still around 9.5. That means either very high CO2 or high ammonia from excess protein. Probably the latter.

I've called RCA, AquaTek and FB, but none of them carry Mag pumps. Does anyone know where I can quickly get a Mag pump on a Friday? Or does anyone have one I can borrow until my new one comes in?

I had a snowstorm that dropped my alk from 8 to 5 due to keeping my pH above 8.4 fighting dino. It's a bad idea to add kalkwasser and baked baking soda within 20 minutes of each other, Another lesson learned. But I've recovered and built it back up to 8.5 dKH with all parameters back to good.

I have a reverse lit refugium with chaeto and thriving amphipod and brittle star communities.

The last two examples as HC, Red Sea dKH

5.208, 5.1

7.560, 7.7

That's pretty good given that the Red Sea color change can be subtle and hard to see.

For the HC conversion from ppm to dKH, I used: dKH = ppm / 50 * 2.8

The HC for alkalinity works like a charm. I've been double-checking with my remaining Red Sea, and they've tracked beautifully. And I need to pull out my gloves for the PO4 HC. I need to refresh my med go-kit anyway.

A question for both of these. I'm assuming that the 10ml is measured at the bottom of the meniscus on the line, is that right?

any scratches on cuvets or micro bubbles in the vials ever? I'd eliminate the one obvious out of whack test and average the rest.

Not that I can see, I used a soft cloth to clean the bottles each time.

For the past week or so I've been using the Hanna Checker HI 713 to track my phosphates. I've been running a constant 1 cup of BRS Bulk Granular Ferric Oxide (GFO) – High Capacity (recommended amount) being gently tumbled in a BRS GFO & Carbon Reactor – Dual (w/ GAC, too) for weeks. victoly got 0.15 ppm PO4 on the 16th. Here are the subsequent readings:

March 19th: 0.21 ppm, 0.12 ppm and 0.21 ppm PO4 (3x packets used); RCA tested from the same water and read 0 ppm detectable PO4

March 20th: 0.50 ppm, 0.04 ppm and 0.06 ppm PO4 (3x packets used)

March 23rd at 1150 AM: 0,03 ppm PO4 - great! Then at 2310 (11:10 PM) that night, I read it again for 0.11 ppm. What?

I decided to do four tests using the same pair of cuvettes/bottles. I wiped each bottle before inserting it each time. Here are the four more readings I got on the same samples (only 1 packet used for all readings):

0.11 ppm

0.02 ppm

0.46 ppm

0.06 ppm

0.07 ppm

What should I do with that? Throw out the high and low outliers and average the remaining? I don't know what to think. RCA always reads 0 ppm, my HC reads sporadically and I still have GHA and small patches of occasional dino.

Members recently listed their PAR readings here, if you want to compare.

Sounds good. Would you be able to tell me where the best place to put in at the Comal is, and how you usually get back to your car after floating the river?

We usually enter at Prince Solms Park. It has steps and facilities. From there you can either swim upstream then drift back down to the park, or you can park a 2nd vehicle at the end of the Comal where it enters the Guadalupe at the last public entrance. Going downstream from Prince Solms takes 1.5-2 hours (just like toobing) which is a nice drift dive, but there are also three tube chutes. I recommend going through those feet first and supine.

You're welcome. If you use it with your LEDs, the scaling and correction factors are here.

I was supposed to meet dshel1217 today to get my PAR meter back, but I can't make it. You can ask him if he'll meet with you, and I can get it from you after I get back from vacation.

This is a great list, thanks for posting! I got certified last summer but haven't used it since, and I wanted to practice before this summer (going to Akumal and then probably some rig diving in the summer). I'll try the Comal soon.

I'll post when we go again. Or dive in other spots. All are welcome to join us. We'll back from HI in a couple of weeks.

After my recent shenanigans, I started using the used JBJ C-SCOPE refractometer, got a Hanna Checker for alkalinity, got Salifert kits for Ca and Mg and victoly tested my HC for phosphates as ok. I had some dino making a comeback, and I wanted to nip it early before leaving for vacation. Over the last week I kept pH just over 8.4 using kalkwasser(KW)/limewater, ran actinics-only (plus a small amount of sunlight) for a day then black-out for 2 full days, then actinics-only (plus a small amount of sunlight) another 2 days. Because i was adding about 5g in KW a day, my alkalinity and calcium should've been sky high (it normally is adding 5g over 3-4 days via ATO), but when I tested last night they were all low. My magnesium has been historically too high (around 1450 ppm) until last night, too. I think the major snow storm when my Apex puked on itself and a couple of minor ones (cloudy water but no large particles) when the KW spiked pH drained my KH/Ca/Mg with abiotic precipitation. Either that or the livestock consumed a ton of it without photosynthesis.

Last night I took a 2.5L bin, cleaned it with RODI, dried it and removed about 1/2g from my DT with it. At the same time I noted the Apex pH and temperature readings. I then took a cleaned sample bottle (same process) and reserved a sample from the bin to take to RCA. I then used that sample bin to carefully take samples for my refractometer, Red Sea kits, Salifert kits and Hanna Checkers. I only used clean stuff to draw water from the bin and never put anything back in it, so the samples should've been relatively homogeneous.

This afternoon I took my sample for RCA (from the same bin last night), which was kept at room temperature like the DT and other samples, and they read all but Mg for me.

Something sucked a lot of KH, Ca and Mg out of the system. I added stuff after taking the samples, so hopefully my parameters are better now.

The Hanna Checker for Phosphates (HC-713) drives me crazy. It says, "Replace the cap and shake gently for 2 minutes until the powder is completely dissolved." The stupid HC times out after 2 minutes, so as I'm shaking it the *^%$#@%$ thing shuts off. I feel rushed to get the powder in it and shaken meaning most times I either spill some powder or it doesn't all get dissolved. That means I don't trust the readings. I tried using both 'cuvettes' with one having just DT water and the other with DT water plus reagent powder mixed, but that doesn't seem to work great either. I tried it three times last night (meaning 3 packets used) getting 0.21, 0.12 and 0.21 ppm. That seemed really high as I run a lot of BRS GFO and haven't been feeding much at all. At least RCA said 0 ppm. Does anyone have a better method for using that checker and its powder?

I would think your feather dusters and co-co would be in danger. From LiveAquaria:

Use caution if placing the Cowfish Longhorn in a reef tank as it may nibble on tubeworms.

That's a shame, because I was just looking at a cool Longhorn Cowfish at RCA.

I have some small zoas and rics that I got on plugs. I hate the plugs, too. Can I scrape the zoas/rics off without hurting them?

Last night I had the same problem as Bio3. My Powder Brown Tang wouldn't eat the small piece I gave. The piece disintegrated, blew around and a Fire Shrimp grabbed a big chunk. That Fire Shrimp is worth more than $20 to me.

just dont broadcast feed and its nothing to worry about. My fish just refuse to eat it even after 1 week with no food, so I no longer feed with it. Had a pack since back when hydro first brought it in before any LFS, still havent gotten through it lol.

Rats, I would've bought it from you.

Has anyone who has used Dr. G’s Anti Parasitic Frozen Fish Food had any problems with inverts, including crustaceans? Notice an amphipod/copepod die off?

I started using it yesterday afte finally getting some at AD on Sunday. The directions state, “To avoid any possibility of damage to invertebrates and corals, remove food that falls on corals with a turkey baster and use Dr.G's Chemical Filter and Phosphate Remover to remove any medication from the water that was not consumed.”

That’s a little scary to me with all my ornamental crustaceans and healthy amphipod population..

Robert Aschermann posted

I got Dr. G`s anti parasite medicated fish food from aqua dome . It worked for me Garry has it for 20 bucks which is less then replacing multiple fish

I've been trying to get RCA to order some. I need to go to AD.

it was adding electricity. Had some stray voltage coming from the power head that runs in.

That sucks. You could write this up with everything you saw and discovered like a "lessons learned" article.

well the culprit was my cheap made in china knock off protein skimmer. We're now running no skimmer until I can figure out what to do.

Was it adding lead or melamine or something?