George Monnat Jr

My DT pH typically swung from 8.18 to 8.23 when I had it centered on 8.2. I don't have graphs saved for when I upped it to center around 8.3.

For over a year I had two 5g buckets filled with RODI, 10-12 tsp of Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime and ¼ cup of 5% white vinegar and an $8 Fountain Tech FT-70 pump from AutoTopoff.com. I'm still using that pump. When the bucket with the pump in it got low, I'd mix the KW in the other bucket, let it settle for at least a few hours, then move the pump over.

Because that pump has higher flow than typical dosing pumps, I had the Apex outlet for the ATO programmed as:

Fallback OFF

Set ON

If Switch1 OPEN Then OFF

If pHsump > 08.20 Then OFF

If pH2dt > 08.28 Then OFF

If pHsump < 07.40 Then OFF

Defer 000:05 Then OFF

That maintained pH around 8.3 in the DT. If I lowered the pH cutoffs or lengthened the deferral time, then the pH would spike really high (8.6 or higher), because there was a delay between the KW pumped in and the pH sensors detecting it. Even with the ATO pumping into the skimmer section of the sump right by the sump pH probe.

That worked really well, and I never had a failure with those components. If you want details on the amount of pickling lime and using vinegar to pack more lime into the water, see these:

What Your Grandmother Never Told You About Lime

"...three level teaspoons of solid lime per gallon of limewater, and 45 ml [9tsp] of vinegar per gallon of limewater."

A Simple DIY Kalk Dripper

All about kalkwasser

The Degradation of Limewater in Air

“Some aquarists add vinegar to their limewater in order to increase it potency...In terms of the degradation of limewater by atmospheric CO₂, the addition of vinegar is not expected to have a big impact. The vinegar lowers the pH of the resulting solution, and the lower pH tends to decrease the driving force for CO₂ to enter the solution, and for the CO₂ in the solution to show up as carbonate (as opposed to bicarbonate at lower values of pH; bicarbonate is less of a concern from a degradation standpoint)...The use of very large amounts of vinegar, where the pH drops below about 11, would be expected to reduce the likelihood of precipitation of calcium carbonate. In no instance should vinegar make this problem worse.”

The vinegar also carbon doses, so that needs to be slowly introduced!

Lol I'd be curious to know how many of us are guilty or ARC'ing and driving

I don't have to ARC and drive because I'm on this site all day at work!

+1

Dangit, I'm traveling for work, so I can't go.

Since I was new to reef keeping, I went by Dr. Randy Holmes-Farley's recommended parameters. He bases his off of NSW.

As of this writing, I was getting 503 errors on his article, Reef Aquarium Water Parameters by Randy Holmes-Farley.

When my tank had salinity...

Crap! I haven't had problems with diseases or parasites. Until now. I just noticed that my pair of German Blue Rams have white spots! Now I'm cleaning out and restarting my UV (been off since it was SW).

I don't have sick fish, yet, but looking at the pictures bummed me out. Try these.

That blows. I looked at several freshwater fish disease pages (which bummed me out, like totally). This one has:

Description Small black specks on skin.

Symptoms Black Spot

Cause Small fish worms (Diplostomulum).

Have you done a necropsy on any of them? I'd type Diplostomulum into Google Images and see if that looks like it.

Edit: table looked good in preview but messed up on submittal.

I loved my dual reactor (RX) running both GAC and GFO, and it's easier to use than the TLF single RX.

What I mean is instead of doing 2 independent ramp-ups like:

2. if i continue my plan to QT for a month before adding a new batch, then do a similar light acclimation on my DT, then my DT will not reach full light for many months (5 - 6 with my current plan).

you can do a single, seamless ramp. So if you end your QT at say 120 PAR, when you move them over to your DT they would still be at 120 PAR. Then you can ramp up to whatever at the same or a different rate.

You should try a mantis trap. I would think a mantis shrimp would outright kill at least once instead of multiple woundings.

If you have a PAR meter (or even a lux meter), then you could match between your QT's final level and your DT's initial level.

Here's a good site.

Regular light or a red light?

Do you have any shrimp, crabs, etc.?

Just make real sure you don't introduce copper or other heavy metals into your system.

I like the sign.

Here are some comments:

However what i didn't realize was the tubes need a burn in time of 60-100 hours @100% before you can dim them?

never knew that about the dimmable ati's, you learn something everyday in this hobby

I think dimming t5 and MH changes the light spectrum but not sure

That is correct, but it may not be a big deal.

Lamp manufacturers advise against dimming for fear of poor stability and intolerable changes of the spectrum. However, none of the lamps showed a decrease in stability, no flicker or wandering of the discharge, and the changes of the spectrum were not negligible, but certainly not dramatic. Lamps of either manufacture retain their white color, relative peak heights of spectral lines did shift, but no gaps in the spectrum occurred. Spectra taken at 50% with 30 minutes intervals coincided.

I don't have equivalent data for T5s.

Yes, if it's designed to run a T5 bulb, then all T5 bulbs should work the same (T5 is a standard). Solid state lights, like LEDs, may need different circuits depending on the material, number and layout of the devices.

I have small Synos, and they haven't bothered the 15 Ghost Shrimp I (think I) have. I've seen eggs on a few but no spawn/fry. Do they spwn at dusk or night like a lot of SW shrimp? I actually like the Ghost Shrimp, and I plan on getting some similar but colorful shrimp.

As I mentioned in my frog thread, I love to have more cool critters for visitors to "discover" as they look in the tank. I'm thinking about getting a few snails. My tank is still fairly new, so there's not a ton of micro-algae, yet. I also have 8 small Synodontis catfish which may compete for browsing food (although they're fat off of fish food right now). I have live plants (Anubias, Java Fern, etc.), so snails, or anything else, can't eat them.

I was early for a Dr.'s appointment today at lunch, so I stepped into PetSmart to kill a little time. I saw these Mystery / Apple Snails (Pomacea bridgesii). I saw this quote,

Prefers dead and rotting plants and artificial foods like fish food; doesn't eat healthy plants unless no other food is available. This makes the Pomacea bridgesii snail a good choice for planted aquaria.

That's appealing. I was thinking of getting one of each of the black, white/ivory and yellow/golden morphs there and a blue one when available.

At RCA I saw some Nerita Snails (Nerita sp.). I don't know how they are with live plants. I don't want anything that'll reproduce out of control either (the Mystery Snails are single-sex).

Anyone have snail opinions?

Yea, I've been thinking of adding Daphnia or some other live food. The Daphnia might be too small for them and not "wormy" enough, though.

My overflows have teeth, so they're not totally open. My Neon Goby and Sexy Shrimp always took sump rides.