George Monnat Jr

The Anubias I got were cheaper than LA, got to pick them out and no shipping (just sales tax). The driftwood I bought was a little pricey, but the 20% off deal got me to buy it. I didn't look at fish prices (avoiding for now).

My step-dad has had a long career as a welder and weld inspector for the DOE at Bryan Mound (really Texas and Louisiana). He's blind in one eye from working on a car (metal flake), so wear your PPE!

Meh, it's only a small portion of the total coast line and in the areas with less corals. I'm just relieved the Ryukyus weren't harmed. A little worried about Hawaii (family and diving there).

I used it as an excuse to leave work early (still crappy traffic). The two people I asked about an ARC discount had never heard of ARC. The cashier wasn't going to give me the 20% happy hour price as it was before 6, but another employee corrected her. I got 5x Anubias and a hunk of driftwood for good prices. It looks like it'll be a really nice store after it stabilizes.

...

Also, sometimes when I edit one of my posts and submit, it'll show up with html code embedded.

That, too.

Dang, you're twisting my arm...

Some people just do FW without the hard stuff, or try the hard stuff and go back to FW. Or do both.

Straight copy-and-paste from my post above:

A few weeks ago I noticed that when I copy-and-paste into a post it adds
extra line breaks. It makes it really ugly and annoying and time
consuming trying to fix it. Even when I copy from one post to another
(I started a new post then realized it should be added to an existing
thread, instead). I'm using Firefox 21.0 on a Win7 laptop.

Copy-and-paste from my post above then into Notepad:

A few weeks ago I noticed that when I copy-and-paste into a post it adds extra line breaks. It makes it really ugly and annoying and time consuming trying to fix it. Even when I copy from one post to another (I started a new post then realized it should be added to an existing thread, instead). I'm using Firefox 21.0 on a Win7 laptop.

Copy-and-paste from my post above then into MS Word:

A few weeks ago I noticed that when I copy-and-paste into a
post it adds extra line breaks. It makes
it really ugly and annoying and time consuming trying to fix it. Even when I copy from one post to another (I
started a new post then realized it should be added to an existing thread,
instead). I'm using Firefox 21.0 on a
Win7 laptop.

A few weeks ago I noticed that when I copy-and-paste into a post it adds extra line breaks. It makes it really ugly and annoying and time consuming trying to fix it. Even when I copy from one post to another (I started a new post then realized it should be added to an existing thread, instead). I'm using Firefox 21.0 on a Win7 laptop.

Thanks,

George

interesting. what i read on my filter was that DI water is so empty that it will almost instantly pick up the PH of the water and should have no effect on the system. that is way out of my knowledge scale, so i can't say that i understand or give you anymore insight into it.

Yea, there was no buffering - the system was back to the previous pH or overshot to the other side in a minute or two.

I'm cool with FW now

But I'm happy with the LFS that's right next to my work atm and don't want to fight the traffic or ARC mob today. I might swing by this weekend. They'll be open, right?

Are you tracking dew point, and do you have a humidity limit where the system breaks down?

I think we need to all cover our roofs with dirt and trees for our comfort and the environment

Does that require CEUs?

Is it Mr. Sea Expert, Dr. Sea Expert, SE aggieMEDIC or aggieMEDIC, SE?

I'm still in a SW mindset, so other than monitoring my nitrogen cycle all I've got to look at is hardness and pH. And pH and temperature are the only things monitored on the Apex that I can see from work. The goal is to get a stable system that I don't need to devote hours to every day like when my DT was SW, but while I'm in town I still feel like tinkering with it.

I'm trying to get my pH neutral, because the African species my wife wants are in the 6-7 pH range while the South American and SE Asian species I want are in the 7-8 pH range. It might be too fine a line to walk or the fish might not really care, but I want to give it a shot.

I still have old coralline and abiotic calcium & bicarbonate debris leaching into the water. That's great for KH but not so good for pH and GH. It's definitely buffering my system well. I still have my pH probes calibrated to 7.0 and 10.0, but I should have them calibrated to 4.0 and 7.0 by Monday. The API High-Range pH test jives pretty close with the probes (last reading from DT looked like 7.8 pH). I think the DI I'm adding (trying to get the GH down with water changes) is slightly acidic from my color-drop tests and the LFS's recollection, but the graphs below show it higher around 7.5ish. My DT pH probe has always read higher than the sump probe, so I don't know how much is actual or false-sensor divergence. I should swap them and see how they read for awhile.

I've been trying the organic peat moss that I bought at Lowe's for only $10 (possibly a lifetime supply). At first I added about a cup to the second chamber of my dual reactor (it was empty with GAC in the 1st chamber). I was afraid of dropping pH too fast, so I had the Apex controlling the RX's pump based on pH. It barely dropped at all.

Since that wasn't having much effect, I threw handfuls of the peat moss into some 4"x12" filter socks (basically panty hose) and threw them in the sump like tea bags. That worked, and I've been very pleasantly surprised at the gentle decrease in pH.

You can see the pH weirdness at the beginning of the graph that I mentioned in the post above (OP).

You can see where I did the water changes (about 18g out of a 150g system, or 12%). What is really interesting to me is that both probes spike towards 7.5 with the added DI water. That tells me there is a difference between the tank pHs, that the probes are working well relative to each other and that the DI water's pH is between the two probe readings at about 7.5 pH.

I last added peat moss a week ago on May 28th (original amount about 3-4 cups total). It looks like it's running out of steam, and I need to change it. I think peat moss is supposed to bring water to around 6 pH. I bought some more small plants over the weekend, and it looks like they started photosynthesizing like crazy according to yesterday's DT spike. I don't have anything in the refugium anymore.

The bottom line is that the peat moss is cheap and has been lowering pH really gently. I like it so far.

Sucks about the losses. Are you completely BCP free? +1 to ckyuv's questions, did your PO4 or anything spike?

No, the return pump fills the lines with water, and when I turn the pump off it siphons back down into the sump through the pump until it reaches the bottom of the overflows and the holes in my return nozzles (to break the siphoning). If I leave the pump off, the lines stay clear of water and nothing can siphon back down. In other words, once it stops siphoning down, then the sump level remains constant.

My sump overflowed once, because the anti-siphon holes in my return nozzles were clogged. Instead of the DT siphoning down top the bottom of the overflows, it siphoned down to the return nozzles. That only happens once though, it doesn't reoccur unless you turn the return pump back on and off.

Thanks for the insights and experiences.

Yea, my DT probe is crappier, and no matter how many times I calibrate it it's always off. I've given up and really count the sump probe as the master/standard.

Good point about the wood. We plan on added driftwood and a lot of plants. It'll be mostly Anubias which I guess don't really care about CO2 injection. That's fine with me as I want to keep it simple. I'm looking forward to seeing the interplay between wood, plants, etc.

I should just take both of your advice and relax, but I still have that reefer mindset

I'm not running GFO in the RX. I had just GAC to try and clear the water after adding a bunch of sand. I'll probably stop using it unless the water gets discolored again. At lunch I bought that bag of organic peat moss at Lowe's for a whole $10. It's huge! I added about a cup of it to the RX's second chamber, and the pH is slowly coming down. It's on my Apex, so it will be pH limited. I'll post if I see any problems with it. It could be a really cheap solution. I think that bag will last for decades.

The elephant nose and other African bio-tope critters we're getting are kinda expensive, so I figured it couldn't hurt to try and match parameters (on the cheap and easy). I don't plan on breeding, but I wouldn't mind it either. The online literature shows a tighter pH range for plants than (most) fish. Did you ever notice an effect on plants?

My SW->FW conversion has been going well, except that my pH is doing crazy things.

The drop several days ago was when I finished cleaning out my GFO/GAC RX and got it re-started with some GAC in it. Even though I pumped 3g of RODI through it, apparently there was still some vinegar making the pH drop. I would've been happier had it stayed there as my target is 6.5 pH. You can see how buffered my pH is as it climbed right back up. I think there is still a lot of calcium plating and buildup throughout the system, such as in the overflow and return lines. As the pH goes down, the calcium/bicarbonate deposits dissolve causing the pH to go back up. That's my guess. All I have in there right now is 150# of PFS, 1 small Anubias plant and a 1.2 lb piece of driftwood. No rocks.

The weird thing is I absolutely did not touch the aquarium on the 26th. It was my wife's birthday, so I barely even looked at the aquarium. Yet the pH drooped throughout the day then at midnight shot up even higher than before. Very odd.

To reduce the pH, I've seen it recommended in several places, like here, that I should use peat moss instead of chemicals.

Filtering through peat moss is the most effective way to lower your pH. Some people also use peat moss in their substrate for the same effect.

I'm going to stop by RCA to see if they have any (already called PetSmart, Petco and Gallery of Pets as they were already open). If they don't, I'm planning on stopping by Lowe's and grabbing this Fafard 3 cu ft Peat Moss bag. It's supposed to be 100% organic without any fertilizer or stuff added. Does anyone have experience with this or something similar?

Will it work in FW?

I had lots of them, and I don't think they bothered anything. I think large wrasse and bigger fish will eat them.

I've gotten good results using the RC guidelines:

Tank Sizes for Tangs (Surgeonfishes)