Dan H Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 This is one of those "Question Everything" moments. I don't know what to believe anymore!! Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!! Seriously though, glad there is a clear solution. That has to be at least comforting to know with reasonable certainty the cause of a problem. Considering so much that goes wrong in this hobby is just guessing and gut feels, it's nice when it's a problem that has clear data to back it up. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Thanks again Ty Once again I measured the nitrates with the API Kit (6 months old) this morning and got the following: Pretty close to 0 Add 10 drops bottle 1, invert a few times, shake bottle 2 for 30 seconds, add 10 drops of bottle 2, shake for 1 minute, let sit for 5 minutes and record results. Done it 1000 times over the years. I sort of like Seth's idea of 100 gallon changes. I can just turn off the returns and change 100 gallons in the sump, fish have no idea what's going on. Might pick up a 100 or 150 gallon tank from Tractor Supply today. The 100s are CHEAP though... Will do them every 3-4 days, just allowing enough time for the salt to mix well. Will slowly increase Vodka as well until I see a trend of decreased Nitrates. Fish seem just fine. Don't want to change 1/2 the volume at once though. How I got here IMO: 1. Bad Test kit Especially with Vodka Dosing, you have to keep up with Nitrates. Keep raising dose until drop in Nitrates, then reduce dosage. If I was getting false readings, then I reduced my dose incorrectly. Should have also reduced phosphates. 2. Lack of water changes. After I brought the tank back from hypo months and months ago, I hadn't done a water change until I put in the Neptune DoS. Now doing 2-3 gallons a day. Not going to do much at this point. 3. Bad skimmer performance. After a few hours the skimmer cup would develop a thick coating and after about a week (when I cleaned the cup) I'd have about 1/5 - 1/8 of the cup full. After installing a neck cleaner, I'm getting about 1/2 - 2/3 of the cup filled each day. This was only changed a few weeks ago. For well over a year I was effectively not skimming anything out. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 I do agree with Tys synopsis of phosphates not being a linear equation on removal. However as a general rule you will see a good amount of decreasing phosphate with water changes coupled with GFO implementation. The rock will surely leach phosphate at this point but with semi aggressive water changes hopefully it will leak out and be able to be picked up by the GFO. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Thanks guys. Just ordered a TLC 550 reactor and a bunch of GFO as well. Going to start some changes this weekend as well. Seth's (Reburn) going to head over this weekend and help me with a plan of attack 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 You give me way too much credit to insinuate that I'm capable of formulating a plan of attack. More like a cheerleader. Ra Ra change that water. And I share Ty's same despise for API. As stated before. They can be accurate but they aren't precise. Like triton, API kits are not capable of getting the mittens on the kitten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Be sure to document the progress. From a purely nerdy perspective, it will be interesting to see any data / pictures of the tank coming back to it's glory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Thanks taking time to help Ty and Seth! Will do Dan. Would it have to have been in a glory state at some point to return to glory??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Ha! Fair point. Although I thought it was looking pretty good when I saw. I'm still blown away that it's reading 0. Seems like that has to be a manufacturing defect or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Ha! Fair point. Although I thought it was looking pretty good when I saw. I'm still blown away that it's reading 0. Seems like that has to be a manufacturing defect or something? Yeap threw everything off with the Carbon dosing... Thought it was really working well... even started feeding a bit more haha Happy it's something easy to fix... I've done 1000s of gallons of changes on this tank already... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 That's not so unusual for newer tanks. We're already on our 4th box of Reef Crystals which means we've done about 800 gallons so far, and it's only had water since late March. Considering you have over 2x the volume as ours and you've been running a lot longer, 2k gallons would seem within a reasonable guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 That's not so unusual for newer tanks. We're already on our 4th box of Reef Crystals which means we've done about 800 gallons so far, and it's only had water since late March. Considering you have over 2x the volume as ours and you've been running a lot longer, 2k gallons would seem within a reasonable guess. LOL meant when we hypoed the tank. Taking the salinity down and up again was probably around 1500-2000 gallons in 2 stints. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Oh. Well crap. Hate to see your water bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Pool uses more I can give Tina crap about the water and electricity bill because the pool was her call 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Is it a saltwater pool ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 Is it a saltwater pool LOL yeah... She always just gets me back if I bring up the costs of the pool with our car payments... she's got me on that one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Oh buddy, You have been going about it all wrong if you have a saltwater pool. We are gonna take this to ANOTHER LEVEL!!!! I may need to call Gig Em and RichardL in for assistance/consulting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted June 2, 2015 Author Share Posted June 2, 2015 About to do the first 150 gallon change... I'll then do 100 gallon changes as fast as possible... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 YAY! Step 1 of many... At least you don't have to haul buckets. That would have been a nightmare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted June 2, 2015 Author Share Posted June 2, 2015 LOL now I'm tired Got the salinity up to 1.025 from 1.023. Stupid 100 gallon tank had a little leak. They didn't thread the bulkhead. So going to fix that and do the 100 gallon change. Will measure nitrates, phospates and alk after the next change... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted June 3, 2015 Author Share Posted June 3, 2015 Frogspawn seems happier today, not as pulled in... Making next 100 gallons now, should be ready to start mixing tonight for change tomorrow. I'll check Nitrates and Phosphates after that. 800 gallons of salt should be here tomorrow... poor UPS guy... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 So far I've done one 150G change and one 100G change. All I've measured so far was nitrates. Ty and Seth both recorded 64 ppm. I'm seeing between 16 and 32 ppm now. Let's just call it 25 ppm. Going to do two more 100G changes and see where Nitrates, Phosphate and Alk are at. GFO reactor was backordered so I ordered a different one... should be here mid next week.... Looks promising and the Frogspawn has opened up a bit more. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 YAY! Glad to hear it's heading in the right direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Me too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuxx Posted June 12, 2015 Author Share Posted June 12, 2015 Well after: 150 gallon change 100 gallon change 100 gallon change 100 gallon change 100 gallon change I'm sitting at: Temp 78.5Alk 8.8Salinity 1.026N03 10-12 pmmP04 0.19Calc 490 ppmPH 8.15 Guess I have 1 or 2 more changes to do >:0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 That's a lot of work. Hopefully it will all be worth it soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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