The wifes tank update new pics 4/4/16

See a little email to give the customer a heads up goes a long way. If it means getting things in good shape health wise I am all for holding off on shipping. These guys have been on the ball since my first email.. I would get almost instantaneous responses to email sent

Hey Chris,

An update for your shipment: The main hub for UPS in Louisville KY has severe freezing weather at this moment. Your box has to go through this hub to arrive to your destination. We have received phone calls and email notifications not to ship anything overnight that has to go through the main hub.
The weather right now in Louisville - http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/l/Louisville KY 40223:4:US

We will have to reschedule your box to go out next week Tuesday 2/24/15 for Weds 2/25/15 arrival.

We are sorry about this weather delay. We feel that it is better to be on the safe side than to rush the shipping.

Thank you,
Aqua SD

 

I've purchased from aquasd and I have to say that they are amazing with communication chris. I got a few calls to let me know when my shipment left. Me and the wife plan on visiting the store when we visit my sister in cali.

 

So after first day of kalk.

PH 8.20
ALK 9.8 drop from 10.8 yesterday
Cal 435 drop from 440 yesterday
SG 1.025
MAG 1500
NO3 5-10 kind of surprised
PHOS 0.00 .. not happy with the hannah phosphate tester. Wish I had gotten low range tester. I do not believe this.

GFO reactor still turned off. No cyano seen since(was nothing major before just small areas).

I will be dosing 1 tsp seachem buffer tonight to see where alk ends up tomorrow

 

ok so today ALK CAL and PH

PH low 8.01 - high 8.18
ALK 10.8 (so 1 TSP and 1/2 cup ro/di raised it 1dkh from yesterday)
CAL 410 drop from 435 yesterday (I will bedosing 1/2 tsp with 1/2 cup ro/di)

I think I will be holding off on dosing the seachem buffer until I either figure out where the current amount of kalk will stabilize things at or when alk gets to 7 - 8 range

 

Daily news flash.. Chris is a nut job and needs to relax and let his tank take care of itself

anyways
PH low 8.0 - high 8.17
ALK 10.08 so a drop .72
Cal 425 increase 15ppm (I had dosed 1/2tsp Kent Turbo)

Alright the nitty gritty. I have been asking around about kalk as truly I did not fully understand the application (misunderstood). The internet is great but yet there is so much misinformation. Where is my internet trash bin!

Anyways what it comes down to is I was thinking I would be dosing along with utilizing kalk which is not really correct.
Also I was shooting for the stars with my params but I should have leveled off and just tried to maintain.

So here we are in a way starting over again after 2 months of trying to dial in my params.

As mentioned previously I am running 2 tsp of kalk. I will suspend all other dosing and see where my params fall. Will also keep eye on Mag as multiple people have said this seems to get used up faster with kalk.

With current kalk PH seems to already be a lot more stable.

I will increase the kalk if needed

I will continue to do my daily test until I see things stabilize. I can truly say I have learned a heck of a lot about my tank(and in general) these last couple months.

As for the jebao pump I got my mount and dosing containers today so will try to get that setup. I will use this to dose my acropower for now. This may end up on my other tank though

whew!!!!!

EDIT::: PS I freaking love the two little fishies kalk reactor. Really impressed at this point

 

Do you dose Acropower daily? If so, how much? Just curious with all the different ways people use the product.

 

LOL,Chris.

They say the first step is admitting right.

We're all learning something. It seems straight forward now, but trust me you cleared up questions others may have been reluctant to ask.

 

I have only been adding 7ml a week. I think Evolve is dosing it a couple times a week for quite a while and very happy with it. I think Unique Corals was the first to mention it to me as they use it(if I remember correctly).

I hope in the end I will have an over loaded mixed reef(damn almost running out of room already.. no idea where I am putting those 10 frags next week..

shhh wife still does not know.

 

Todays #'s

Cal 415 down 10ppm from yesterday
ALK 9.632 down .448
Mag 1500
PH low 7.87 - high 8.12 (The 7.87 low is directly related to me not dosing the buffer so tank is adjusting itself again).

Overall # are good. Interesting to see what tomorrow brings. Need to snap some shots as my trumpets, duncan and others are blowing up. Acro are going to be getting the monthly growth shot soon. Both of those continue to astound me as far as growth goes.

I can truly say they already look better than they ever have. I can say with confidence the kalk is already making a difference.

 

Yesterday #'s

PH low 7.86 high so far 8.07
Cal 395/400 down 15ppm
ALK 8.96 down .672

Todays #'s

As you all can see it continues to drop

PH low 7.74 current 7.98
Calcium 390 drop 5/10 ppm
ALK 8.512 down .448

So I do have a thread going on another site and Randy Holmes-Farley has been such a great help. Really steering my in the right direction.

Another learning experience.

So I had read so much and watched this video and that and then did not even completely read the Two Little Fishies Instruction paper. Sure I read through how to attach everything but never flipped it over. So I had added the 2 tsp as I figured that was a safe starting point.

Well what I should really have done(based on the Instructions) is figure out my evaporation and then add the correct amount alk based on chart. Still going to go slow and really need to exactly identify amount evaporation but I am going with the below

Ok so if I base my gallons/day evaporation at .25gal then per instructions I am looking at .25 cups biweekly or 2 TBSP per week.

I went ahead and added 1.5 TBSP and will monitor.

Better safe than sorry with the kalk.