Lance's 225 gal tank

[Lance]

Originally Posted by The Grizz

I have plenty of that, maybe mines a vegetarian

If so, maybe you should feed your fish tofu.

[Lance]

Sometimes I think I'm better off just leaving the tanks alone and leaving them to find their own way.
I test the big 3 every week and the other parameters monthly. Dosing is done via Drew's dosers and controller. For the last 9 months or so I'd been having a little trouble keeping calcium and alk balanced. One week Ca would be low and the next week Alk would be low: nothing serious, just not the numbers I'd like to see.
I've been pretty busy the last while and hadn't tested for 6 weeks. Also hadn't done a water change for 5 weeks. Just tested now and the numbers are as good as I've ever seen them.

(90 gal)
Ca:420
Alk:9
Mg:1320
And the others: Nitrate: 0 Phosphate: 0

(225 gal)
Ca:425
Alk:8
Mg:1310
Nitrate: 0 Phosphate: .001

(frag tank)
Ca:415
Alk:9
Mg.1305
Nitrate: 0 Phosphate: 0



Huh! Guess I should just leave them alone to do their own thing. Instead of "Keeper of the Reef" I'm now just the "Keeper of the Fish Food"
Silly bloody hobby!

[reefermadness]

That is good news....but can I share my experience. I test much less (once a month) than I used to and my numbers can get pretty out of wack in that time frame (I shoot for 8dkh and 400ppm calcium). Its not unusual to see alk at 6dkh or calcium at 350ppm by the end of the month (keep having to increase the dosages).....corals have never been happier though. Im sure if it went on beyond this point I would have a problem but my tank has never been happier. Also note that the decrease in alk and calcium happens very slowly over the month...no drastic changes.

I guess my point in all this is maybe chasing that magic number every week doesn't really help (although I'm sure keeping the numbers good and stable can't hurt).

[Lance]

The biggest surprise was the low readings for nitrate and phosphates in the big tank after 5 weeks without a water change. I have quite a few big fish in this tank.

[kien]

Originally Posted by Lance

The biggest surprise was the low readings for nitrate and phosphates in the big tank after 5 weeks without a water change. I have quite a few big fish in this tank.

Don't you run bioPellets on this tank?

[Lance]

Originally Posted by kien

Don't you run bioPellets on this tank?

Yup. But I feed a lot and if I don't do a 10% water change every 2nd week the nitrates would start to climb. Not sure what happened here but I'm going to try reducing water changes to monthly and see how it goes.

[Greenmaster]

Originally Posted by Lance

Yup. But I feed a lot and if I don't do a 10% water change every 2nd week the nitrates would start to climb. Not sure what happened here but I'm going to try reducing water changes to monthly and see how it goes.

It could be that because the denitrifying bacteria only replicates once every 5-10 hours that it takes a few weeks for them to catch up to your demand, but now that it's there it should be okay.