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Midnight

Test results for August

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I need to make a fancy table like Melev has, this was cut and pasted from a MS Excel spread sheet. Blanks are for lack of kits, where as zeros meant tested but undetectable results. I have not put my CA reactor on line as it is not needed at this point. I may need to bring the ALK up a smidge and let the CAL drop a smidge but other than that the numbers look good. That said I am still observing some stringy brown algae junk that I am certain will eventually fade, even though it does detract form the overall tank look.

DATE SG PH ALK CAL MG NO3 PO4 TEMP
JAN
FEB
MAR
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST 1.027 8.54 7.0 500 0 0 79.7
SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC

Edited in new table from MS word using the Excel data

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Updated 08-26-2012 at 04:02 PM by Midnight

Categories
Tank Entry , ‎ Water Chemistry

Comments

  1. melev's Avatar
    I can send you a copy of my spreadsheet. What I do after entering and saving the file, I take a screen shot of the spreadsheet, cropping away all the stuff I don't want to display, and save that as an image to share.

    How are you getting pH that high but lowered alk? What are you dosing presently?
  2. Midnight's Avatar
    I am not sure. I have some ph packets on the way to re calibrate. It has not been calibrated since the before moving houses. I have not paid too much attention to the numerical value as much as the swings which have been minimal. I am at a loss why the alk is low unless it is due to the Red Sea Pro salt I have been using. I mixed two tea spoons of Baking soda to some RO water and added to the tank to bring it up a bit. Going to retest it tomorrow.

    I was surprised to find the NO3 and PO4 undetectable with the stringy brown algae in the tank. It is probably stuff coming from the old rock. My Macro is growing substantially since getting that new LED strip.
  3. Floggin's Avatar
    On the subject of PH swings, what is a healthy amount of swing? My PH normally tops out at 8.3 when the lights go off, then in the morning before the lights go on it is around 8.05. Is this a normal amount of change?
  4. Midnight's Avatar
    That is fairly normal, do you have a refugium and is it on a reverse photo period?
  5. Floggin's Avatar
    I do run a refugium with caulerpa. I run it on a 24 hour cycle in fear of it going Asexual. Any thoughts on that as well?
  6. melev's Avatar
    .2 daily is about what one can expect. Yours is .25 daily, still fine.

    My tank seem to vary from 7.8 to 8.0 daily, and has for the past two years. The 280g ran from 8.1 to 8.3 ... I miss that pH probe since it gave me a warm-snuggly feeling.

    With some Caulerpa species, running the lights 24/7 seems best. For my refugium, I run it full of feather Caulerpa and the light is on from 2:30pm to 11:30pm. I should run it from 11:30pm to 7:30am, but I've been enjoying late night TV in the darkened room better. I may change it back to late nights to help bring up pH .1 perhaps.
  7. Floggin's Avatar
    Thats good to know! I run grape caulerpa. I recently had some die off, I dont know what caused that, but it released some nitrates into the tank causing some cyanobacteria to grow. About 3/4 of it just widdled to nothing. It didn't turn white which most say is a sign of Asexual, it stayed green and just shriveled up then disappeared. It has since been growing back though.
  8. melev's Avatar
    Yes, Grape Caulerpa is one of the worst offenders when it come to going sexual. What light do you use?
  9. Midnight's Avatar
    Grape is what I have as well, no one around has any feather type. I also need to get some chaeto in there, just haven't seen any in the LFS lately. I think as long as the grape gets trimmed regularly it is less likely to go sexual.
  10. Floggin's Avatar
    I don't know why I kept referring to it as Asexual, as I read in a blog posted on here about it actually going sexual and not asexual. Anyways, I use a marineland 11" LED light which i have dropped in the tank on multiple occasions so about 5 or 6 of the LED's don't work. Maybe I should use something better for lighting? It seems to put out a lot of light, even though i have dropped it into the tank. It has done well, until recently. It also didn't get too heavy that I would need to trim it off, at least I don't think.
  11. melev's Avatar
    I just posted up a picture of my refugium, which recently had two large wads ripped out to share with another guy. I'm not sure about your light that has fallen in and had some LEDs go out... might need to look at replacing it perhaps. With Grape Caulerpa, it is best to cut it with scissors rather than rip some out. The cut seems to pinch off the branches so they are less likely to bleed out anything.