Water parameters unmoved

I'm a little puzzled... after more than a week of daily dosing Mg and a few doses of Ca (separated by 12h) there has been no move in concentrations... Ca still at 350ppm and Mg still at 875ppm.

I've seen some whiteish powder-like deposit in the sump, maybe the Mg has not dissolved but rather precipitated in association with something else?

Anyway, I just mixed new SW, will measure it's Ca and Mg tomorrow to see if it's at least close to Ca 420ppm and Mg 1280ppm.

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LED lighting fixture being built

A few posts ago I showed some pictures of a LED light prototype. Well, a few weeks have passed and I'm full speed into building the final product, details of which I'll share in a future post.

For now check out the fixture that will hold my lights. Yesterday it was my nephew's birthday and my sister in law did an arts & crafts activity during the party. Well, I decided I could do some grown up arts & crafts (also known as DIY) while the kids would do theirs.

Here is the result.

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stabilizing water...

Today we had our men's accountability group meeting at my place, and my friend Ellery gave a wonderful summary of my tank: "totally out of control, huh?". :-) It's good to have male friends isn't it? :-D They always tell you the truth! ;-)

Anyway, he is 100% right, the abundance of hair algae plus valonias makes it very clear this tank is still a work in progress.

I discovered recently that my water's mineral properties were a little off.... and part of it due to my newly mixed seawater being somewhat low in Ca, Alk and Mg. On 9/Oct I had these parameters in the tank water:
- Alk=5.6dKH, low
- Ca=350ppm, low
- Mg=875ppm, very low

So I started dosing Ca and Alk buffers and this week also Mg buffer following advice by Sk8r from ReefCentral regarding the importance of Mg. My past experience is that Mg is the hardest to raise.

Right now my parameters are (just measured):
- Alk=12.3dKH, high
- Ca=350, low
- Mg=875, very low

I'm not sure why Ca didn't raise but I suspect it's because Mg is too low. So I'll focus on adding Mg buffer for a while and re-measure the three in a few days.

I'm also considering adding a little Mg and Ca buffer to my new SW used in the water changer...

Snorkeler

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New Shrimp take 2

The new shrimp we got a few weeks ago died after a week in the tank. Water parameters were OK so we suspect he was already weak at the LFS.

Went to the LFS today to buy Calcium buffer and the LFS guys were nice to us and gave us a replacement shrimp as courtesy. Points for them! (http://www.solarreefs.com.br) I really like that LFS and in situations like these you see they care for their customers.

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Jerrican+Dosing Pump Auto Water Change Implemented

Just finished a 30L water change, manual with hoses and siphon... hopefully my last ;-) .

After the partial water change finished I implemented an automatic 'continuous' water change with my dosing pumps (the BFG9000, remember?) and a pair of plastic jerricans.

In the picture, from left to right:
- Jerrican into which I pump old SW removed everytime the pumps turn on. That happens every 30 minutes, pump on for 1 minute, removing 54ml. Equates to a daily 1% water change.
- Small green bottle with Vodka, which is dosed at 1ml every 12 hours.
- Jerrican from which the pump pulls new SW and sends it to the tank. 1 min every 30 min (54 ml).
- Freshwater (RO/DI) auto top off jerrican, this one activated by water level sensors and with a dedicated little pump in the jerrican.

I measured the water before the changes and basic params were good: pH=8.4, NO3=1.25ppm, PO4=0.1ppm and salinity=1.025.

I didn't measure Alk or Mg for I was only looking for water polution. Also, I intend to start checking tomorrow the Alk and Mg consumption of the tank with the continuous water change. Then I'll dose manually to compensate and afterwards setup the last dosing pump to supply automatically whatever is most consumed daily.

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Finished the woodworking, TLZ11 in

Looks neat, nice and clean installation.... This was an interesting/joyful/remembering exercise in hand tool woodworking... I used to love that when I had a home shop at my previous house. Now in an apartment, no more space to practice woodworking.

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Installing new temperature controller

My TLZ11 temperature controller that came with the tank died due to excessive moisture in the sump cabinet. Now that I have a side cabinet isolated from the sump's moisture I bought a new one which I expect will last forever :-) . I'm also installing it with the display visible, the original one required me to open the cabinet to see water temperature and I never liked that.

Got my chisels out, it has probably been some 4 years since I last used them... it's good to have the right tools for the job :-) .

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