Calcium reactor and kalk

[dk638]

Hi. I just got my calcium reactor set up and dialed in. Alk is steady 8.1 and cal is 430.
I've been having what I believe to be a Dino problem, it was gone but is starting to come back. I was going to drip kalk to raise the ph to see if this will knock out the dinos. Should I shut down the reactor for a bit while I do this? Will dripping the kalk raise my alk and cal significantly or will both be fine together temporarily? Thanks

[dk638]

Forgot, no3 is 2 and po4 is .00 hanna checker. Just changed gfo yesterday and things look a little worse. The acrylic builds up a dusty film overnight the last 2 days. Very confused cause nutrients test low.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If the goal is to raise pH to deter dinos, then I'd shut off the reactor, and if the limewater cannot maintain alkalinity, use a high pH two part in addition to it.

FWIW, some folks seem to find that cuprisorb may help dinos.

[dk638]

I actually threw some cuprisorb in today. Gonna wait a day or two to see if there is any improvement. What if I just shut the feed to the reactor for an hour and dripped during that time. Maybe a couple times a day until I get the ph up and also sustain it there for a few days? Thanks randy
I mean the water feed not co2.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'd personally shut off the CO2, not the water flow.

The CO2 will defeat the pH boost from the limewater.

[dk638]

Maybe I'll try that in small intervals. Also do you think the gfo could be adding iron and fueling these nasty little *****?

[dk638]

By the way here they arehttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/18/5y2yhyqa.jpgsorry iPhone pic

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Some people think iron can contribute to dinos. I'm not sure if it does or not. :)

[dk638]

Thanks for your help, I'll report back on the cuprisorb

[dk638]

I'd personally shut off the CO2, not the water flow.

The CO2 will defeat the pH boost from the limewater.


Yeah but if water feed is off none of it will make it to the tank. And controller will stop co2 when ph drops. Just was thinking about this

[bertoni]

I'd keep water running through the reactor so that it doesn't become anoxic, but draining it should be okay, as well.

[dk638]

Ok makes sense

[dk638]

Ok, so I didn't do the kalk drip yet. I put purigen and cuprisorb in the sump. I also took a clean toothbrush and brushed off the rocks in the tank. Then did a 20% water change. This stuff is not getting worse but it's still not gone. What's troubling me is po4 is still testing zero but a dusty film covers the glass almost daily. I don't know if I should up the gfo or just leave it alone. I'm also debating on adding po4 cause I wonder if this stuff thrives with too low of po4. Corals look ok but kind of dulled out in color.
And no3 is 2.5

[bertoni]

Predicting how tanks will respond is difficult. If the glass is still getting a covering that rapidly, I'd be tempted to work on nutrient reduction, but it's possible that some other approach is better. Dull colors are a bad sign, though.

[dk638]

I agree with the working on nutrient reduction but it doesn't seem to be working. I have cheato and dragons breath in the fuge, a vertex in 180 skimmer, gfo and carbon running in reactors and been dosing mb7. Still getting the dusting on the glass daily and po4 constantly testing zero with the hanna checker. I'm gonna try the kalk today, wouldn't that also bind organic phosphate? Thanks
And would dull color indicate high or low nutrients? Either I suspect

[bertoni]

The Kalk might in theory bind some inorganic phosphate, but that's never been shown to happen. Coloration seems to be a complicated issue. Are the colors becoming pale or turning brown, or do they just seem to be a bit dull?

[dk638]

I would say more dull than brown. Maybe pale. Kinda almost the same thing. Lol
I have a limited amount of coral right now as the algae killed off many when it was really bad. It was like thishttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/22/jezadu6e.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/22/e4ugagez.jpg

[bertoni]

That was a bad algal problem! Is the Chaetomorpha growing well? How much is being harvested from the system? If there's a lot of Chaetomorpha growth, I'd be careful about backing off on nutrient control.

[dk638]

Chaeto is growing very slow. It's nice and green and Alive so no die off. The question is what the heck is the stuff. Lol

[dk638]

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/07/22/ybuhyrab.jpg
Here's the tank now though.

[dk638]

So with little to no macro algae growth would you think I'm po4 limited? Or is the nasty stuff just pulling it out of the water column? I did some reading and it seems some people think dinos like ultra low po4.
Also wanted to say that coralline is starting to grow pretty well.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, I'd be surprised if dinos actually prefer low phosphate (after all, they don't have to take it up if they don't need it), but they seem to thrive at levels that may be stressful to other creatures. :)

[dk638]

Lol. So you think it is possible po4 is limited? But what about coralline, would it be growing? I mean it's not exploding but it had started where before when this "algae" was at full bloom it wasn't anywhere to be found. I just don't know wether to get more aggressive with gfo and mb7 or leave it alone. I certainly don't want this algae exploding again. I actually ran gfo from day 1 cause I used dry rock and a little live rock I had in a nano and was afraid of the dry rock leeching po4.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

People generally do not have good success treating dinos with low nutrients, so if you believe they are at appropriate levels for a normal reef tank, I'd look to other possible methods.

[dk638]

So I shut down the gfo reactor to see what happens, I was thinking of dosing po4 but seemed insane. Lol. So now I have some red cyano popped up on the fuge walls. Po4 still zero. No3 dropped to zero. I'm wondering if po4 was so low all bacteria was having trouble thriving. I'm going to keep an eye on the gunk algae in the dt. If it gets worse I'll turn the gfo back on, if it starts to die off I'll leave things alone until I start to get a measurable po4 level. Make sense? Thanks

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That sounds like a fine plan. :)