Quote:
Originally Posted by SereneAquatic
Wow, sorry... I did look at this earlier and got so distracted looking at that photo I actually forgot to respond  That is a beautiful tank! How did you get the greenery to grow along the back wall like that? Was it a faux rock wall initially? I'd love to have a tank that looks like that some day. Do you actually have coral and plants both growing in the tank together? I think that's what I'm seeing, unless it's just really green corals. Do you have to trim the back wall often to keep it from going elsewhere? This seriously sent me into a tailspin of so many questions lol.
I'm not sure I follow the very last thing you wrote. Do you mean that the skimmer helps with gas exchange, or hinders it? My intuition says that with a skimmer there would be MORE gas exchange, since the skimmer is creating tons of air bubbles. Is that right? If so, then that would mean that I need to continue finding ways of breaking the surface of the water to assist with that exchange.
We turned up our return pump very early on so that there was A LOT of water coming from the return in the DT... almost enough to send it over the edge of the tank lol. It creates a lot of air bubbles in the tank, but I haven't been able to convince myself to back it off yet. The bubbles don't look pristine... but the tank has a lot of surface area breaking, and I'm constantly filling the top off tank. Until I get some additional power heads in there to help keep the water breaking, it will stay turned up. I may even leave it like that. |
I just looked up the specs on your tank. Is that 450 liters? You have very good taste in equipment.
On a somewhat advanced topic, you are carbon dosing your tank with the high flow at the surface. Carbon dioxide in air equalizes with carbon dioxide gas saturated in the water which contributes to alkalinity with co2 in water combining to make carbonate and bicarbonate, both of which contribute to alkalinity. So there is your buffer. It is automatic and is controlled “Dynamic Equilibrium”. Now for the biochemistry magic. During photosynthesis, alkalinity coupled with photosynthesis equals glucose which is a carbon source to your tank.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_pump