Murdoch's 160G Tank Build

[doch]

Well, here's a little bit of interesting info for you. I came hom etoday and did some testing. Good news! kH of 7.06, and I've started dosing again... this time I'll test daily for a while to see what's happenning. Ca is a little bit high at 500, but judging by the discrepancy between the hanna (~50 high) and the Elos (~50 low), I'm sititng at about 450ppm. Not bad, but I turned the dosing down by 5 minutes per day on the Ca... to be monitored. PO4 is sitting at 0.03 on the hanna... higher than it's been in a week. Still not bad though, and that could easily be an operator error in the testing.

Here's the interesting part. I bought a Sea Chem Mg test kit and tried it out today. I got 1200 mg/L. (Is that the same as PPM, or are my units off?) So, I tried the Elos, and got 2200. WOW. Here's the best part. In the Sea Chem kit, there's a bottle of known test fluid... 1250 mg/L Mg. I tested on the Sea chem and got ~1250. I tested on the Elos, and got 2450. WOW! It seems that my Mg has been low this whole time. I wonder if the whole time in my old tank my Mg was REALLY low? I'd test and it would come out at about 1200-1350 depending on the day. That may explain a few things. How critical is that Mg number?

Anyways... I'm in the clear. Zeo is running, hair algae has been removed as much as possible. Where I didn't remove it, it's receding!!! Whoo! All of my test levels are acceptable, but could use a little bit of tweaking. If I can keep the kH at ~7, drop the Ca to ~400, and get the Mg up a bit, I'm laughing! I figure that I should have her dialed in faily soon.

I also got 11 new frags from Snappy... they are all happy and alive, so that's nice compared to the last batch I had bought (not from Snappy) that I struggled to keep any of them alive (for the record, I do not blame the seller or the frags for that... my tank was in rough shape).

Funny story, one of the frags that I got from Snappy fell off of the plug, but I dropped it in the tank anyways... and then lost it. Literally... couldn't find it anywhere. Searched for an hour. Came home from work 2 days later and it was sitting directly in between 2 of the other frags. WTF!? Am I going crazy, or did that actually just happen...? lol. For the record, I know that it did actually happen, although I may still be crazy! hahaha

And BTW, I like this hobby MUCH more this week than I did the last few. Thanks to those of you who offered support, and advice!