Michika's 28g long nano-esque tank!

[Delphinus]

Going with Polyplaps is likely not going to have a profound effect on your tank. It is primarily a nitrate reducer. Since your tank is at 1ppm we pretty much can rule out nitrate as a cause of trouble here.

I don't think we can rule out PO4 though. I'm not sure what to think of the 0.04 reading. I get this kind of reading too on my tanks but the lack of a reference solution gives me this whole "how can I verify this number is correct" thing going on. I've been on the fence about ordering a Merck/D-D test kit but as time goes on and my PO4 numbers all over the map, I'm starting to think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and just order it.

It might not be the PO4 though either. Well, in so much that it's not the PO4 in the water column. There may be PO4 trapped in the rocks though and it's slowly leeching out, fueling the GHA.

The lack of coraline on the one rock to the front left there is something that catches my notice everytime I see a photo of your tank. I realize it has some, but ... I dunno, the rock looks white to me. When I set up my 20g back in December, I pulled rock out of my rubbermaid curing tub. It's been sitting there for months and was devoid of any coraline, was more or less pure white. I did get some minor hair algae growth after a few weeks but after about a month it was mostly pinks and purples due to coraline coverage, and where the coraline takes hold, the GHA doesn't. So it's odd to me that this one rock isn't more covered in reds and pinks and so on.

I think, were this my tank, I'd be looking at swapping out most, if not all of the rock. The existing rock should be thrown into a bucket for cooking (just let it sit in some SW with a heater and change out 100% of the water from time to time). And new rock put into the tank. Maybe not all at once though.

Any idea how many lbs of rock are in there now? You might want to consider upping the amount that's in there too while you're at it (couldn't hurt - except for maybe the cost of course!)

Hard to say if those Ca/Alk #'s tell us the reason for slow growth. They are both lower than what you might want to shoot for, but not hugely so. Try upping the Ca to around 390-400 and the Alk to around 7-8 dKH and see if you notice a difference.

[adidas]

you could always take out the few bad rocks and let them dry out and die, clean em off and re-seed them later?

is that a possibility anyone? or a stupid idea? lol

[michika]

Originally Posted by adidas

you could always take out the few bad rocks and let them dry out and die, clean em off and re-seed them later?

is that a possibility anyone? or a stupid idea? lol

Its a possible idea, however I have no where to let them dryout without stinking up my place. Unless you have a super non-stinky way of drying them out!

[adidas]

Originally Posted by michika

Its a possible idea, however I have no where to let them dryout without stinking up my place. Unless you have a super non-stinky way of drying them out!

boil em up in some water, that would kill everything lol

..or just put in freshwater, then scrub everything off? then just let em dry.

or maybe i'm way out to lunch

[michika]

Those are some good ideas, maybe I go the freshwater route. Just a thought, but what would happen to the suspected phosphate in the rocks. Would it not just come out at a later time when the rocks are back in a system, or would it leech out of the rocks in the freshwater?

[adidas]

Originally Posted by michika

Those are some good ideas, maybe I go the freshwater route. Just a thought, but what would happen to the suspected phosphate in the rocks. Would it not just come out at a later time when the rocks are back in a system, or would it leech out of the rocks in the freshwater?

honestly I have no idea, maybe keep in freshwater and test for phosphates? or use a phosphate filter? or go the drastic route and boil the rock, that should get anything out, maybe?

it won't be live rock anymore after these treatments.

maybe take out the suspect rock, and see if tank improves, or do tests to see if phosphates go down/?

[adidas]

if you put out some money for even another 50lbs of rock, and/or get a bigger system for more dilution, I bet it would have a major impact

I added another 100lbs of rock to my system about 7 months ago, and i've done about 3-4 water changes since then, and I've never seen any algae

[michika]

Thanks Tony!

I'm thinking mostly of doing zeo/polyp labs as a last resort before complete tear down. As well my problems aside I've seen some really nice sps systems using these products, and it does add to the draw.

I'm measuring PO4 with a Hanna Phosmeter, but I agree with you about verifying everything. Its nice to have the meter, but its frustrating not to know if what you're getting for a result is correct.

The tank has what I estimate to be 60 to 65lbs, with 25lbs being in the sump. Thinking back this tank has never produced any coraline algae. That rock that you are referring to is new to the tank from December.

As for the Ca & dkH, I didn't see any better growth (in the sps and coraline) then I was getting measurements of 500ppm and 10dKH. I think I need a more happy medium like what I was getting two weeks ago. The dKH is up to 6 (cusp of 7) now that I topped off for the day. I'm looking at changing how I top off, and how my Ca reactor is working within the system.

I guess my next steps are to get out some of the "bad" rocks and replace them with newer ones. I am also going to tweak my reactors, I think I've turned them down too much trying to fix the 500/10 problem. Does that sound right to you?

[Delphinus]

Yeah, I have this whole idea that it's offensive to buy the Merck/D-D test kit (it's not cheap) after spending the big money on the meter to begin with, but the lack of consistency in my results is something that really troubles/puzzles me. Have you tried taking 3 tests in a row with yours? When I do this I get three different numbers. I've finally figured out that at least one of my cuvets is suspect - if I zero out the meter, then immediately take a reading - I get an "underrange" error. (Consistently.. I tried it about 20 times.) I would expect it to be zero, or at the very least, "not always" underrange. With the other cuvet I can zero it, and get a zero reading. I wonder if the sensor or the LED emitter might have dust on it too but it would be impossible to clean those I think so I kind of hope that's not the case.

Yikes, 500ppm seems for sure too high, I would have backed off the reactors as well! Might need to be upped just ever-so-slightly now just to find the happy medium..

Wow, 65lbs of rock, that's a lot more than I thought there was in there.

[Delphinus]

Speaking of boiling water, have you tried the boiling water trick of GHA removal? I did this in a few spots in my cube tank and it worked like a charm. If only I could do that next to my clams since the clams are now the biggest areas of GHA (their shells). But yeah, hoo yeah, did the boiling water work great in the spots where I did dare to try it