tufa and lots of it

[tkhawaja]

Originally Posted by Canadian Man

I have no cause or explanation but something was affecting the tank and waterchanges fixed it.

Just one more story to advocate regular small water changes. It's a good thing.

[Buccaneer]

Sorry to hear about this Ross ... I actually have a arogrocrete " wall " on both sides and the rear wall of my tank ... I cured it for 3 months in fresh water ( changing water every 2 weeks or so ) ... it took that long to get the PH down to a manageable level ... it has been in the big tank now for about 6 months ... just curious ...

did you test the PH after you cured it ?

what did you use in your formula for the arogrocrete ?

Cheers

[rossb]

did you test the PH after you cured it ?

what did you use in your formula for the arogrocrete ?

I have a Ph monitor and the Ph is stable around 8.0. I used ph down when I was curing the rock to speed the process. When i added the fish after 6 weeks (10 weeks total) the Ph had stablized.

I used 1 part concrete, 3 parts oyster shells, 1 part aragonite sand and 1 part crushed coral. I did use play sand as a mold but I washed all of the sand off.

I did leave the two overflow casings on for now, but I did replace a heap of aragocrete!

I'm with Bob...I did some major water changes and that helped a bit for a short while.

[Buccaneer]

hmmm ... similar to how I made mine except for the crushed coral ... was the tank used for anything else prior to making it a reeftank ? ... or maybe there is a contaminant in the sand ? ... process of elimination I guess so starting with the arogrocrete is as good a place to start as any ... good luck with it Ross

Cheers