scrubber and limited waterchanges,water test results

[holidayz]

holidayz, I know,,,,It was a risky move,,,,but I was willing to take the risk in order to get my levels where I wanted them,,,So far everything is doing ok,,,,so far lol

That's nice, glad to hear that!

[greenmachine]

here are some growth pics. Looks a lot better to me I just replaced that screen with a brand new screen that is one inch taller due to to much splashing off the waterfall. I will keep posting pics of the NEW growth when it starts. I want to get it right this time around

[greenmachine]

O, I forgot to mention that the pic on the left was the side lit with two 26 watt cfl floods,,and the middle pic is the side with two 17 watt led grow bulbs. Its almost looking like the CFL is better to me??

[SantaMonica]

I just used my Hanna digital meter that I bough last year for the first time... said 0.36. And the API said 0.25. N is zero on Salifert.

I miss the pre-liquid feeding days when everything was zero and bright purple

[Floyd R Turbo]

Make sure you used it right. Here's my procedure:

1) Take index card and bend in half
2) open packet and pour all contents onto the card
3) fill vial with 10ml water using 5ml Salifert syringe 2x
4) cap vial and wipe with a glasses-cleaning cloth
5) push button to turn device on
6) insert vial and push button to calibrate
7) when "C2" is displayed, remove vial and take cap off, pour reagent from index card into vial, try to get it all in there, then cap the vial. This should take roughly 30 seconds with practice
8) Set a timer for 2 minutes
9) Start rocking the vial back and forth, do not shake vigorously. Do this for the entire 2 minutes
10) after 2 minutes (you are now at 2 min 30 sec), tap the vial several times or "flick" it with your finger to release microbubbles from the vial and wipe the vial down again with the glasses-cleaning cloth
11) insert the vial and push AND HOLD the button for 3 seconds.
12) Set a timer for 3 minutes to remind you to check your reading.

If you skip the "and hold" part in step 11, you will get an instantaneous, and low, reading, and you waste a reagent. Hanna Phosphate checker is the only one that requires you to press and hold the button, Lord knows why. They also chose in their infinite wisdom to have a 3 minute auto-off timer built into the thing, which leaves you less than 1 minute to try to add the reagent from the packet (which I guarantee that you cannot do easily) and wipe the vial after rocking it for 2 minutes. Then you have to remember to look at the reading before it times out. I have fallen prey to all of these design flaws more than once.

It's still the best one out there IMO, but seriously Hanna? Did you mean to make it difficult?

[srusso]

Iron is at naturally low levels in the ocean and gets consumed almost immediately. You can almost dose as much as you want and it will be gone in no time.

I think my Strontium has always been zero. I dosed an entire bottle of Seachem Strontium and it went to 1 or 2, which is within the limits of variability of the Strontium test kit. I don't dose Strontium and I hate spending 35 minutes performing one test LOL.

2.0 on P are you serious? Was that on a Hanna Checker or a liquid reagent kit? Ouch!

You now join the "rising phosphate" club. Although the P in the dentist's tank bottomed out last week so I might be a goner from the club (took another sample today). But you are seeing Nitrate limitation and (new possibility) a lack of an algae strain that absorbs more P than N compared to the redfield ratio. Your solution is to take a VERY SMALL amount of GFO (like a teaspoon) and put it somewhere in an area of decent flow, which will SLOWLY reduce the level of P that has built up over time. If you really want to do this right, get a Hanna Checker Phosphate or Phosphorus (I have the first one) and learn how to use it, then test your water BEFORE adding the GFO, then 24 hrs after. GFO can take P out too fast if too much is used on a tank that has high P, and this will shock your tank (corals) and can cause issues. So use a small amount and note the change. Add more/replace when P levels stop dropping, and remove all together when P drops out completely. Continue normal feeding during this period. Once P is gone, remove GFO and test probably every other day or so. Write results down. P may leech out of rocks if it has been there for a long time so GFO may be needed on occasion to "reset" the system to zero. The scrubber should keep it in check for the most part, and use the GFO to keep it where it needs to be.

Until there is some kind of further study into specific strains of algae in our tanks that can be translated into what you need, this is about all you can do. It may turn out that most of the algae we all need is already in our tanks, but different strains react to different wavelengths of light more efficiently than others. It may be that the type of food you feed or even the composition of your system mandates the dominant strain of algae on your screen (I'm reaching here, but it's possible). There are a number of factors that could explain the incidence of rising P. A weakness in your scrubber could also be one of them - that is a possibility that would be easier to solve than the rest of the above mentioned theoretical causes.

Floyd is correct, your scrubber has become nitrate limited... unable to complete photosynthesis, things build up.
I dealt with this issue directly! Have first hand experience SUCCESSFULLY correcting it...
My tank is a scrubber only system and never sees a water change.... Running 2 years now....

I corrected the issue just as Floyd suggested and things cleared up. I had the worst outbreak of bryopsis ever documented on RC...
Do you have algae issues in the tank yet?

[Floyd R Turbo]

I just replaced that screen with a brand new screen that is one inch taller due to to much splashing off the waterfall.

Why did you do that instead of just extending the screen?

[Garf]

Why did you do that instead of just extending the screen?

A great way to test if you can run a high phos dependant screen though. Not nuking a bit of it, but replacing the whole screen !

[greenmachine]

I only had a slight film algae on the glass each day.Floyd: How would you extend a screen without it being a sewn up mess? good point garf,can't wait to see what the "new" algae looks like! Santa: do you have any negative effects from your phosphate?

[Floyd R Turbo]

Just zip-tie a section on to the end with the small ties, it will 'route' the water down to the surface. Too late now though...