Kalkwasser Topoff Container
Without going into great lengths to accurately measure everything, it looks like over the course of 24 hours the tank is using between 1 and 1.5 gallons of topoff water, and depletes alkalinity 0.2 dKH. For now I’m just going to assume it’s depleting calcium at a balanced rate.
So doing some math based on JDieck’s online calculator, to maintain my alkalinity levels I would need to dose 0.12 gallons of saturated kalkwasser a day. Since I’m topping off 10x that amount daily, I don’t need saturated kalkwasser (which is 2 teaspoons of kalk powder per gallon RODI). I can add roughly 0.2 teaspoons of kalk powder per gallon RODI, and maintain my levels.
At least, until further testing to make sure things are stable at a decent level.
In the meantime, I need to raise my levels. I am sure I precipiated calcium carbonate during the kalk dumping incident over 2 weeks ago, and I haven’t supplemented calcium or alkalinity since then. The tank levels are low – calcium ~350 ppm and alkalinity ~7.2 dKH. I don’t think this is balanced, but I’m not going to sweat it until I get both within a reasonable range closer to natural sea water. To get them back up gradually I added 5 teaspoons of kalk powder to my topoff container last night. This is far less than saturated, but will still provide more than a “maintenance dose”.
Next step for me is to pull the old kalk reactor out of the stand and see if there’s anything else I want to do with it… nothing’s coming to mind. I also need to figure out the best way to mix in the kalk powder, which I did last night with a clean MJ900 for 10 minutes. I want to minimize aerating the kalkwasser solution to avoid precipitation.
Tuesday Update
It’s been quite the jump back into things at work! Glad we got home from vacation a couple days early. A brief update:
Many things look the same as when I posted over the weekend. The skimmer pulled out 1 gallon between Friday night and Sunday, and seems to be slowing down a bit, although it’s still going to pull 1 gallon over a 36-48 hour period, which isn’t bad. It appears to be skimming too wet, but I am hesitant to change everything because every now and then when I check it the foam head looks perfect.
The millepora’s definitely still have polyp extension, but there is extensive tissue damage so I’m still considering them hit or miss. Status of the other corals haven’t changed.
Biggest surprise? The caulerpa in the tank looks like it took a big hit. I don’t know if that was due in part to cleaning up the sump or if the kalk problem and resulting pH swings had any impact. There is still some feather caulerpa, but definitely not to the extent there had been 2 weeks ago. I may do a little manual pruning this week to knock back what little I see remaining.
Last night the clowns were explorative. Around dinner time they were hanging out over an octofrogspawn, about 30″ from their normal corner. Only lasted a few minutes, but it counts. Last night at feeding I decided to hold the feeding tube a little further from their corner, and placed it ~4″ further away and closer to the anemone. They weren’t hesitant at all, which is new. They’re typically very timid if I pull the feeding tube further away. I decided to take a few extra minutes to tempt them towards the anemone by dropping Spectrum pellets into the feeding tube one at a time and holding the tip near the anemone. The anemone got the best of that arrangement, since 5 of the 8 pellets just fell into its tentacles. The clowns were definitely wary of the anemone, but they did get within an inch of it. I don’t want to force them to it, but maybe in time…
On the equipment front, it looks like my new Aqualifter pump doesn’t have the power to pump the topoff water through the kalk reactor. That’s too bad. I may now simplify the system by adding kalk powder to the topoff bucket, and pumping that directly into the sump, taking the reactor offline. Next steps for me then are to (1) determine approximate daily consumption of alkalinity and calcium in the tank, (2) figure out the daily topoff rates once the skimmer settles down [looks to be 1-1.5 gallons a day right now], and (3) calculate how much kalk powder to add to the RODI to meet the tanks needs.
I may need to replace some filters in the RODI unit, since I couldn’t get TDS below 5 in my topoff. Maybe I’ll add a second DI stage to the unit…
Damage Assessment
I was nervous to open the door when we got home last night, but things look OK in the tank. A breif assessment -
First and most obvious thing we saw was all fish were A-OK. In fact they looked fat. The male PJ is carrying eggs. Thanks Deb for stopping in every day to give them food.
The anenome moved to the other side of the rock structure in the tank. I expected it would move while we were gone, it moved a few inches during the kalk snowstorm. It is at the same depth, a little more central to the tank. Less than a foot from the clownfish, but they still seem to be showing no interest.
After that I looked under the tank… skimmer apparently exploded. There was dried foam all over it, the nearby tubing, etc. But, the overflow I put in the collection jug was working fine. It was dripping back into the sump, which is a lot better than dripping onto the base of the stand. I emptied the collection cup (very stinky, unruly smelled it a room away) and cleaned the skimmer neck and collection cup.
Milleporas may be surviving. Both have some obvious tissue loss. The newer frag (raspberry) still has polyp extension and has lost no color on its base, which is still just starting to show new tips shooting up. This is a hopeful survivor. The other mille suffered more obvious tissue damage before we left for vacation, and is now right smack next to the anemone. Getting burnt pretty badly, but there’s one side that has good polyp extension. I don’t know how much tissue is left but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Montiporas all look great, except the encrusting Rainbow montipora. It also is right next to the anemone and getting burnt. It is large enough (6″ diameter) that only a small portion is getting stung, but I may glue a frag plug next to it in hopes it will encrust over that and I can have a second piece – just in case.
Staghorn corals, I just can’t tell. I see some polyps but I see really bad tissue loss. I’m just going to leave them be and hope they make it.
All LPS looks fine, as expected.
Today I began some maintenance work, mainly cleaning things up. I wiped the skimmate foam off the surfaces it dried on and sprayed pretty much everything under the tank with a bleach-solution to disinfect it all. Now that we’re back home I’m going to set up the top-off container and tubing etc. I’m not thrilled with how the kalk reactor sits under the stand in its current location, so I’m going to play with that. Also want to adjust the carbon- and phosphate-reactor tubing so it takes up less sump space.
Home From Cozumel
We spent a week on Cozumel, off the coast of Mexico. What a refreshing vacation. Friendly people, warm sunny weather, amazing insight into the Mayan history and culture, great food and decent snorkelling. I am saying “decent” because a series of hurricanes in recent years have really impacted the reefs, but I would rate it as better than what we saw in Jamaica, and just a notch below St John (although different reef structures). It was amazing to see the damage hurricanes have inflicted on the reefs (and island), but they appear to be making a recovery. One of the snorkelling spots we visited was full of reefballs, and were already supporting visible coral life. Here is more information on their project.
I’ll probably come back and edit this post with more details on what we saw while in the water, but short list of highlights includes a school of 50+ tangs that swarmed us in curiosity, squid, barracuda, enormous trigger and angel fish, a cleaner wrasse in action, and some very colorful (green/teal) acropora.
One thing we thought was really cool was that after a hurricane knocked out the beaches, power, and several establishments on the east coast of the island, the local government made a decision not to rebuild and thus to allow it to remain in its natural state. So there are a half dozen restaurants along a 15 mile stretch of road that follows the coast line, and another 15 miles of coastline with no public access at all. Absolutely beautiful. A very educational exhibit at the Cozumel Museum showed the island’s plans for sustainable development to minimize human impact on the environment – which ultimately, through tourism, is their greatest source of income. Their dedication to this was visible, with bilingual signage along roads and beach access-points, and buoyed-off areas of coastline. Again, the reefball site linked above is testament to this.
Edit:
Here’s the best list we could come up with on what we saw while snorkelling.
- Sea Fans
- Flamingo Tongue Snail
- Parrotfish
- Triggerfish
- Angelfish (French, Queen, unk.)
- Barracuda
- Christmas Tree Worms
- Caribbean Reef Squid
- Green Moray Eel
- Fire Worm
- Chiton
- Star Fish
- Hermit Crabs
- Silversides
- Anemones
- Sponges
- Urchins
- Fairy Basslet
- Jellyfish (we felt them too)
- Grunts
- Boxfish
- Sergeant Major
- Sailfin Blenny
- Rock Beauty
- Unknown hard corals, acropora etc.
Still recovering?
Maybe things aren’t as settled as I thought yesterday…
The skimmer pulled out a gallon of gunk over the course of the day. At first I thought it was clear watered down skimmate, until I looked closer and pulled out the collection jug. There was a pretty dry foam at the top of the skimmer neck, and WHEW what a stink. Definitely not clean salt water. Very ripe. When I poured out the container I noticed a purple/pink coloration to the skimmate, which I’ve never seen before.
The water looked a little milky last night, but pretty clear overall. I blew out the live rock and did a water change. This morning with the lights out, the tank looked a lot milkier than it did last night with the lights on. Tonight I’ll do another water change, and tomorrow we go on vacation… so there’s really not much more I can do…
Snowstorm
As expected, things weren’t looking so hot when I got home from work yesterday. It looked like it had snowed in the tank, with what I assume was kalk powder coating every non-living surface – including algae. What a mess. I measured the pH and it was somewhere around 8.6, which is way too high. I can’t be really sure, since I’m using a Salifert test kit that shows pH in increments of 0.3 and relies on a color chart. I had a deep blue, I’m guessing it was well above 9 for a while. I was scared to cause any further pH shock on the livestock so I did not do a water change or anything. I figure what’s done is done; at this point let the tank slowly stabilize. Right decision? I don’t know. Time will tell.
The acroporas really do not look like they will make it. I may be lucky and have one of the mille’s, birdnest, and stylo survive – they look borderline. I think one other mille, pavona, the stags, and a couple unknown acro’s are goners. The LPS, montiporas, and psammacora look like nothing happened. Surprisingly, the acro carolinianas looks as healthy as ever. Bizzarre. The fish look skiddish, but they are eating with vigor. I’m sure I lost some invertebrates, but many seem to be alive and kicking.
My new bulbs from Hello Lights came in last night. I think one of my ballasts went bad. I plugged in a new actinic bulb in the one that I thought had burnt out, and got nothing. I need to try a different bulb tonight, maybe I got unlucky, but chances are it’s a bad ballast. I’m not going to do anything about that for now; I’ll run one bulb at a time instead of two, and when this current supply runs out in 3 years I’ll upgrade to T5’s or something else. Swapped out the remaining actinic bulb for a blue bulb, and what a difference. Nice deep blue that brings out a lot of color in the tank, especially the yellows and red. That was a highlight of the night last night.
Skimmer is now functioning normally. In fact, I have a feeling I may wind up running it with the standpipe valve partially closed – but that will wait until after vacation.
So… time to replan the aquascape of the tank, it seems. I guess unruly and I can look at this as an opportunity to handpick select pieces of coral for the tank. She’s a bigger fan of LPS anyway…
