Nano tank reef parms are out of whack for my 10 Gallon...

[seldin]

I am a long time reefer who got back into the hobby several months ago. Had to buy all new equipment. My parms are not consistent. My refractometer showed salt spikes (rarely), calcium drops fast sometimes and then stays stable.

My setup is as follows. I have a 10 gallon Lifeguard all in one, with a sump in the back. Tank is rectangle. 15 lbs of live rock with mostly SPS frags. I keep salt water at 1.26. Since my calcium drops suddenly, sometimes, I try to keep calcium at 500. However, I have seen my calcium sometimes drop to 300 go up to 600. I was using Reef Central chemistry calculator and was using 7 gallons as my tank volume. I think this is too high. I also have reef LED lighting, skimmer, and a Vortech MP10. I have 2 controllers, 1 for a heater and fan, and a backup controller for Chiller and another heater. I keep temp at 80 degrees. I also have a Vortech backup battery. No live sand bed.

I keep a weekly log of my parms and issues.

I am thinking my circulation was weak when I had my MP10 at 20% using the Nutrient SPS setting, so I have now went from 40% to 50%. I thought so, when my Salt seems stable for several days and then drops or increase overnight. So this is why I raised my mph.

I do weekly water changes of between 2.5 and 3.5 gallons. My phosphates go from 1 down to .25. I dose Vibrant twice a week. Nitrates were at 20, but dropped to 10. PH and Alk are normal. Had a hair algae outbreak and used Hydrogen Peroxide and noticed my Calcium seemed to drop from this. I also developed bubble algae and when I dosed Vibrant, this went away. I use RODI water.

I have a bio load on fish, and I feed tank with Rod's Original Reef blend and coral frenzy. Fish seem to be doing well and corals have some bleaching. I attribute that to being a new tank, but who knows.

As I previously said, tank parms are much tougher than when I use to have a 55 gallon and a 34 gallon Solana nano tank.

I think I am doing most things right, and am just venting. For now, I am testing Calcium twice a week.

Thanks,

 

[Geraud]

Maybe this is why peeps in general recommend having sand to help with stability, especially now that you cannot start with real live rocks?

How often are you measuring things?

 

[seldin]

Geraud,

I started with FIJI live rock. I have great purple Coraline.

I measure:

- Calcium twice a week.
- Salt, daily.
- PH, nitrate, alk weekly and stable.
- Water change weekly.

I dread going to live sand, had this years ago with many problems. Also, my water flow is now very high, and think that I may have a dust storm with live sand.

Thank you,

 

[Geraud]

I used to have the dust storm problem in my 25 gallon nano (no a storm really, but mostly sand displaced by the pump at the opposite side of the tank). What I did was put Calcium reactor substrate in there to maintain it in place.

Do you have an ATO etc? It is strange that salinity would change that much.
Most importantly: do you have hard corals visibly growing, to explain the Ca swings?

 

[seldin]

...Do you have an ATO etc? It is strange that salinity would change that much.
Most importantly: do you have hard corals visibly growing, to explain the Ca swings? ...

Geraud,

I think my water turnover was too low at 20% for a tank with lot's of live rock, so I think my increase in water turnover will improve my salinity changes. Yes, never had that before. I have increased my vortech to 40-50%. I have a lot of coral frags ( 80% sps and a couple of softies in tank).

I have a good ATO with RODI.

I think "not sure" that I attributed past calcium swings to when I was heavily dosing "hydrogen peroxide" in tank, for hair algae. I found spot dosing much better and have stopped. Hair algae was a pain to get rid of. Looks gone for a while now.

I have sps growth, but also some bleaching, that I attribute to my parms not being stable. I am hoping that Calcium will now be more stable.

Thank you,