Backbay’s 450gal SPS & Angels

[drexel]

Anyway, some of the SPS are showing signs of recovery. I'm going to wait until next month to send in ICP -- so far, params have been super stable: Alk is 8.3dKH, N is 30ppm, and P is 0.07ppm. I'm still trying to get N to come down but feel that keeping P stable is more important...

Genesis blocks in low flow area of the sump or some siporax will help lower NO3. I agree, keeping PO4 in that range is far more important than worrying about N levels. If I can keep mine around 0.1 give or take a little, I would be super happy.

 

[bakbay]

Genesis blocks in low flow area of the sump or some siporax will help lower NO3. I agree, keeping PO4 in that range is far more important than worrying about N levels. If I can keep mine around 0.1 give or take a little, I would be super happy.

My Geo sulfur media will arrive this Wed — I’m going to peg NO3 at around 10ppm. When I did it last time, I didn’t have the Kamoer hooked up so was very challenging to get the right flow rate. This time around, I hope to really dial it jn and never have to worry about NO3 for a year! Fingers-crossed.

 

[drexel]

My Geo sulfur media will arrive this Wed — I’m going to peg NO3 at around 10ppm. When I did it last time, I didn’t have the Kamoer hooked up so was very challenging to get the right flow rate. This time around, I hope to really dial it jn and never have to worry about NO3 for a year! Fingers-crossed.

Cool, hopefully it does the trick for you. I don't know what it is, but I've always been nitrogen/nitrate limited with virtually every tank I run.

 

[bakbay]

Spent the afternoon rinsing the old Aquamaxx CaRx and put 15lbs of sulfur media in the reactor. I need to find my ORP probe to finish the installation though.

 

[bakbay]

We’re online with the sulfur denitrator. ORP is now -188mV inside the reactor so I’ve increased the flow from 2mL/min to 10mL/min. If we land around -150mV, denitrification should take place within this sweet spot. I’ll test the effluent’s NO3 in a few days.

 

[bakbay]

FYI - for people who are bored (and/or crazy like me) to do Sulfur Denitrification, measuring negative ORP
is key (or much simpler vs testing the effluent daily).

If you try to calibrate with an Apex — it cannot read negative ORP, unlike a Milwaukee. Therefore, I bought a banana BNC and swapped the red & black wires to reverse the polarity. That will trick the Apex to read & plot ORP (but in fact, the values are negative). I’ve named the ORP probe “NegORP”. It took me months to figure it out so hope someone will find it useful in the future.

 

[drexel]

FYI - for people who are bored (and/or crazy like me) to do Sulfur Denitrification, measuring negative ORP
is key (or much simpler vs testing the effluent daily).

If you try to calibrate with an Apex — it cannot read negative ORP, unlike a Milwaukee. Therefore, I bought a banana BNC and swapped the red & black wires to reverse the polarity. That will trick the Apex to read & plot ORP (but in fact, the values are negative). I’ve named the ORP probe “NegORP”. It took me months to figure it out so hope someone will find it useful in the future.


View attachment 132491 View attachment 132492

Nice! Now that’s how you MacGyver reef style.

 

[bakbay]

Taking a break to enjoy the Euphyllia garden and Koji Wada Pink Nepthea.

 

[bakbay]

Sulfur reactor update - I'm averaging -200mV so denitrification is taking place. Tested the effluent and it was 75+ppm so it's not ready yet, suspect it's producing Nitrite, throwing off Nitrate results. Hope to see a difference by next week.

 

[bakbay]

NO3 is at 25ppm and slowly dropping. NegORP around -200mV to -250mV seems to do the trick!

 

[Jimbo327]

Your numbers are looking very good. That sulfur denitrator is putting in work. I would keep it going until you land in the 10-15 range and hold it there. Have you done a recent ICP? Have you been able to absorb the tungsten? And are you corals growing?

 

[bakbay]

Your numbers are looking very good. That sulfur denitrator is putting in work. I would keep it going until you land in the 10-15 range and hold it there. Have you done a recent ICP? Have you been able to absorb the tungsten? And are you corals growing?

Thanks — carbon dosing didn’t work well so hope this will hold.

I’ve used up all my Poly-fil pads and will send in ICP in the coming weeks. Can’t tell if corals are growing again but what’s “clear” (and I need to post more pics) - no more Cyano and coralline algae is finally growing again! There are more purple patches on rocks vs before. I’ll put some more SPS frags to see.

 

[Jimbo327]

That's a good sign about the coralline growing and no more cyano.

Vodka dosing can sometimes contribute to cyano, but I find that if I dose aminos...it will really fuel cyano in my system.

 

[bakbay]

That's a good sign about the coralline growing and no more cyano.

Vodka dosing can sometimes contribute to cyano, but I find that if I dose aminos...it will really fuel cyano in my system.

NO3 is around 15ppm so I’m going to start increasing flow (currently at 40mL/min). The goal is to land NO3 around this level and not bottom out.

I’ve put some SPS frags and so far, they haven’t RTN’ed so that’s a good sign. PO4 is pretty stable so things should recover relatively soon.

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