Sebastian_Troy
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
To anyone who may be able to help,
I am new to reef aquaria, I have a 15 Gallon display tank and a 15 gallon sump tank, I have a 70Gal prism skimmer (overkill I know) which I haven't used untill recently due to lack of need. Both tanks have a 3 inch aragonite sand bed, I made my own live rock which I cured for about two years, not because I was patient, but because i've been saving and gearing up to this for that long!
About 4 months ago I put in two pieces of live rock to seed the tank and begin cycling, The tank has cycled and all the parameters have leveled out, Nitrates and ites are near enough 0, however I have started using the skimmer to slow the growth of some seaweed that has taken over my tank!
The problem is the pH, it has settled out at just above 7, I have remedied this by adding reef buffers, raising the alk and adding kalkwasser, but whatever I do it just settles back down to 7.7 ish overnight, I have Mysis shrimp coming out of my ears, a small turbo snail which snuck in on one of the rocks, tons of little tenticles poking out of gaps and small white tubes, a mysterius little mushroom thing has just started growing, thee are worms, little starfish... basically the tank is thrumming with life, when I was permenantly treating the tank i bought 5 turbo snails and 5 red hermits, needless to say when I wasn't here for a week the pH dropped again and I was left with onlt 1 of each :'(
Also the coraline algea will not grow, It started a bit when the pH was good but now its stopped again
Two questions really, how come if reef life is so delicate so much life has survived these low pH's
and please please can someone help me figure this out, and sort out the pH
I have two t5 bulbs, one blue and one white, prism skimmer, good water flow,
7.7ish pH, 14dKH alkalinity, 440ppm Calcium, 0 nitrites, negligible nitrates (after all almost no large life in the tank)
I am new to reef aquaria, I have a 15 Gallon display tank and a 15 gallon sump tank, I have a 70Gal prism skimmer (overkill I know) which I haven't used untill recently due to lack of need. Both tanks have a 3 inch aragonite sand bed, I made my own live rock which I cured for about two years, not because I was patient, but because i've been saving and gearing up to this for that long!
About 4 months ago I put in two pieces of live rock to seed the tank and begin cycling, The tank has cycled and all the parameters have leveled out, Nitrates and ites are near enough 0, however I have started using the skimmer to slow the growth of some seaweed that has taken over my tank!
The problem is the pH, it has settled out at just above 7, I have remedied this by adding reef buffers, raising the alk and adding kalkwasser, but whatever I do it just settles back down to 7.7 ish overnight, I have Mysis shrimp coming out of my ears, a small turbo snail which snuck in on one of the rocks, tons of little tenticles poking out of gaps and small white tubes, a mysterius little mushroom thing has just started growing, thee are worms, little starfish... basically the tank is thrumming with life, when I was permenantly treating the tank i bought 5 turbo snails and 5 red hermits, needless to say when I wasn't here for a week the pH dropped again and I was left with onlt 1 of each :'(
Also the coraline algea will not grow, It started a bit when the pH was good but now its stopped again
Two questions really, how come if reef life is so delicate so much life has survived these low pH's
and please please can someone help me figure this out, and sort out the pH
I have two t5 bulbs, one blue and one white, prism skimmer, good water flow,
7.7ish pH, 14dKH alkalinity, 440ppm Calcium, 0 nitrites, negligible nitrates (after all almost no large life in the tank)