Bad news

I haven't been able to update my blog lately due to how busy my life has been. The tank has been going very well for the past few nights, but on Thursday i decided to add some kalk and left it dripping while i was not home. Big mistake :( the flow control valve stopped working for some reason and it poured 5 gallons of super saturated lime water into the tank, partially overflowing it. I tested params and was horrified to find my calcium was over 550 and my kit could not test for it because it was so high. My SPS did not seem affected, but my BTA, shrooms, yellow polyps and zoos all did not look very good. Most just looked less expanded than usual. I think i will completely stop adding calcium for a couple of weeks till it can come down to reasonable levels. Also i am very confident my reef will make a full recovery.

I got all my items today :) Here is a quick list of what i got

- Reef Advantage Clacium (Seachem)

- Calcium test kit (Seachem)

- Kalkawasser (Kent)

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I also tested water here are the results:

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

Ammonia: 0

kH: 10

Calcium: a little over 500 (500+)

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These looked very good, but I think i have found the reason my yellow polyps are closed: the High Calcium. I think i will lay of the Ca additionto get it back to about 470ppm.

Update

I did a big 22 g water change this weekend, with my new Reef Salt, by Seachem. Thus far i am very happy with it. I did not test water as my calcium test kit is out. I ordered a new one by Seachem and some more Advantage Calcium from www.marinedepot.com almost a week and a half ago. I don't get why they haven't arived yet, but they should be here any day now. My BTA is doing great, but for some unknown reason my yellow polyps are all closed up. It is weird, all of my corals are doing great and one of my two colonies of yellow polyps it retracted 24/7. I think it could be becuase my damsel has decided to just sit on them all day. I will post my water tests when my order arrives.

Reefcast, update & test results

I would like to reccomend Reefcast - a podcast about reefing to all reefers. It is funny, entertaining and best of all educational :) got to http://www.reefcast.com/ for more info. You can download them form there site or from itunes. I tested water and here are the results kH 8, Salinity 1.025, Calcium 470. I did not test for nitrates as I have a very light bioload (2 fish, several were lost due to ich). The results looked good. I ordered some more Seachem reef advantage calcium and a new Seachem test kit both from www.marinedepot.com. I also recived an order of Seachem reef salt that I bought on ebay. I normally use Tropic Marin but the Seachem stuff was much cheaper and came with free shipping :) I don't think it will have a huge impact on my reef. When I was looking around at what salts people use i found a study done on them. Here are the results :

http://reefsaltanalysis.googlepages.com/AWT_Salt_Analysis_0208.pdf

I hope to make a trip to the LFS tommorow so I might post again on Sunday.

Also I am going to graph my CA and kH over several weeks tand will post that on Sunday too.

Test Results

O.K. I did my water tests today and decided to post them today rather than tommorow. I have to say, I am very pleased with them. Here they are:
Salinity - 1.025
Calcium - 425 ppm
kH - 8.5 dKH
Nitrates - 0 ppm

Sunday -- Update

The tank has been going very well! My BTA has really colored up and is a bright orange during the day. I continue to battle with Aptasia and am going to (hopefully) add 3-8 peppermint shrimp to take them out. I will do my water tests sometime today and post the results tommorow. I will probably be going to the Mid-Michigan Reefers Frag Swap on the 29th of Jan. Here is a link to there site and to a thread on there message boards about it.

http://www.michiganreefers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66710

http://www.michiganreefers.com/

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all viewers of the Henryreef 55 Blog. May your Holidays be safe and happy.