Thanks for the welcome Carmie.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Salt@reefer  But I geuss what I'm asking over all is would it be that due to the evaporation of water in my tank and with nothing to keep the water at a steady level and/or salt salinity fluctuating with the evaporation as well as the fluctuation of calcium be perhaps the reason for the algea. |
To answer your question, no. The algae would not be caused by the water fluctuating like that. A
Ca reactor or a Nilsen(Kalk) reactor will not directly impact the algae in your tank.
The Calcium though does fluctuate when your water level changes so you should be taking your
Ca and
Alk measurements when you tank is topped off, every time. At the very least you should be making your measurements with the tank at the same level, every time. Here's why...
In Theory....If you have 380
ppm of
Ca in 40 gallons of seawater then your tank water is holding 57380 milligrams of
Ca. Milligrams per liter is equal to
ppm since there are 1 million milligrams in a liter. There are about 151 liters in 40 gallons, so ... 380 multiplied by 151 is 57380. When evaporation occurs, only the water evaporates. Salts and minerals, like calcium, do not.
IF there was no consumption of
Ca occurring within your system but you evaporated out say... 10% of that water (4gallons which is about 15 liters) then you would have that same 57380 milligrams of Calcium that is now held in only 36 gallons of water(136 liters). Do the same calculation backwards...57380 milligrams of
Ca in 136 liters of water is equal to 422 mg/l or 422
PPM.
In Practice... your 40 Gallon tank probably does not hold 40 gallons of water. The rock and sand take up a decent portion of that volume. If you had a
sump and other such equipment you might be getting close to 40 again. I would also guess that you are not letting your tank lose 10% through evaporation before topping it off. So the difference you would experience would not be as drastic as the example above.... but depending on the resolution of your test kit, you might see the measurements that you describe if you took one at high water and one at low water. Some test kits can only measure out in increments of 20ppm. If your is one of those and you measure at different water levels then I would not be surprised to see your reading go from 400 to 380.
You should also be making sure that the
Ca and
Alk of the new water for your water changes is where you want it to be before you add it to the tank, if not ....you would be diluting every time you do a water change.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Salt@reefer have one 2" fish I feed 4 pellets aday, One sun burst frag coral I feed 2 mysis shrimp every 3 days, One aussie acan frag I feed 2 mysis shrimp every 3 days and every other day I feed the other sps and lps a 3/4 of a tablespoon of photo feast every other day. keep in mind a seperate the amounts to basicly feeding them on oposite days of eachother as much as possible. |
It doesn't sound like you are feeding too much. I still wonder what your
NO3 level is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Salt@reefer I would like to buy a new piece of hardware with these problems Ive mentioned what do you think what be the most benifical. |
If you have decided to buy a piece of equipment to help with your problem, I recommend starting with one of the following instead. An auto top off, a
Kalk drip doser, or add a
sump. An auto top off would help to keep the tank more stable in general. A
Kalk drip doser, as Carmie said, would add
Ca and
Alk to your system while helping to control your evaporation rate. Adding a
sump will help stabilize the tank in general as well and give you a place to put a better
skimmer. A
sump would also make it easier and/or possible to add the other equipment that you were thinking of. Generally speaking a tank of 40 gallons with your bioload should not require a
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