Does anyone want to learn about the Hiatt system?

Last night measurement.
Phospate 0.19 ppm Nitrate 0ppm

Alk 4 meg/l Cal 500ppm

Added three more turbo snaiils. They quickly eating up the small yellow green colors hair algae.

I increased feeding but the nitrate still zero and Phospate not moving down.

Not sure adding GFO, do water change, or add nitrate (aquatict plant supplement) to get the Phospate down.

The safe way is to do water change but more stuff will still leach out from the gravel. Use GFO will need more equipment for a reactor. Adding nitrate might be dangerous...

Use GFO filter pad might be an option or granulate phospate media ceramic chips which I still have a bucket no need for reactor. This stuff only last 24 hours and it is exausted. Hope that will bring down the phospate.

One concern is zero nitrate. Need to have trace of nitrate else coral will die. Have to increase feeding of fish and coral.

Going on vacation for two weeks. Have a friend taking care of the system. Just have him do the basic as alk/cal adjustment and feeding the fish.

Take action on the Phosphate when return from vacation.

Coral Growth note: Green Bird Nest branching out and grew about 1/4 and inch in less than two weeks.

Some stag horn grew almost as much and the brown color coral start to tank on the purpple color.

The green slimmer original turn from yellow green to light brown now taking on more deeper green and start to grown over the plug.

The brown acros turn red and have purple tips and strat to spred out on the base with blue color.

Move the brown/purple stag horn closer to the top and see if I can get better color.

The rescue zoo start to grow like crazy.

The plate coral expand and regrow over some of the expose area.

Added the two Tunze 6100 to the tank.

Wow the current and the junk in the gravel start to come up and now getting suck into the prefilter.

Love those controlable pumps.

The coral PE is better after the pump started.

Will check the parameter tomorrow and be on vaction for two weeks. I think the system can be set to run auto for two weeks. Hope my friend can take care of it.

Just got back from vacation.

Found my tank got too clean... Zero Nitrate, and Phospate 0.12 PPM

Also alk is really low.

My care taker did not do a very good job of monitoring my tank. Cal is also low.

Making a justment now. One cap got a little white on the base. I am going to remove some media from the bio filter and hope that will rase the nitrate.

Some coral got knock down by the turbo and in bad shape and need to be glue down.

I think the care taker did not feed the coral or fish enough... I am going to fix that.

Other corals grow about half inch and spred about the same on the base.

Got to get the tank back into working order.

All hair algae on the gravel is gone. That just mean the tank is now too clean. I need nitrate quick before my coral die.

To day plan,

Going to remove 1/4 lb of bio media from the filter.

Going to add Phospate remover to get rid of the phospate. That might help keeping nitrate high due to bacteria consume 1P to 4n.

Need to change my filter and back flush the bio filter media to reduce the number of bacteria.

Hold off on removing bio media.

Ajust the alk back up first.

Ajust the cal next.

Clean the filter this weekend and maybe do a back flush.

My brow looking stag start to run to a purple in color. The green slimer getting it green back.

The green stag not looking good.

will make some ajustment to coral placement tonight.

Did some research and found some of my coral get ligher in color at the base is due to PH... And in my case is due to low ALK value.

Here is an article about PH and ALK. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-05/rhf/index.php

I have raised the ALK value from it low point. Going to do some more test tonight and see if the ALK and PH stay up.

My long term solution to this is find way to add more air to my tank, because the bio media produce large quatity of CO2 which have the affect of lowering PH and ALK.

do you have any pictures?

I will try to take picture of the coral that start to turn white at the base?

Raised Alk and Cal back up to Alk 4 meg/l Cal 500ppm.

Will add Phospate remover and see if that reduce the phospate level.

Nitrate is still zero....

Going to get more larger fish and see if that can increase nitrate level.

Why not leave the Nitrate levels at 0 and dose some amino acids?

I am failing to understand why you want to increase the Nitrate levels in a tank where the majority strive to get them as close to 0 as possible...

I'd like to see a nice full tank shot. This is a very different methodology than what I am used to seeing. I really like seeing different successful methods so lets see some full tank shots.

when you have NO nitrate in a system, it can be hard on the corals. Some do use it for nutrients, as it feeds bacteria and such, which our corals gobble up. No nitrates=no bacteria (or reduced levels)

Actually, I'd love pictures of the whole kit-n-kaboodle. I'm a visual learner... four pages of words mean nothing to me >.<

I will try to get some tank shot tonight.

Did you see my set up picture in the previous post?

I am using Seachem Fuel but it is not helping. I want the nitrate to be at 0.05ppm and Phospate to be as close to 0.01ppm

Everything use nitrate and phospate to construct it tissues. Coral need them to grow but excessive about is not good. Each coral, algae, bacteria, fish use nitrate and phospate in different ratio of p/n/c/h/o...
Coral do need small amount of P and a little higher amount of N to grow.

The system I am using is a bacteria driven system. It take up n/p/c/h/o... to multiply.... the out put of it by product is CO2 and bateria body mass. These bacteria ten to take up 1p for every 4n. If the food have higher ratio of phospate than nitrate then the end result is high phospate remain in the tank.

If, I have enough bacteria and algae growing in the system it can consume all Nitrate and leave nothing for the coral so the coral will die. Phospate need to be taken out by other mean like phospate remover media (GFO) or some other (algae or bacteria) that take up more phospate than nitrate.

Some people use Kwasher to fix phospate while dosing alk and cal. It might be a good option if GFO does not work. I know some try to add plant aqurium Nitrate supplement in really small quantity to help balance out the P to N ratio.

I need to find a better Nitrate test kit that is more sensitive.

Got the pictures and trying to down load it.

Will have it post this weekend.

Came across this article about CO2.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-10/rhf/index.php

Just added a 4 inch yellow tang to the mix and see if it can generate some nitrate.

Last night measure alk again and found alk got low again. Added alk and brough it back up to normal level... Will add another dose to bring it to a higher level.



Making 10gal water to do back flush of the bio media this weekend.

White show on coral attritube to low ALK.

This one grow about 1/2 inch since it been in the tank about 1 month.

Alk fixed and it seem to start to recovering.

Tested

Phospate 0.24 Nitrate Zero

Cal 500 ALK high. PH seem a bit low. Need better test kit for nitrate alk and ph.

Added a yelow tang from a club member in tcmas... It poo alot. Hope to get some nitrate in a couple of days.

The small amount of pale green hair algae is now gone from the gravel due to the work of the yellow tang.

Added three table spoon of Seachem Fuel. All the coral PE is great for a few min after the addition of the Seachem Fuel. It retracted back to normal PE after 10 min. Very strange.

Loking to add more fish and coral. Hope to get some good stuff from a few tcmas members.

I am going to reduce number of test to once a week. Since my system seem to be stable now.



Will do some test this weekend. Still working on trying to get more fish so I can increase nitrate.



If phospate still in 0.24 range this weekend, I will have to add phospate removing media.

Tested.



Phospate 0.12 ppm nitrate 0

cal 500 and alk high



Feed the fish and coral alot this week. Glue some of the coral to the rock and move some up to get more light to enhance coloring.



Found some white thing growing on one of the coral and it kill some around it. Took some glue pread over it. Hope that kill it.



Some are growing on one branch and I frag it. Cut out the affected portion and re-plant the un-effected part.



I hope nothing major.

OK tested last night.

Phospate:0.02ppm nitrate 0ppm
cal 440 alk normal night to get it higher.

Raised cal to 500 and alk to high.

Feed lot off food to the fish. They eat until they could not eat no more.
Lot of fish poo from the yellow tang.
There are still some cyno on rock and sand. Green hair algae are gone. Need to get nitrate up to 0.5 Too low of nitrate reading scare me a bit.

The drop in phospate might be due to my increase in use of seachem fuel (Could me my source of nitrate)....

Need more research.... If it is true then I have to add more of it to bring nitrate up.

I looked up vitamins, amino acid, sugars....I see that there are mostly Carbon, Hydrogen,Nitrogen, Oxygen... I think what is listed in seachem fuel...

I don't see much phosporus element in the chemmical formular. So therefore phospate is being consume by bacteria when I added seachem fuel.

It have been over a 45 days since my last change 5 gal of water.

Water quality is good, maybe I should do 5 gal water change on the 60th day.

I should decide next week.

Ok, Just got back from working out of town. System on Auto and my wife feed the fish and coral.

Check the parameter and every thing is still good. Nitrate still show zero. Have not check phospate. Started dripping Kalk and it seem to help with the low PH and Alk....
Coral seem to grow better.

Seem to be unable to get rid of the cyno....
Need to do water change. Planning for this weekend. Hope there is no emergency in the office.

Just purchase a RKL and pumps for setting up dosing and automate top off with kalk. Need time to set it up. Might be able to have it setup this weekend.

Might have to take the media reactor apart and clean it and start with new addition of RN bacteria.

Coral color up nicely.... I had two small sps frag turn white from the bottom up.... I think it is the low alk problem... Hope the kalk dosing will keep that in check.

Added two small sps green slimmer and they are doing great. I think they like the high alk and PH.. The other coral that originally were brown now turn purple... Every thing looks great... Need to get rid of the cyno...

Made some RO water and going to do 20% water change, back flush the media and replace the hayward filter with clean one.

Going to do another 20% next weekend and vac the gravel and add more RN Bacteria. Hope that will get rid of the cyno.

If that does not do it then I will have to add more half a pound more of tribase carbon.

Made 20% water changed. Back flush the media and replace the machenical filter.

Check the Cal 400ppm added Cal and brought it up to 500ppm
Check the alk 3.5 meq/l and added carbonate to increase alk.. will add more tonight after measuring.

Setup the kalk drip with vinigar to increase concentration of desolve kalk.

Ooopp over dose on Kalk... Did water change again. Water clearing up. No damage.