- Location
- Eastern Long Island
Since Ive had my Ca reactor up and running (3 weeks) theres been two times where I noticed an extra high KH. The first time it was near 15 and it caused a bleaching of a good amount of coralline algae. I cut off the effluent and it came down and things were really good for the next two weeks. But today I tested the alk because again i noticed the rock just isnt looking the same. It turns out the alk was like 13-14.
My theory is that an algae spike caused by a sudden rise in phoshates causes coralline and other phosphate intolerant lifeforms to stop growing. The halt in growth causes the tank to not make use of the continued addition of carbonate and ca rich effluent. Because the tank isnt using what it used to, the levels of Ca and KH rise sharply. Does this sound plausible?
The reason I got the phosphate spike was overfeeding of phosphate rich foods like live phytoplankton, rotifers and oyster eggs/tissue. I had gotten a few new corals and I knew this over zealous feeding was gonna bite me in the butt, however i thought the tank would rebound and level out. I have an extra large refugium for nutrient export and it sure produced alot of macro algae in a short time. I had to export almost two gallons of cheato in just 6 days. But I did not expect it would affect other parameters though.
If this theory is correct it means different parameters all have a direct relationship on each other. When one level gets too high, it puts a halt on the utilization of other elements. Just when I thought I had the reactor dialed in perfectly this happens. So I just turned down both the bubble and drip rate. Ill monitor the Alk level in the next few days in hopes it drops as soon as this nutrient spike passes.
In the future I will not feed as much coral food as I realize no matter how big your fuge and skimmer, the system cant process it all. In addition to the before mentioned foods, I also have been adding in baby brine shrimp and cyclops into the mix. Along with the vitamin soaked fish food (does vitamin and garlic soaks contain nutrients?), it was obviously too much at the frequency I was feeding.
My theory is that an algae spike caused by a sudden rise in phoshates causes coralline and other phosphate intolerant lifeforms to stop growing. The halt in growth causes the tank to not make use of the continued addition of carbonate and ca rich effluent. Because the tank isnt using what it used to, the levels of Ca and KH rise sharply. Does this sound plausible?
The reason I got the phosphate spike was overfeeding of phosphate rich foods like live phytoplankton, rotifers and oyster eggs/tissue. I had gotten a few new corals and I knew this over zealous feeding was gonna bite me in the butt, however i thought the tank would rebound and level out. I have an extra large refugium for nutrient export and it sure produced alot of macro algae in a short time. I had to export almost two gallons of cheato in just 6 days. But I did not expect it would affect other parameters though.
If this theory is correct it means different parameters all have a direct relationship on each other. When one level gets too high, it puts a halt on the utilization of other elements. Just when I thought I had the reactor dialed in perfectly this happens. So I just turned down both the bubble and drip rate. Ill monitor the Alk level in the next few days in hopes it drops as soon as this nutrient spike passes.
In the future I will not feed as much coral food as I realize no matter how big your fuge and skimmer, the system cant process it all. In addition to the before mentioned foods, I also have been adding in baby brine shrimp and cyclops into the mix. Along with the vitamin soaked fish food (does vitamin and garlic soaks contain nutrients?), it was obviously too much at the frequency I was feeding.
