Quick DSR-EZ process update.
I have been manually dosing for 10 days now, both EZ-Buffer and EZ-Carbon. My targets are 8.4dKH for alk, 0.05ppm for phosphate and 5ppm for nitrate. Two rounds of dosing adjustments on EZ-Buffer, first for 6 days dosing 4.1ml buffer came up short from 7.3-7.9 (8.4 target). Second round adjustment for total dosing of 8.7ml buffer for 3 days came up short from 7.9-8.2. Third round, I made a 1 day dosing change up to 13.7ml total and overshot it from 8.2 to 8.6dKH (8.4 target). So now I will bring it back down to 8.7ml and start looking to hold consistency at 8.4dKH.
EZ-Carbon, I have been working up the dosing table daily as instructed on the bottle (first day D1 dose I did for two days until I realized I was supposed to go up each dosing amount every day). Started out with 0.12ppm phosphates and 10ppm nitrate, looking for my targets of 0.05/5. Both nutrients saw no change over the past 10 days, until today. Using the
Red Sea visual phosphate test, I finally saw my phosphates drop from 0.12 to close to the next lowest range of 0.08. Visually it could be 0.08 or 0.10 (halfway between the two). Nitrate still holding at 10ppm with no change at all. I'm going to hold my carbon dosing at the last amount used for approx. the next week and see if phosphates keep going down slowly or if nitrates finally start to trend downward, then make fine tuned adjustments based on what happens over next week.
As mentioned above, finally set up the auto doser!
Livestock update:
Moved the 4 coral into their intended "final" locations and had much disasters in removing the new ones from plugs and gluing down. Broke the skeleton on my green hammer almost up to the head half of the skeleton fractured off as it was way more hollow than expected down at the base where I tried to cut off the glue from the plug. Glued in place for 4 days and it seems to be unaffected by that. Rainbow yuma got glued onto the rock in a section of itself accidentally as my superglue bottle splurted all over when I was just trying to get a small dab out onto the bottom of the tiny rock the yuma is attached to, so that I could attach that rock to a larger one in my display. Didn't think it was going to make it cause it looked covered in glue. 4 days later it extracted itself from the glue handcuffs and will do fine, once it heals the section that was glued down. Stylo is doing fine in its final spot, and the original coral added, leather toadstool was moved to the side and slightly higher and it is happy as can be, getting much bigger.
6 more coral purchased and waiting for pickup on Wednesday. Another hammer (gold hammer), and a bunch of encrusting sps which I love. psammacora, a few different monti, digitata, etc. This will finally get my tank away from neon green dominant to a good mix of colors.