Today on BRSTV we have our second update on the BRS160
Hi I'm Ryan your host of BRSTV this week we have our second update on the BRS 160 Focusing
on two elements where we are at with the battle with the monti eating nudis we mentioned last
time as well as share some experience we have had with co2 media.
When we saw the first signs of the monti eating nudi’s it certainly seemed like bad news
but in a way it’s also pretty cool because is an awesome opportunity to share with the
BRS community that you are not a bad reefer if you end up with a pest in your tank because
despite everyone's best efforts it can happen to most of us and this is an opportunity to
show what we did when we encountered them as well as what our result were.
Well I am happy to say that by simply adding the single six line wrasse and dosing the
combination of KZ flatworm stop and coral booster our nudi issue is not only what I
would call manageable but if you didn't know any better nonexistent.
Literally no sign of them at this point.
None of the monti colonies show any signs of adults of eggs.
That doesn't mean they are not in there somewhere because they probably are but they are not
reaching a population that is going to have an impact on the corals.
In fact the two colonies which I thought were complete goners for sure because they were
covered in adults and eggs, had lost almost all of their tissue, color was gone and polyps
retracted completely are now back to 70% of their original size, color is back and they
are encrusting the rock as fast as ever.
i know for sure the six line wrasse was a huge help because day one I could see him
eating them and actively going after each one he could find.
It’s Hard to say what impact the flatworm stop and coral booster combo had.
It's not completely clear how flatworm stop works but the information I found suggests
it works buy both increasing the slime coat of the coral as well as making it unpalatable
to the flatworms which are trying to munch on it.
The coral booster in combination is also designed to regenerate the tissue faster than predators
can eat it.
I know a lot of reefers have had a lot of success using this combo to keep acro eating
flat worms at a manageable population that doesn't impact the tank.
hard to say if it is doing the same with the monti eating nudis but it seems possible many
even plausible and anecdotally I am certainly happy the nudis are currently no longer an
issue.
Once I run out of both products which will be a couple months from now I will likely
attempt to stop using them and see what happens.
Outside of that we started using CO2 media on the tank.
Because there are 50 people in the warehouse breathing co2 in to the air which is the primary
cause of low PH in most people's tanks, the PH of the BBRS160 was lower than I might like
general hovering between 7.8 and 8.0 depending on the time of day and on occasion even dipping
down to 7.7
As I mentioned In a vast majority of causes low tank PH is a direct cause of the amount
of people and pets in the room breathing carbon dioxide into the air which in turn increases
the amount of carbon dioxide in the tank through gas exchange on the water surface and skimmer.
The increased co2 levels directly lower the PH of the tank as well.
Opening windows to bring in fresh air and move the excess carbon dioxide in the room
will almost certainly solve the problem but opening windows is only a temporary solution
and the fluctuations might cause other larger chemistry issues we will explain in a moment.
We also need to think about why it is we even want to raise the PH to 8.3 to begin with.
It has been strongly theorized and even some solid studies done which almost definitively
show corals calcify and grow significantly faster at higher PH’s.
Short and sweet It’s believed that the corals are allowing bicarbonate and calcium ions
through their thin tissue and precipitating them out to form their skeletal structure
and grow.
As part of that process they split off the hydrogen from the bicarbonate which decreases
the PH inside the corals tissue.
More or less that hydrogen lowers the PH inside their tissue and they need to send that hydrogen
back through their issue into the surrounding tank water to raise their internal PH back
up and keep the growth going.
It’s just a lot easier to free themselves of the hydrogen when the sounding tank’s
PH is higher and there is less overall hydrogen in the tank water itself.
End of story higher PH in your tank, the higher the PH will be inside the coral’s tissue
, the higher the PH inside the corals issue the faster they will precipitate their skeletal
structure and grow.
So faster coral growth is why reefers chase 8.3.
That said, Normally I would recommend as long as the PH is consistently above 7.8 not to
mess with it because you can do more harm than good in most cases.
All of the chemicals labeled PH buffer and PH additives mess up your alkalinity balance
pretty bad and I would avoid them for sure,.
The only PH elevating additives worth considering are balanced calcium and alkalinity approaches
like kalkwasser and all of the 2 part additives.
Outside of that you can raise your tanks PH’ by using a refugium that grows macro algae.
Most commonly at night The growing algae will consume the excess co2 in the tank as it grows.
As I mentioned before you can also open your windows or even run a air line from outdoors
to your skimmer.
This might impact air injection and skimmer performance if the line is more than a handful
of feet from the tank.
This is where the Co2 media comes in.
rather than run a line outdoors you can set a canister of co2 absorbent media next to
the tank and feed your skimmer’s air line through it which should strip most of the
co2 from the air entering the skimmer.
Since the skimmer is one of the primary air water interfaces for gas exchange in most
reef tanks this can have a huge impact on the tanks PH and It certainly did on the BRS160
.
Once we put the co2 scrubber media on the skimz skimmer we saw the PH sky rocket from
7.8 to 8.0 all the way to ranging from 8.2 to 8.35.
It is absolutely the cure for the all the people in our warehouse, resulting high co2
levels and the tanks low PH.
This is also the most interesting part, the calcium and alkalinity levels also immediately
started to plummet, I eventually had to double the tanks dose of two part to get it to stabilize
at the new higher PH levels.
To me this suggests the corals are consuming the calcium and alkalinity twice as fast at
this higher PH and absolutely matches the reason why someone would want to raise their
tanks PH as well as the elevated PH growth studies out there that shows this.
I will openly admit even though the results here directly matches the goals of maintaining
a higher PH tank as well as the results of endless studies on the negative impact of
ocean acidification has on coral calcification and slow coral growth.
none of us here at BRS expected the calcium and alkalinity consumption to instantly double
the moment the PH was raised to a more ideal level for the corals.
It might be the higher PH is just increasing perception but it has been running this way
for months and I haven't seen any signs of that on pumps or heaters.
It could also be a mix of precaution and growth.
We already have some PH related growth studies planed for BRSTV investigates which will hopefully
further the conversation a bit.
Now there is some caveats to this.
the media isn't free and I ended up using a cartridge a week which is about 7 bucks
a week and might be more than some people would want to spend.
However considering a lot of reefers pay a hundred to a few hundred bucks for a frag
the size of a nickel doubling the growth rates of all your corals might be well worth it.
In fact even that $7 might be the single most cost effective way of finding significant
growth increases.
How much media you use is a direct correlation between the amount of air your skimmer draws
and the co2 levels of your home.
Many of you might get a cartage to last 2 to 3 times as long which significantly lowers
the overall all implementation cost.
In the end a single cartridge wasn't my favorite implementation because when it is fully depleted
the PH drops , calcium and alkalinity consumption drops with it and if you don’t change your
calcium and alkalinity dosing system to match the levels start to rise.
Which is pretty unstable on all elements.
I tried using dual cartridges to help reduce the maintenance and find additional stability
but then ultimately went to a huge dual canister implementation which I hope I don't have to
change but every couple months.
I also plan on swapping the large canisters as the first one depletes in hopes of getting
to as close to 100% utilization of each canister as possible.
These large canisters aren’t cheap but I think you could easily DIY a version with
a piece of 4” piece pipe and a some caps.
Won’t look as cool, and because you can’t see the color change you will have to monitor
the endpoint with a PH meter but it will perform the same.
Just make sure to install it vertically to reduce air channeling as the media settles.
Outside if that I also in an attempt to get an even more stable PH, get longer useable
life from the cartridges we used the Neptune Apex and a solenoid on the skimmers air line
so it only draws air from the CO2 scrubber when the PH is bellow 8.2 which is primarily
at night.
Net result is the PH is a really stable 8.2 to 8.25 on the weekdays when BRS team is at
the office.
and 8.2 and 8.3 on the weekends when only a few people are here adding co2 to the air.
We also doubled the lifespan of the media.
I haven't completely perfected this system but I am already very happy with it and plan
on using the media for the foreseeable future.
We are going to explore a variety of different implementations, see if we can at least partially
recharge the media and share our findings in that BRSTV investigates video.
For those of you that are wondering what the CO2 scrubber media is, it’s generally referred
to as soda lime.
Which is predominately just a pelletized calcium hydroxide, known as kalkwasser in our industry.
The material we use is a medical grade soda lime which is over 93% percent calcium hydroxide
mixed with a small amount of sodium hydroxide and a zeolight designed to keep the media
moist to maximize useable life.
As the soda lime depletes the carbon dioxide reacts with the calcium hydroxide to form
calcium carbonate.
I believe that's going to make it difficult to recharge but we will absolutely look at
methods to do that and make this a more affordable solution.
So that wraps up this update I am going on a vacation so RT is going to step up to the
plate and do two BRS 52 FAQ’s a week while I am gone which will be fun.
Soon as I get back I think we are going to start doing some of the really cool brs tv
investigates episodes.
Some of these just take a month or two to get the results so I think they are going
to be worth waiting for.
I will see all of you early next year, so everyone enjoy the holidays and your reef
tanks!