Loving these parameter and coral care videos March! Mate I could watch your videos for many more years! Just wish I lived in Canada so I could buy some corals off you guys, but massive thanks so far REEF FAM and massive shout out to you guys from New Zealand 🇳🇿
Love the honesty as always. Thank you. Makes me feel better to see a pro makes the odd mistake here and there and not just us newbies! And p.s. Please sell the darn shirts cuz I want one!!!
Thank you for the useful information I will definitely consider the high magnesium when my aqua scape is complete and dosing system arrives. Lovely corals man keep it up 👍🏻
I actually wondered if that big sale and all the water for the bags would affect things. Does salinity change noticeably too? Wow. And then oh no, the doser off too! Thanks for sharing the good and the bad. Helps those of us newer to the hobby.
Hannah Checker for Alkalinity - it's $70 for the checker with a month of daily tests. Then it's $15 per month for daily month of tests, or 3-4 months with weekly testing. It's extremely precise and affordable
My Hanna Alk tester was WAY OFF. I thought my Neptune Trident was way off, but in reality, the Trident was perfect and the Hanna off. Must have received some bad reagent. The Trident was reading 10.5 and the Hanna was reading 8.3.
I hope you sell those grey reef fam shirts! I would be down to buy one. They look awesome and would give my fiance a good laugh haha. Side note on alk, I just recently started dosing All for Reef by tropic marine to increase my alk and my torches have looked much better ever since!
Do your sps especially acros grow or look better at lower alk (7-8 dKH)? I was told you need to keep high dKH for growth. I always keep mine 9-10, and I know some people who even keep it at 11.
When I started my fluval 13.5 Using tropic marine pro salt. My alk was about 6-7. I been using polyp lab one and the alk is now stabled around 9.5-10. Is that too high?
Hello there! I know this video is 6 months old but I was searching your videos on dosing alkalinity. I have a 75 gallon frag tank mostly softies. However I am having trouble getting my alklinity up. It’s at a 4 and I’ve been dosing Red-Sea Alk and it’s not moving. I’ve been adding it to my sump but I also have a protein skimmer so I feel it’s not working. Do I add it directly to the tank? Corals look good but it’s making me nervous. Please help! Do I dose into sump where my skimmer is or do I pour it in another section of my sump? I have a Bashsea System.
Great infor as always but ok now I'm confused ! March you have all the electronics hooked up to your main coral system correct? If so and these systems are doing the checking of the alk why would you turn off the doser? Should the system test and look at the numbers and say "oh wait a min the number for alk is good and I don't need to turn one that dose pump". Wait how ever long you have it programed for and check again? Is this the way it should work? Also does the system not text you if there is a problem? And if this is not the case why have the electronics at all?
March do you think you can do a video on the random flow nozzle for the fluval 13.5. Planning a purchase but don't see any review before and after install of those nozzles... or maybe I haven't fallen down the rabbit hole enough 🤔
Do you still do great sales on Boxing Day vs Black Friday? Over the years I have seen that most of the sales are on Black Friday and practically nothing for Boxing Day. Kind of a bummer in my mind as I just like that feeling of Boxing Day sales but looks like the industry is moving in that direction.
I love the trident but not only is the cost high up front, it takes about $400 a year to run it due to the testing solution. And you still have to test nitrate and phosphate manually. Still, it’s great piece of mind if you are keeping a lot of expensive or rare corals.
Although I partially agree with you on keeping a high Mg, I try to keep mine around 1500 ppm, and it does help buffer my alkalinity and calcium from "fighting" with each other, just like everything, there is an upper limit. Once you start going above 2000 ppm, your invertebrates will start to stress out and die off at that levels. Just didn't want someone hearing that and start dumping tons of Mg into their tank without testing it.
Wish I had ur store for a local lfs. Mine is just “okay” and the local pet store is horrendous but sometimes gets big beautiful (guessing wild caught) corals for cheap. Never bought them though.
Given you use RS CP salt with high alk but shoot for 8, are there not alk swings after water changes? Isn’t the common recommendation to maintain params close to the salt you use?
For some reason my Red Sea blue bucket was mixing around 1550-1600ppm magnesium. Second bucket that has had it but I’m not complaining because everything is happy.
I'm curious about that. How do you manage crazy salinity and Alk swings in a large display system were you're always taking bags of water out? Evaporation is straight forward in a closed system. But, yours is far less closed than an isolated hobby tank. Then if it has a RO top off, it dilutes it. because you're constantly pulling salt water out rather than just replacing evaporation. So an ATO would replace salt water with fresh... It just seems like a headache. Boxing day certainly exacerbated that problem set for you. But, how is it normally managed?
I have a friend that maintain only 4dkh on his tank. Its an sps dominated. Dont know how all the corals survive. But I think its the stability that matters most. BTW black/gray is my vote. 😁
My system runs on 6.2dkh, 6.6max. Tried raising it but it will return back to 6 so just maintain it there with no issues. Also i get beautiful colour and good growth too.😁
If your Alk returns to 6, that's because the SPS is using it daily. You can never get it to 6, 7, or 8 and it just stays without dosing. I'm a heavy SPS system, you'll have to dose Alk, Cal, and possibly mag daily. But in short, it will never be close to a stable number unless you have a FOWLR system.
So I now have a few tanks. Not sure what’s the problem. My alk is 11.4 & 12.3 How do I safely lower. Water changes don’t seam to do it. I use instant ocean reef salt. Please help immediately
Instead of turning it off, just program your doser to half of your daily dose. That way the swing up or down isn’t significant. Especially when you don’t know your new consumption will be when pulling all those corals out the system.
Having trouble raising my alk. My magnesium is at 1200! OOOPs! lol. Could that be why? Found out my hanna checker alk has been giving me false high readings! Long story as to what happened!
I wish all reef stores stopped having so low alk in general...all are 7-8DKH meanwhile almost all reefers with updated information keep it at 9DKH with 8,3PH. Doesnt Apex alert you when your KH is out of line? I was under the impression Trident changes the dose by itself after testing i guess i was wrong lol.
Im having issues keeping my Alk stable 🥺 I have a few lps coral and one sps coral and some soft coral. Do I need to dose at all or are weekly water changed good for now?
What drunk driver suggested, I've been dripping saturated kalk with a continuous doser which also aides in my water evaporation as well. The benefits of using kalkwasser, it helps boosts your pH while maintaining your alk and calcium level.
@@fox13393 I'm using the Kamoer X1 PRO T Stepper Pump. The main thing try to figure out your daily alk consumption by testing a few days in a row. Once you've figure that out start of slow with kalk by mixing 1 teaspoon per 1 gallon of RODI and let it settle for an hour. Once you've done so you want to ensure the input tube that draws the kalk does not draw in any of the sediment by leaving it a couple inches above the bottom of the container. Monitor your parameters and salinty and adjust accordingly.
@Ghost Frags hmm I have moved it 3 times and it haven’t even attempted to open. The flow I have doesn’t seem to be that strong it’s just not random. And it’s not directly facing the Goni.
i found out today that my salinity on all of my tanks was at 30ppt due to a refractometer that was clearly not calibrated. So I went ahead and did a rookie mistake and raised my dkh by switching salts from fritz to coral pro and it raised salinity from 30ppt to 32.5ppt and my dkh from 8.8 to 10.4, now i'm nervous to see the damage that awaits. I really hope that my corals survive this ordeal.
Had something similar, except it was brand new solution (probably checker some how got out of whack... don't think you can calibrate it either 😒) except instead of 11, it was closer to 3.8... As a result, I don't trust Hanna checkers anymore, true I should have periodically checked it for calibration with a solution standard... or I can use a test kit where you simply look for a visual color shift and don't just trust the number that pops up on the screen
Really begs to question with such a huge system, that is all connect, one that literally is your livelihood (part of it at least) why don't you have one of the auto-alk checkers on the market? Trident, KHG, etc? The argument for the home aquarist is that they spend thousands on corals you don't want to flush that money down the drain so monitor your tank, well thousands on corals in a single order for you and you need to flip those corals to make money, so yeah... why not? I'm sure you could write it off as a business expense (not sure how Canadian taxes work) AND only have to pay the wholesale cost for one.
I have a Trident. There is a +/- for error on the Trident. There is also a +/- on the hanna tester. Oddly enough, I believe they are erroring in the opposite direction of eachother. For example, Trident reads 7.75 and hanna reads 8.9.
Happy one year Fragbox. Can’t wait to see what the next year holds for not only the store but the channel as well. Love the vids, can’t stop watching
Loving these parameter and coral care videos March! Mate I could watch your videos for many more years! Just wish I lived in Canada so I could buy some corals off you guys, but massive thanks so far REEF FAM and massive shout out to you guys from New Zealand 🇳🇿
Really like how friendly and inviting you make the channel, store, and hobby feel. Great videos and beautiful corals!
Love the honesty as always. Thank you. Makes me feel better to see a pro makes the odd mistake here and there and not just us newbies! And p.s. Please sell the darn shirts cuz I want one!!!
I had 900 mag last month. I watched your videos and raised it... Hammers and torches look great now!
Learned a lot with your videos, keep up the good work
Love the shop makes me want to start my own coral and fish shop! To have a shop full of coral and reef gear is literally living the dream!!
Amazing video and I love your personality! ❤
Thank you for the useful information I will definitely consider the high magnesium when my aqua scape is complete and dosing system arrives. Lovely corals man keep it up 👍🏻
I really love your videos and I wish you were closer, so I could come to your store.
Love those merch, I am gonna get one of those reef fam sweatshirts. Great vid as always, very entertaining and informative.
Canada is so lucky to have you!!! Wish you were in CA!
Love the channel March. The merch looks good too. Keep it up. Hi Tia 😊
Damn. You got this bro!
The March's Merch grey longsleeve shirt looks great! I prefer the less flashy, smaller text Reef Fam as well.
Great video👍👍
Cool shirts !
I like that You speak español. As a mexican,You are My familia bro.
I actually wondered if that big sale and all the water for the bags would affect things. Does salinity change noticeably too? Wow.
And then oh no, the doser off too!
Thanks for sharing the good and the bad. Helps those of us newer to the hobby.
Was going to comment the same about salinity dropping or rising also.
Hannah Checker for Alkalinity - it's $70 for the checker with a month of daily tests. Then it's $15 per month for daily month of tests, or 3-4 months with weekly testing. It's extremely precise and affordable
My Hanna Alk tester was WAY OFF. I thought my Neptune Trident was way off, but in reality, the Trident was perfect and the Hanna off. Must have received some bad reagent. The Trident was reading 10.5 and the Hanna was reading 8.3.
I hope you sell those grey reef fam shirts! I would be down to buy one. They look awesome and would give my fiance a good laugh haha. Side note on alk, I just recently started dosing All for Reef by tropic marine to increase my alk and my torches have looked much better ever since!
Thanks for sharing.
Very good videos
Reef fam towels would be awesome, for those of us who are a little messy during water change day haha
Do your sps especially acros grow or look better at lower alk (7-8 dKH)? I was told you need to keep high dKH for growth. I always keep mine 9-10, and I know some people who even keep it at 11.
KH Keeper plus for the win
What is the best way to reduce alkalinity if you're using an all in one like Tropic Marin?
When I started my fluval 13.5
Using tropic marine pro salt. My alk was about 6-7. I been using polyp lab one and the alk is now stabled around 9.5-10. Is that too high?
Great video I have a question if a person in America came to Canada and bought a coral how would they get it back to America with them
I've been using Hanna for calcium and I HATE it. Which test do you recommend for calcium and Alkalinity??
Hello there! I know this video is 6 months old but I was searching your videos on dosing alkalinity. I have a 75 gallon frag tank mostly softies. However I am having trouble getting my alklinity up. It’s at a 4 and I’ve been dosing Red-Sea Alk and it’s not moving. I’ve been adding it to my sump but I also have a protein skimmer so I feel it’s not working. Do I add it directly to the tank? Corals look good but it’s making me nervous. Please help! Do I dose into sump where my skimmer is or do I pour it in another section of my sump? I have a Bashsea System.
what salt brand do you use, what is your alkalinity when freshly mixing salt and how much do you need to compensate to get it to 8 dKh?
If you’re using RS Coral Pro salt it mixes to 11.5-12dkh , how do you lower it to 8 if that is recommended ?
Can you talk about kalkwasser and what you recommend dosing along with it
Great infor as always but ok now I'm confused ! March you have all the electronics hooked up to your main coral system correct? If so and these systems are doing the checking of the alk why would you turn off the doser? Should the system test and look at the numbers and say "oh wait a min the number for alk is good and I don't need to turn one that dose pump". Wait how ever long you have it programed for and check again? Is this the way it should work? Also does the system not text you if there is a problem? And if this is not the case why have the electronics at all?
March do you think you can do a video on the random flow nozzle for the fluval 13.5. Planning a purchase but don't see any review before and after install of those nozzles... or maybe I haven't fallen down the rabbit hole enough 🤔
Do you still do great sales on Boxing Day vs Black Friday? Over the years I have seen that most of the sales are on Black Friday and practically nothing for Boxing Day. Kind of a bummer in my mind as I just like that feeling of Boxing Day sales but looks like the industry is moving in that direction.
I love the trident but not only is the cost high up front, it takes about $400 a year to run it due to the testing solution. And you still have to test nitrate and phosphate manually. Still, it’s great piece of mind if you are keeping a lot of expensive or rare corals.
You can make DIY alk solution
Although I partially agree with you on keeping a high Mg, I try to keep mine around 1500 ppm, and it does help buffer my alkalinity and calcium from "fighting" with each other, just like everything, there is an upper limit. Once you start going above 2000 ppm, your invertebrates will start to stress out and die off at that levels. Just didn't want someone hearing that and start dumping tons of Mg into their tank without testing it.
Doesn't the Trident adjust the dosing from its readings?
Wish I had ur store for a local lfs. Mine is just “okay” and the local pet store is horrendous but sometimes gets big beautiful (guessing wild caught) corals for cheap. Never bought them though.
Given you use RS CP salt with high alk but shoot for 8, are there not alk swings after water changes? Isn’t the common recommendation to maintain params close to the salt you use?
Alot of people dont do water changes anymore
For some reason my Red Sea blue bucket was mixing around 1550-1600ppm magnesium. Second bucket that has had it but I’m not complaining because everything is happy.
I would love to see a T-shirt with Digs face on it
I know this is a reef related channel but can we have an entire of episode of just Diggz? 😍🥰
If my dkh went from 9.6 to 11.6, what should I do? Water is very cloudy; gsp and Zoas r still opening
“Omicron what ever cron we are on” , that made me laugh so hard because that is exactly how I feel.
Good thing you caught it with minimal loss could have been much worse I imagine.
Would you reccomend the salifert test as a "backup" for my trident?
No.
Use the Hanna digital one.
I'm curious about that. How do you manage crazy salinity and Alk swings in a large display system were you're always taking bags of water out?
Evaporation is straight forward in a closed system. But, yours is far less closed than an isolated hobby tank.
Then if it has a RO top off, it dilutes it. because you're constantly pulling salt water out rather than just replacing evaporation. So an ATO would replace salt water with fresh...
It just seems like a headache.
Boxing day certainly exacerbated that problem set for you. But, how is it normally managed?
I'm also curious
ATO with SW in it for daily operations...RO at night? Idk just guessing
Following too
I have a friend that maintain only 4dkh on his tank. Its an sps dominated. Dont know how all the corals survive. But I think its the stability that matters most. BTW black/gray is my vote. 😁
My system runs on 6.2dkh, 6.6max.
Tried raising it but it will return back to 6 so just maintain it there with no issues. Also i get beautiful colour and good growth too.😁
If your Alk returns to 6, that's because the SPS is using it daily. You can never get it to 6, 7, or 8 and it just stays without dosing. I'm a heavy SPS system, you'll have to dose Alk, Cal, and possibly mag daily. But in short, it will never be close to a stable number unless you have a FOWLR system.
So I now have a few tanks. Not sure what’s the problem. My alk is 11.4 & 12.3
How do I safely lower. Water changes don’t seam to do it. I use instant ocean reef salt. Please help immediately
My alk. is high I did a water change it came down 1 …so is there anything else I can do?
Give us a t-shirt with Mr Digs on it!
I’m LOVING the long sleeve grey (is it grey or is it gray?😜) t-shirt.
Does Marco rock and salt add alkalinity as my normal ph is 7.6
Apex Controlled Dosing. You already have the Trident running so it should be relatively easy to implement. Another safeguard anyways.
I like the gray or the black
Surprised you didn't get an alarm from Apex about your Alk.
Instead of turning it off, just program your doser to half of your daily dose. That way the swing up or down isn’t significant. Especially when you don’t know your new consumption will be when pulling all those corals out the system.
Having trouble raising my alk. My magnesium is at 1200! OOOPs! lol. Could that be why? Found out my hanna checker alk has been giving me false high readings! Long story as to what happened!
Will a water change create an alk swing? No joke every time I did a decent water change my lps would look horrible
I wish all reef stores stopped having so low alk in general...all are 7-8DKH meanwhile almost all reefers with updated information keep it at 9DKH with 8,3PH.
Doesnt Apex alert you when your KH is out of line? I was under the impression Trident changes the dose by itself after testing i guess i was wrong lol.
Notification gang!!????
Im having issues keeping my Alk stable 🥺 I have a few lps coral and one sps coral and some soft coral. Do I need to dose at all or are weekly water changed good for now?
You can try dripping kalkwasser at a slow constant rate
What drunk driver suggested, I've been dripping saturated kalk with a continuous doser which also aides in my water evaporation as well. The benefits of using kalkwasser, it helps boosts your pH while maintaining your alk and calcium level.
@@drunkdriver thanks 🙏 I’m fairly new to the hobby only a year of experience. Is their a specific dosing pump I need to use?
@@petert2041 hey Peter Is there a specific doser you recommend?
@@fox13393 I'm using the Kamoer X1 PRO T Stepper Pump. The main thing try to figure out your daily alk consumption by testing a few days in a row. Once you've figure that out start of slow with kalk by mixing 1 teaspoon per 1 gallon of RODI and let it settle for an hour. Once you've done so you want to ensure the input tube that draws the kalk does not draw in any of the sediment by leaving it a couple inches above the bottom of the container. Monitor your parameters and salinty and adjust accordingly.
Where are y’all located at?
"Reef Famiglia" T-shirts
Interesting. Can that make a goniopora unhappy. I picked up a frag almost 1 and a half weeks ago and it refuses to open.
@Ghost Frags hmm I have moved it 3 times and it haven’t even attempted to open. The flow I have doesn’t seem to be that strong it’s just not random. And it’s not directly facing the Goni.
@Ghost Frags ohh ok
i found out today that my salinity on all of my tanks was at 30ppt due to a refractometer that was clearly not calibrated. So I went ahead and did a rookie mistake and raised my dkh by switching salts from fritz to coral pro and it raised salinity from 30ppt to 32.5ppt and my dkh from 8.8 to 10.4, now i'm nervous to see the damage that awaits. I really hope that my corals survive this ordeal.
Well?
First! At least it was only the lps and softie tank a little more forgiving than sps!
My rookie mistake last week was using expired alk solution for my hanna. It was showing 8.2 when it was really over 11 dkh
Had something similar, except it was brand new solution (probably checker some how got out of whack... don't think you can calibrate it either 😒) except instead of 11, it was closer to 3.8... As a result, I don't trust Hanna checkers anymore, true I should have periodically checked it for calibration with a solution standard... or I can use a test kit where you simply look for a visual color shift and don't just trust the number that pops up on the screen
I like the Gray better, white shirts do not last long in my house. :)
Black hoodies
I am wondering why you do not mention the Hanna alk checker - which seems to be highly+ recommended (even by BRS)?
Nooo Digs is immortal 😇
Do u also sens to the netherlands :p
Really begs to question with such a huge system, that is all connect, one that literally is your livelihood (part of it at least) why don't you have one of the auto-alk checkers on the market? Trident, KHG, etc? The argument for the home aquarist is that they spend thousands on corals you don't want to flush that money down the drain so monitor your tank, well thousands on corals in a single order for you and you need to flip those corals to make money, so yeah... why not? I'm sure you could write it off as a business expense (not sure how Canadian taxes work) AND only have to pay the wholesale cost for one.
You really won’t know how much damage you cause with that swing for a month or so hopefully everything will be fine.
Just tested my Magnesium...1020 😞
You did not show your sump.
2k for trident? it's a steal... buy mastertronic for 1,5k and it's also measure no3 I po4 without any main device just connect to a wifi
1052 on my mag lol can I go on the wall :) my Goni not happy but my hammer still happy lol
hi
Why not just put a Trident on the system 😁
I have a Trident. There is a +/- for error on the Trident. There is also a +/- on the hanna tester. Oddly enough, I believe they are erroring in the opposite direction of eachother. For example, Trident reads 7.75 and hanna reads 8.9.
@@strat1960s I always have a .3 difference between the Trident and Hanna
Shit dude you run apex everywhere why aren't you using the trident auto dos feature
Why the hell u have a controller
I test KH with salifert and then with hanna kit… salifert is never right….
Dkh are not even real SCIENTIFIC units, the real question is wtf is what CHEMICALS is is precipitating in the reaction.
I don't actually care anything about corals. I only watch for Mr digs content.......
J/k .... but not really...
Who cares what UA-cam says.