Neptune Aquatics

2 Questions

70Cuda

70Cuda

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Hi hi ~smile it was so awsome to put some faces to everyone at BAYMAC. Came away with some really nice things, very excited. Everything got home great and looks great. I decided to test my water today and got the following readings. These reading are before my water change, i wanted to test right before i change the water to get a better feeling of how the tank is doing.

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0 well maybe next level so slight was the color
calcium 480 that seemed a little hight to me is this bad
dk 130 that also seemed high
ph 8.1 that is ok i think
mg 1250


Here goes my questions, the ca reactor still isnt up so why is my cal so high i tested it three times to be sure. The dk pamphlet says normal alk is between 105 and 125 which means the tank has high alk at 130. The ph is a little low but im going to contribute that to the high calcium. Why are there nitrates ( slightly detectable ) but no nitrites, doesnt nitrite lead to nitrate.

iono... maybe i should add some reef buffer, was thinking of that..
 
What kind of salt are you using and how often has it been since your last water change? Are you dosing anything? What brand of test kits?
 
130ppm is between 7 and 8dkh so that is not high.

I am not very good in explaining about the nitrate-nitrite but I am sure that someone else can do that. You can have nitrates without nitrites, I believe nitrates change to nitrites but I always hated chemistry ;D I honestly only check salinity, calcium, alkalinity, ph, nitrates and magnesium (magnesium about once a month).

Isn't your tank FOWLR? I would assume there is no coral to take up calcium, just coralline would take up some.

PH is ok at 8.1.

I am sure more people will jump in and correct me if I am wrong or give you a much better explanation.
 
I can answer some of those questions... Your pH is just fine. According to Randy Holmes-Farley, acceptable pH ranges are 7.5 to 8.5 with natural seawater being 8.2. The higher your pH the easier it is for calcifying organisms to build up and grow. Your nitrates are fine. Yes Nitrites do lead to nitrates and if you have enough nitrifying bacteria in your water, you should not detect any nitrites as they quickly change to nitrates. Nitrates do not convert to anything else and so will build up in the water.

I would not add any buffer to your water. your buffer is related to dk and if you add buffer, your dk level will increase, so will your pH. Your calcium has nothing to do with pH. pH is influenced by the alkalinity and CO2 present in the water and only those. Water changes will not effect your pH, but only by the alkalinity and CO2 present in the new water going in.

When you begin to run your calcium reactor, you will affect your pH, but only because you are adding CO2 as you "melt" your calcium and that is all. Its all CO2 and alkalinity related.

Have your been adding calcium and alkalinity suppliments?
 
not adding any supplements at the time. Bought a 200 gal pail of red sea salt, using that changed about 20 - 25 gallons 3 - 4 days ago. My tank is not fowlr, there are some sps, chalice, lots of rics and yumas, lots of frogspawn, lots of anemoes, 3 bubble corals, various mushrooms and zoas. Oh and gsp everywhere like overgrown grass. Also some type of hammer, three types of blastomussa, small gonopora. Cant forget the frags picked up at BAYMAC. The sps purple thingie loves the 400w halide he was happy right away same with everything else. the encrusting Orange with green kinda faded, maybe he doesnt like low spot i put him in. I eventually will supplement if i have too why i was checking water parameters.
 
Have you been testing lower until now and not supplmenting? If so, it may just be a bad or outdated test kit. Maybe you can have another member test your water. I wouldn't think it could go up on its own. It should just drift downward with not supplementing as corals use it.

I use a Hagen test kit for my calcium and I havent had an issue with mine yet. I don't know enough about red sea salt to know if it runs high. If your test kit is fine, then you can always test the new water you are making to see if it is high also.

Your magnesium is possibly a little low. I have been reading that 1300 to 1500ppm is a good range, so you might want to raise that a bit.
 
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