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My Xenia, paly and GSP ain't looking right.

C

Carlo

I'm not sure what you are trying to test?

You can test tank water or freshly made up salt water (best to wait 24hrs) and get a valid test result. If that wasn't what you were asking then can you explain what the "test" water is?

Carlo
 
blange3

blange3

The water to be tested goes in the vial first. This is how you know you have the proper sample size.

Then you add the testing reagents per the instructions.
 
S

saltwater4life

Ok i'm confused now... Let me try and say this again. My vail is 5ml but the test kit needs 10ml right?
So if i fill it up to 5ml twice and put it in a bottle? then after i mix it all up fill the vail back up with 5ml. understand? since my vail can't hold 10ml the water bottle can. i just fill the vail back up with 5ml to look at the color chart.
 
blange3

blange3

Sorry,

Lost track of the vial size problem a few days ago.

The answer is, it depends. If the 5ml vial is about the same width and depth, or diameter if round, as the standard one for the kit, then it would work. Otherwise the color could be off.

A new alk kit with all the components should be easy to find in an LFS and not to expensive. I would bite the bullet and buy a new one and get some peace of mind.

By the way, how do the corals look??
 
S

saltwater4life

No problem,
The only thing that still is the same is the paly zoa's... The GSP are opening up more and the Xenia are back to semi normal :eek:
I emailed the Red Sea place and they said they shipped a vial out for me on Friday? so i should be getting it hopefully tomorrow...
 
C

Carlo

I got what you saying. After doing th test in the bottle fill the vial up as far as possible to the top without spilling. That will be around 9ml or so.

Then look down through the vial and compare that to the card. Doing it this way is plenty close enough and I doubt would show any noticable difference then using the "proper" vial.

Carlo
 
C

Carlo

You're on the low side with 3.92 to 5.6 dKH.

Do you have a buffer product on hand? Have any baking soda (not powder) or washing soda in the house?

What is your current pH and how much water do you have in the tank?

With that info we can get you back in shape.

Carlo
 
S

saltwater4life

I used both my Red Sea and API to test the PH. I tried the Red Sea first but you gotta hold it 20cm away and it's hard to tell from that far because you see the chart inside the vial... so it was hard to tell.

API shows about 8.2
Red Sea shows about 8.4
 
C

Carlo

Close enough. Let's call it 8.3.

That's a good number. Could be a tad higher but many will disagree with me and say that's a good number. I shoot for 8.5-8.6 during the day while others would say 8.4 during the day is good.

Either way, we want to try and raise alk without touching the pH much at all. For the sake of this I'm going to assume your at the high end (for now) of your alk range and will use 5.6 dKH so we don't overshoot. We're going to setup up the alk in batches so we'll be testing again...

Again so we don't overshoot for now we're going to shoot for 9 dKH and adjust later after we get back in better shape based on what your corals look like and what you want your target alk to be (IE 9 dKH to 11 dKH) etc...

To raise your alk from 5.6dKH to 9dKH you will need to dose approximately 2 teaspoons of baking soda. This will lower your pH temporarily but not much. It will rebound after 24-48 hours anyway. It will not spike but may go down to 8.2. Nothing to worry about. Note we are only going to use a half dose and step up your alk in steps.

So make a trip to your local grocery store and pick up a box of Arm and Hammer baking soda (not powder). Mix up one teaspoon with some RO/DI water until it's mixed well. Since you're on the small size volume wise I'd advice pouring this into your sump/tank slowly over the course of an hour or two (no shocking the system).

Wait 24 hours after dosing and run your pH and alk test again and post the numbers. We'll adjust again from there. It can take 48 hours to get normalized pH and alk readings after dosing baking soda but since we are not shooting for the top end all at once this won't matter to us in the first couple of steps. Once we get to 9dKH we'll wait 48 hours between doses.

So 1 teaspoon of baking soda in some RO/DI water added to the tank over 1 or two hours then wait a day and post new numbers.

Carlo
 
S

saltwater4life

The baking soda is in a powder form right? just not baking powder. Well I'm about to go do my top off I'll add half of the dose and Tuesday i guess i'll post what i get
 
C

Carlo

Yep powder. Remember don't dose it all at once but a little at a time or dripped. No chance for a drastic pH change that way.

Carlo
 
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