What do I need to better my parameters

[PrettyBoy]

Just did a 20% water change last night and just tested everthing right now, obviously some things need to be adjusted.

temp 78.6*F
PH 8.3
Alk 1.7-2.8 (it was darker in the color range so im going to say it was probably 2.5ish)
Calcium 300
Nitrate 5.0
Phos .1

calcium needs to come up, nitrates need to go down. I started dosing with B-ionic 2 weeks ago but took this week off because ph and alk where way to high. Im thinking the nitrate might be because one of my big tangs is no where to be found so I am thinking he might have died and his buried in all of the caves in my LR.

 

[PrettyBoy]

forgot to add magnesium was 1200

 

[vangvace]

What brand salt do you use?

You don't necessarily have to dose both parts of the two parts. If only Ca needs to be bumped up then you only need to dose that. Below is a link to figure out what you need to get your levels to where you want them.
http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

Just don't dose it all at once.

I wouldn't worry at this time about have a 5 for nitrates. I' wouldn't want it to go higher though either. You may very well be right about the tang.

 

[DaveK]

As mentioned, the brand of salt can have a lot to do with this.

Also, are you keeping up with water changes? A typical water change schedule would be 10% per week or 25% per month. If things are way out, it could be a lot more.

It's also important to check the parameters of newly mixed salt water. Obviously, if something is out there, it's not going to get higher once you use it. If something is way out, and your are sure your test kit s good, it may be time to switch salt brands.

Generally water parameters need to be adjusted from the "top down" to get them right. For example if your SG is low, say 1.020, and your calcium reading is also low, say 300, there isn't much point in adjusting calcium until you get the SG up.

Lastly, your livestock is often a much better measure of water quality than any test kit. If it's all thriving, and doing well, you should think twice before messing with any water parameters. You must be doing something right.

 

[pgordemer]

CA and ALK are chicken an egg problems, but you can't really keep CA at any high level until you bring up the Magnesium.

Get the MAG up to around 1350-1450, then bring up the CA.

Keep in mind MOST reefers have it backwards, they aim for a CA #, then keep fiddling with ALK. Assuming you have MAG up to normal and INITIALLY have CA at a starting #, then only concentrate on keeping the ALK constant, the CA and PH over time will setting into a matched # with ALK. (by doesing equal parts of 2 part solution.)

2 good balanced CA/ALK pairings are 420 CA / 9 DKH and 450 CA / 10 DKH.

 

[pnoyreefer]

What are you dosing for 2 part? Hand, Doser or Ca reactor?...

 

[PrettyBoy]

everything so far I was dosing with a syringe... Im in the market for a calc reactor right now, asked a few people about dosers and they said dosing with a syringe would be fine ???

 

[pgordemer]

everything so far I was dosing with a syringe... Im in the market for a calc reactor right now, asked a few people about dosers and they said dosing with a syringe would be fine ???

Unless you are at 180 gallons or more, then you can save signifcant money with 2 part over calcium reactor(and then all the other things that go along with Reactor, like low PH, so adding a Kalk reactor).

You can automate the process for a responsble cost by using a dosing pump that has 2 outlets, then just dial in the amount per 24 hours (even better precision if you have a Controller like a Neptune Aquacontroller 3 or jr.)

Here is another thread where I have links to the dosing pump I use. and for 120 gallons of water, minus the cost of the pump, I only spent $79 for the year on CA and ALK. (your mileage will vary) http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=11365.0

 

[PrettyBoy]

everything so far I was dosing with a syringe... Im in the market for a calc reactor right now, asked a few people about dosers and they said dosing with a syringe would be fine ???

Unless you are at 180 gallons or more, then you can save signifcant money with 2 part over calcium reactor(and then all the other things that go along with Reactor, like low PH, so adding a Kalk reactor).

You can automate the process for a responsble cost by using a dosing pump that has 2 outlets, then just dial in the amount per 24 hours (even better precision if you have a Controller like a Neptune Aquacontroller 3 or jr.)

Here is another thread where I have links to the dosing pump I use. and for 120 gallons of water, minus the cost of the pump, I only spent $79 for the year on CA and ALK. (your mileage will vary) http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=11365.0

Im at 180 already with just the tank, not including sump so what should I be doing for that? Youre saying calc reactor for 180 and up?

 

[pgordemer]

Im at 180 already with just the tank, not including sump so what should I be doing for that? Youre saying calc reactor for 180 and up?

Its based entire on the amount of CA consumed in the tank. If it was a stocked SPS tank, then you would have to use a CA reactor, if its mostly LPS, then either works.

Let some of the 180 folks chime in here.

 

[hayabusa2003]

Lastly, your livestock is often a much better measure of water quality than any test kit. If it's all thriving, and doing well, you should think twice before messing with any water parameters. You must be doing something right.

This is a great comment, but hard for newer hobbiests to practice because we don't have the experience to correlate a symptom with the appropriate cause. It would be great if an experienced reefer could start a thread that lists what we can observe,what could be the likely causes, and then appropriate remedies. For example, before I new anything about checking calcium/alkalinity, I did observe that the few SPS corals I had grew slowly, and tend to be very brittle. After I adjusted these values, I notice the corals grow thicker, relatively quicker, and harder to break. Also, when polyps don't extend, check for red-bugs, too much direct flow, ... etc. I also noticed that the blue color in my corals weren't vibrant, although purple and green looked great. Adding some potassium helped with the blue coloration. (Checking water parameters shouldn't have to be stated, that's the first thing we should always check).

A thread like that would be really helpful, especially for those of us that just sit and stare at our tanks for hours, at least now have something to look for It would also help clear up misconceptions, like does calcium level really play a part in coral coloration? some people say it does, others say it's only for skeletal growth. I tend to believe the latter, but I don't know for sure.

 

[mfisher2112]

I would certainly recomend testing newly mixed water and concentrating on water changes first.

It's so much simpler if you can manage the process with water changes than beginning to get mixed up in dosing this to raise this, which lowers that and requires dosing something else to raise that. Water changes will also help you reset your "base line" and determine whether you need to dose something after that. I would hope most experienced reefers here would agree that we really don't want to start dosing alot of different things until we have a stable tank in the first place. Dosing could be just masking a larger problem if you don't have a good baseline to go from.

First: What is your salinity testing at, and with what testing aparatus? If you are not using a refractometer, definitely get one and calibrate it with the appropriate calibration solution. Generally you can spend around $50 on one of these, and it is worth twice that on a bad day just for the more accurate salinity readings.

Second: What kind of salt are you using? Keep in mind, if you are mixing specifically by the package directions, note that their mixing forumla is usually for a 1.022 salinity, and we usually want around a 1.026 salinity in our reef tanks. I won't presume to recomend a salt to you, you can surely find plenty of threads that cause near all out "wars" debating the "best salt", however, there are a few out there that most will probably agree aren't worth the money we pay for them. I have found that you don't have to spend a rediculous amount of money on salt to get a "good" salt, but you also don't want to buy the "cheapest" one either. In this hobby, I've learned stubbornly the hard way that you generally do get what you pay for, to a certain point at least.

Mix up a batch of new water and run your battery of tests on that new batch. Make sure that the parameters of the new water are equal to your target numbers. Generally, with most better brands of salt, if your salinity is mixing at 1.026, your calcium, alk, ph and magnesium will test within the ranges others have mentioned here.

It will require several water changes to get everything up to where you want it in the tank, as the new water will mix with the remaining water, and the parameters will balance based on that.

I ran into similar issues with my 90 gallon a while back. What I found was that several water changes over the course of about a month with new salt fixed my problems. I now dose nothing, and my parameters stay fairly level. BUT, I also don't keep a number of corals in the tank that consume one thing or another faster than the water changes can replenish it. If that were the case, dosing appropriate chemicals would probably be required.

As a side note, I wouldn't be too concerned about the nitrate level either. The water changes should most definitely take care of that. However, if you have a decomposing body in the tank, you might want to make an ammonia/nitrite test real quick just to be sure it isn't causing any issues. It shouldn't with that much water volume, but better safe than sorry. The nitrate level you are reading might be an end result. I know in my 90, if something dies, it usually "disappears into the reef" pretty quickly, and doesn't whack my parameters at all.

At any rate, record your parameters at every water change. When I went through this, I tested the tank, recorded the paramaters, mixed up the new water and tested those paramters, then a few hours after the water change, I tested the tank again. I kept records of these, and it gave me a direction to head in, and showed me what was improving with each water change. It took me about a month to a month and a half to get everything stabilized and get a good baseline stable tank.

I just like to keep everything as simple as possible, with the least amount of margin for error. The hardest thing I had to learn in this hobby was the necessity of "hurry up and wait"! LOL!

I hope some of this helps.