Chem Help

THANK YOU everyone, I appreciate all of your feedback and Im just glad nothing perished while learning this lesson.

Ironically enough, there were 4 fish and a Star in the tank when I got it. The previous owner encouraged me to keep them because them because he paid $70 for the fish. I took them back to the Hidden Reef (LFS) and they gave me $15 for them! Yea, I lost out, but it might have saved their lives.

So I guess you can I saw this coming.

I just got home today with the RO and the Elegance and Leather are both opened up BIG! They look happy!

Real quick - can someone address phosphates for me?? Thanks!

 

Ok, so I did a 4 gallon water change not adding ANY supplements, just the Tropic Marin salt.

Values:

Temp: 79
PH: 8.2
SG: 1.024
Amm/Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: <5
Calcium: 340
Kh: 14
Phosphates: 6-7

Ok, so reviewing, I raised the SG a little (it feels like the only thing I have control over!!!!) My PH dropped from 8.8 to 8.2. My Calcium dropped from 380 to 340. The Kh also dropped from 22 to 14. The phosphates only dropped by 1 or 2.

So what does this tell you? It looks to me like I will need a Calcium supplement that doesn't jack-up my Kh. And I think I need a phosphate removal supplement.

The reason I say this is because I haven't even added fish or coral yet. Once I do, my phosphates will only increase and my calcium will only be further depleted.

What do you think? How long should I wait before I take corrective measures??

 

What is your Mg at?

 

Personally I would wait out the ALK problem. Do Nothing. except normal water changes. The ALK will slowly drop to normal levels. Yes your CA will also drop but not enough to worry about. No harm can happen with Low CA.

Tropic Marin is Great Salt and mixes perfect and consistent at a SG of 1.026. You might want to slowly raise it up.

J

 

I am not testing mg. Should I be?

Today's values:

Calcium fell to 320.
Kh - 14-15
Phosphates still at 7-8.

Phosphates is the one concening me because it didn't move when I changed the water.

Moreover, the phosphate --> unwanted algae correlation is ringing true all over the back of my tank. So I added a small cleanup crew to eat the algae.

Anyway, if someone can address the phosphate problem, I would appreciate it. Im going to let Calc/Alk thing play itself out, but I would like to do something proactive to lower the phosphates if I can.

Here are a couple pics btw so you can see how everything is doing. Im so proud I didn't the elegance during the move! She's amazing..

 

So you know what you ae looking at, the pic on the right is the elegance after 6 hours of light. The pic on the left is the same elegance 9 minutes after the light was out.

It is absolutely amazing how she responds to the light. In the pic on the far left, she looks like a totally different coral.

How do the zoos look?

 

I take it that you did not read the article that I gave you a link too earlier. Mg, ALK, and Ca are a close nit family of chemicals that effect each other. After you read the article, you tell me if you should be testing Mg.

 

Otty -

Thanks for responding.

I will earn my Masters Degree in English at the end of the semester. So I don't have any reading comprehension problem per se. But when the language is THIS ESOTERIC, you can not go to the next paragraph. For example:

"What this zone implies is that both calcium and alkalinity are elevated, and that by removing calcium carbonate from the water, either through biotic deposition into coral skeletons or coralline algae, or through abiotic precipitation, as on heaters, the levels of each will drop in an appropriate ratio."

I appreciate your desire to have me earn the knowledge instead of just feeding it to me, I really do. But I'll be honest, a lot of this verbiage was way over my head.

Im taking a "hands-off-the-aquarium" approach to getting my water parameters right. Instead of dumping in chemicals, Im trying to learn. But maybe I need something a little more basic??

So anyway, it sounds like you are saying that if there is insufficient levels of magnesium, then it will be impossible to keep sufficient levels of calcium. Which is why even though my Alk was flying through the roof, I was unable to get the Calc to move with it. So what I need to do is fix my Mg problem and calc will fix itself by simply using RO and the quality salt I use.

Now if only I could understand why the phosphates wont decrease with water changes, I would be happy. And I have read 5-7 articles on "How Phosphates Enter Your Aquarium," and "How to Rid Yourself of Phosphates." And in the end, they all say, "But this product."

This is frustrating.

Anyway, I did try to read your article but I didn't understand it.

Thanks anyway

 

Phosphates usually come from your source water so you should test your water you use for water changes. Before you add salt.

There are commercial phosphate removal media you can purchase. Really this is the only way to remove it. Other than through Algae growth.
Once you are running a Phosphate sponge of some sort, you should ensure the source has been found and removed
The best phosphate media I have used is a 2 little fishes phosban reactor with Rowaphos


J

 

I find the major cause of PO4 is food and over feeding . Especially frozen meaty foods Take a cube of somthing frozen and dissolve it in Distilled water then test the water it dissolved in . All I ever saw was loaded and also live plankton..full of them unless it was removed .