Red Sea test results.

I got my Red Sea test kits in today and just finished all three test. My calcium was at around 500. Alkalinity was 11.8 and Mag was 1520. All are high. Any ideas why ?

 

Are you dosing any products?
What salt mix are you using and how often do you water changes?
Those test directions are important especially the part about what line to draw the testing solutions to and and how to read the syringe for values once you see the color change.

 

Also, what is your SG at and how do you test it? With those #'s, I am betting you are running 1.028 or higher.

 

My SG is 1.025 with the clear plastic tester. I can't for the life of me remember what that thing is called. Lol. I have never dosed anything. I do a 4 gallon WC every Sunday with Red Sea coral pro salt mix. I watched the Red Sea YouTube videos on how to do the test. Even done the cal test twice.

 

On reading the lines on the syringe. The syringe has 1 ml on it which is basically 100 marks. I count how many marks I'm down to when I get the desired color. IE if I'm down to the 20th mark then I've used .80. So I find .80 on the chart and that's my number. That's how I'm doing it.

 

the red sea coral pro runs pretty high I'm not surprised if you have a alow-average coral load.

 

You do not fill the syringe to 1.0 ml though, that was the mistake I was making when I first got the kit. Is it the Red Sea Pro kit or each individual test kit?

 

Yeah you can only actually fill it to about .85 because the rest is in the tip. I push it down until the bottom of the black piece on the plunger is on 1 ml but the liguid is around .80. I had trouble understanding that at first until I realized that the other .20 is in the colored tip. It's the kit with all three in the same box.

 

Hydrometer. Get a refractometer and some 35ppt solution. I am still betting you are higher than 1.025. Or at least bring a sample to your LFS to test.

 

At the moment I have a Kenya tree that's about 6 inches tall when out all the way. A rock with about 100 radioactive dragon eyes on it. A small rock of pulsing Xenia. A frogspawn about tennis ball size when all out and 8 small SPS frags. And a patch of GSP about 4 or 5 inches long on another rock.