Reef Boi Rich
Community Member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2019
- Messages
- 35
- Reaction score
- 5
- Location
- Portland
- What state or country do you live in
- Oregon
Hi,
This is my first reef tank and it's about 5 months old. It's been about 3.5 months since I first put fish/coral in. I think I've made a mistake regarding keeping stable parameters. When I first started out, I didn't monitor alkalinity/calcium/magnesium very closely, thinking that water changes could replenish those. When I did start monitoring and dosing for those parameters, I kept alkalinity close to ~8.5 dKH and calcium around 410 ppm and didn't really pay attention to magnesium.
Anyways, I realized that the salt that I have been using, Red Sea Coral Pro, has parameters closer to 11.8-12.2 dKH, calcium 430-450 ppm, and magnesium 1280-1340 at 1.023 specific gravity. So that means that every time I do a water change, it'll result in a sizable swing in water parameters. My most recent parameters measured from today are:
Alkalinity: 9.2 dKH
Calcium: 450 ppm
Magnesium: 1440 ppm
Phosphates: ~0 ppm
Nitrates: 0-2 ppm
Salinity: 1.026
I want to adjust my water parameters to match the salt that I currently have so water changes would be more stable. That means alkalinity would be increased pretty significantly. But I also don't want to be "chasing parameters".
My question is, is my plan a good idea? And if so, how should I go about raising alkalinity in a safe way? Is a week too quick to raise alk? Or would a month be better?
Quite a few of my corals aren't very happy right now: goniopora, some zoas, toadstool, stylophora, frogspawn, torch, GSP. I'm afraid that changing my water parameters rapidly would make them even more unhappy but I'm not sure what to do at this point with my salt situation.
This is my first reef tank and it's about 5 months old. It's been about 3.5 months since I first put fish/coral in. I think I've made a mistake regarding keeping stable parameters. When I first started out, I didn't monitor alkalinity/calcium/magnesium very closely, thinking that water changes could replenish those. When I did start monitoring and dosing for those parameters, I kept alkalinity close to ~8.5 dKH and calcium around 410 ppm and didn't really pay attention to magnesium.
Anyways, I realized that the salt that I have been using, Red Sea Coral Pro, has parameters closer to 11.8-12.2 dKH, calcium 430-450 ppm, and magnesium 1280-1340 at 1.023 specific gravity. So that means that every time I do a water change, it'll result in a sizable swing in water parameters. My most recent parameters measured from today are:
Alkalinity: 9.2 dKH
Calcium: 450 ppm
Magnesium: 1440 ppm
Phosphates: ~0 ppm
Nitrates: 0-2 ppm
Salinity: 1.026
I want to adjust my water parameters to match the salt that I currently have so water changes would be more stable. That means alkalinity would be increased pretty significantly. But I also don't want to be "chasing parameters".
My question is, is my plan a good idea? And if so, how should I go about raising alkalinity in a safe way? Is a week too quick to raise alk? Or would a month be better?
Quite a few of my corals aren't very happy right now: goniopora, some zoas, toadstool, stylophora, frogspawn, torch, GSP. I'm afraid that changing my water parameters rapidly would make them even more unhappy but I'm not sure what to do at this point with my salt situation.
