Alk is High, Ideas ?

[AngelFly]

New to reef managment. Had high Nitrates, added refugium

and reactor and brought Nitrates to 0 or close to it. Since then been having additional issues. Been trying to get all my numbers in order. Only number I know outside of range is alk at 4.7 Meg/L or 13.2 dKH. Cal is 500ppm and Mg is 1800 ppm . Salinity was 1.021 raised to 1.024. PH is 8.2, Nitrates and Phosphates at or near 0. I add Iodine but not sure of #. Using Rea Sea Foundation Pro kit which is a little difficult in determining actual results but think numbers are close to these. Could high Alk be reason I'm having difficulty keeping just about anything alive? Lost a number of frags. Have a Zoa and mushroom hanging in there. Other numbers I should check ?

 

[theMeat]

Magnesium is too hi too

Do you use two part or kalk?

 

[Flippers4pups]

New to reef managment. Had high Nitrates, added refugium

and reactor and brought Nitrates to 0 or close to it. Since then been having additional issues. Been trying to get all my numbers in order. Only number I know outside of range is alk at 4.7 Meg/L or 13.2 dKH. Cal is 500ppm and Mg is 1800 ppm . Salinity was 1.021 raised to 1.024. PH is 8.2, Nitrates and Phosphates at or near 0. I add Iodine but not sure of #. Using Rea Sea Foundation Pro kit which is a little difficult in determining actual results but think numbers are close to these. Could high Alk be reason I'm having difficulty keeping just about anything alive? Lost a number of frags. Have a Zoa and mushroom hanging in there. Other numbers I should check ?

Number of issues your having by the looks of it.

First off, have you tested your newly made saltwater for DKH?

What test kit do you use for DKH and is it within expiration date?

On to the other issues.....

You do need some nitrates and phosphates for your corals to be healthy. A good place to start is 5-10ppm N03 and 0.02 P04. Having 0's across the board is starving them.

Is that a Duncan coral at the top of your rock work?

 

[Justfebreezeit]

The mag is pretty high if its accurate as well.

I'm sure you are using a high alk salt mix as well, to have an alk that high.

Without knowing more about your tank i'd recommend lowering all 3 pretty significantly through water changes with a lower alk salt mix.
Once you get those 3 lowered and stable as well as some detectable nitrate and phosphate you can eliminate those as a reason for your corals not surviving.

 

[SPR1968]

All of the numbers you mention are not to far away (mg is raised yes) from what you get with the Red Sea Coral Pro salt mix, are you using that by any chance ?

Irrespective, these higher parameters are like the ones for the Red Sea Accelerated growth program (I ran this for over 12 months including alkalinity at 12.6dKH)) and it does what it’s supposed to and provides accelerated coral growth, but if your running at these parameters you also need higher nutrient levels of nitrate and phosphate, and your currently around 0. So you providing the building blocks but not the energy or maybe not enough. As said above, 5-10ppm nitrate and 0.02ppm phosphate are good numbers to aim for

So you could maybe add a few more fish to raise your nutrients and feed more to solve that issue.

Alternatively if your looking to lower all the foundation element levels go back to basics and check your salt mix for the new water. If you are using Coral Pro for example, check the standard salt which mixes to lower levels

Your salinity was very low and even 1.024 is still low and I would raise that to 1.0264 for a mixed reef

As far as iodine is concerned, if you can’t or aren’t measuring it, don’t add it otherwise you don’t know what the levels are.

Whatever you choose just try and maintain stability in the system with slow changes to anything.

And welcome to R2R as well!

 

[AngelFly]

I ran for long time at 20-40 ppm Nitrates. The duncan coral did well but I lost some coral so I was determined to lower nitrites. Added refugium which has lots of macro algae and a reactor with the np-active peals and I removed 75% of bio-balls from wet-dry. That did the trick but now too low. My tangs love the macro so I could feed them most of it and or remove the reactor. Ideas ? At one time I did have the soft corals like xenia + gorgonian growing like weeds but nitrites where above 20ppm. My test kits for nitrites and NO3 and PH are a few years old, I'll replace these. My alk, cal and mg is a new Red Sea kit. The problem with High numbers was due to Instant Ocean Crystal Reef mix and I was dosing with C-balance A + B not knowing my numbers. I changed to just using Instance Ocean and RO water. Did about 40 gal so far in 55gal tank. Numbers were 3 times what I listed here so changes are working. The only additive now is PH buffer from time to time since PH appears between 8.0 and 8.2 . Thanks for advise.

 

[Flippers4pups]

PH buffer is likely to raise your alkalinity. I would stop using it.

 

[SPR1968]

You don’t want to start messing with pH buffer, you don’t need that for sure your range is fine, so as above I would cease.

Just remember, only dose what needs to be dosed and only after you’ve tested the water. It’s very easy (Ive been there!) to think you need to add all these fancy additives to achieve perfect numbers when you don’t and you’ll end up just adding things you don’t need which will cause issues. And don’t chase the numbers.

If your unsure of anything, as you’ve done, just ask on here and we’re all more than happy to try and guide you before you add anything

 

[AngelFly]

You don’t want to start messing with pH buffer, you don’t need that for sure your range is fine, so as above I would cease.

Just remember, only dose what needs to be dosed and only after you’ve tested the water. It’s very easy (Ive been there!) to think you need to add all these fancy additives to achieve perfect numbers when you don’t and you’ll end up just adding things you don’t need which will cause issues. And don’t chase the numbers.

If your unsure of anything, as you’ve done, just ask on here and we’re all more than happy to try and guide you before you add anything

I ran for long time at 20-40 ppm Nitrates. The duncan coral did well but I lost some coral so I was determined to lower nitrites. Added refugium which has lots of macro algae and a reactor with the np-active peals and I removed 75% of bio-balls from wet-dry. That did the trick but now too low. My tangs love the macro so I could feed them most of it and or remove the reactor. Ideas ? At one time I did have the soft corals like xenia + gorgonian growing like weeds but nitrites where above 20ppm. My test kits for nitrites and NO3 and PH are a few years old, I'll replace these. My alk, cal and mg is a new Red Sea kit. The problem with High numbers was due to Instant Ocean Crystal Reef mix and I was dosing with C-balance A + B not knowing my numbers. I changed to just using Instance Ocean and RO water. Did about 40 gal so far in 55gal tank. Numbers were 3 times what I listed here so changes are working. The only additive now is PH buffer from time to time since PH appears between 8.0 and 8.2 . Thanks for advise.

Here is an update on my issue. Going from bad to worse . Someone in this post recommened NilocG Aquatics for obtaining NO3 and PO4 dosing solution. I inquired and found someone real nice who packaged up two solutions for me with dosing instructions. Great I thought, 1 pump = 2ml, started dosing, 12ml, 12ml, 12ml for three days. He measured out dosing so 1 pump per 10g would mean 5ppm NO3. Nothing seemed to change in three days so I ran an API Nitrate test kit on 5ml of his solution . Yellow as the lemon and as my tank. My test kit was bought in Dec 18. How can this be explained? I have inquire in to NilocG Aquatics. Anyone else with ideas on how I can dose Nitrates and Phosphates. ? I'm going to pull my bio balls in the wet/dry system I'm running. I already pulled my reactor and 95% of my macro algae. I'll just leave my 1ft by 1ft by 4inch refugium mud.