Chemistry Question for SPS?

[ArowanaLover1902]

I have recently come into several SPS corals (I didn't want them but I have them). The tank is pretty new, less than 3 months (but 50% of its water and rock/25% of its sand came from a 1 year old tank. I used to never check my parameters but because of the SPS I am now. The corals all look healthy and I thought I had it all under control but when I checked today, it was off and what I thought I had previously fixed is messed up still.
Salinity 4/5 1.0245 Need to raise to 1.026
Calcium 4/5 360 Dosed to raise to 420-440
Phosphate 4/5 0 Perfect
Nitrate 4/5 0 Perfect
Alkalinity 4/5 8 Need to raise to 8.3

Salinity 4/9 1.0245 Need to raise to 1.026
Calcium 4/9 320 Still wrong after dose
Phosphate 4/9 0 Perfect
Nitrate 4/9 0 Perfect
Alkalinity 4/9 7 Need to raise to 9

What should I do to fix my Alk and Calc. I'd love to raise both of them and purchased some marine buffer today to bring the Alk to 8.3. I know those values would be prefered by the SPS. I have very little experience in this part of reefing, I've always ignored it and done it by guesswork with great results. For SPS I need to be more precise and that's what I intend to be, any advice is helpful.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

What test kits are you using for calcium and alkalinity? It's not impossible that your calcium would go from 360 to 320, especially if you dosed to bring it up to 420, but it feels like testing error. It's also possible that your magnesium is low, and that calcium and carbonate are precipitating as a result. You should ideally be testing magnesium as well.

Also, you mention you "need" to bring up several parameters. None of these parameters are that far out of line. It's much more important to get to your target levels in a slow and patient manner. Dosing a high volume of supplements in order to "correct" these issues quickly can cause more harm than good.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

With your Nitrate and Phosphate being so low, I wouldn't raise your ALK too much. 7-8 DKh is fine for a low nutrient system. I agree with the magnesium needing testing. My guess is that is low and once it is brought up, your calcium will come up as well.

 

[Robink]

I don't use buffer, it's only a temporary fix. You will most likely have to start dosing 2 part (if you're not yet), especially with sps. Alk should be stable on a daily basis.
+1 on the magnesium testing.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

How do the corals look? What are they? I had easy sps for years and only did water changes. Never tested. Grew like weeds.

Natural seawater btw.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

What test kits are you using for calcium and alkalinity? It's not impossible that your calcium would go from 360 to 320, especially if you dosed to bring it up to 420, but it feels like testing error. It's also possible that your magnesium is low, and that calcium and carbonate are precipitating as a result. You should ideally be testing magnesium as well.

Also, you mention you "need" to bring up several parameters. None of these parameters are that far out of line. It's much more important to get to your target levels in a slow and patient manner. Dosing a high volume of supplements in order to "correct" these issues quickly can cause more harm than good.

I know it's probably not the best, I just looked up reviews and saw tons of terrible ones (on Amazon), others are claiming it is wildly inaccurate as well as dangerous (I've burned myself with the sulphuric acid a few times, the rubber gaskets are terrible). I'd love to get a better one but I've been spending a tonnnnn on getting this tank right recently and I'd love to slow down a bit. I'll probably have to buy the new one in a month or so, I know thats not ideal, but the tank's been pretty good without testing and I can take it to my LFS until then. What should the parameters be?

With your Nitrate and Phosphate being so low, I wouldn't raise your ALK too much. 7-8 DKh is fine for a low nutrient system. I agree with the magnesium needing testing. My guess is that is low and once it is brought up, your calcium will come up as well.

I don't feed a lot, have an oversized refugium, 8 gallons (thats all refugium too, it takes up 80% of my sump), and when I do feed it's mainly light coral food (a mix of zooplankton and phytoplankton, plus I just got reef roids to add to the mixture, hopefully make it a bit more potent), so thats probably why they are so low. I'll get it tested at LFS, maybe my calcium is fine and my tests are off.

I don't use buffer, it's only a temporary fix. You will most likely have to start dosing 2 part (if you're not yet), especially with sps. Alk should be stable on a daily basis.
+1 on the magnesium testing.

I'm not but if it really will keep my Alk stable than I will, I'll get my magnesium tested.

How do the corals look? What are they? I had easy sps for years and only did water changes. Never tested. Grew like weeds.

Natural seawater btw.

I wish I could use natural seawater, bet there is loads of good stuff in it. I was never really able to identify them, I got them all for free in a mixed up order from fishnreef, my actual order of zoas comes this thursday too. One is a birdnest though, he is in the best spot of my tank and I'm pretty sure he is actually growing, even in the week or so I've had him, constantly has polyps out (which are beautifully green) that eagerly eat my coral food when target fed. Some of the others are acroporas (some of which have polyps out, others that don't, they still have great corals, but I'm worried about them). I've never tested this tank before and had great growth from everything else, I imagine I'll stop when everything stabilizes.

I have about 11 zoa groups (two huge groups), 2 acans, 1 duncan, 1 frogspawn, 9 sps, 2 groups of mushrooms (1 huge group), 1 small ricordea, and 2 leathers (1 huge leather), none of them are massive and most are just frags, but thats a lot of coral, how much calcium should that be absorbing?

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I don't feed a lot, have an oversized refugium, 8 gallons (thats all refugium too, it takes up 80% of my sump), and when I do feed it's mainly light coral food (a mix of zooplankton and phytoplankton, plus I just got reef roids to add to the mixture, hopefully make it a bit more potent), so thats probably why they are so low. I'll get it tested at LFS, maybe my calcium is fine and my tests are off.

If everything is happy, then I wouldn't worry about your nutrients being low. If you want to bring them up a little, maybe feed a little more, but be careful. I started feeding more and ended up killing a couple of acro's because my phosphates got out of control. I was feeding reef roids, which contains phosphates, and over did it. My phosphates went from .02 to over .2 before I caught it. Not pretty. As long as everything looks good, I would suggest adding one more feeding a week and see how that works. Test the water a few days later and watch for changes. Take it easy with the reef roids and don't over do it like I did.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

I'm trying to keep my nutrients as low as possible. I'll keep tracking my phosphates and add another light feeding in the week.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I know it's probably not the best, I just looked up reviews and saw tons of terrible ones (on Amazon), others are claiming it is wildly inaccurate as well as dangerous (I've burned myself with the sulphuric acid a few times, the rubber gaskets are terrible). I'd love to get a better one but I've been spending a tonnnnn on getting this tank right recently and I'd love to slow down a bit. I'll probably have to buy the new one in a month or so, I know thats not ideal, but the tank's been pretty good without testing and I can take it to my LFS until then. What should the parameters be?



I don't feed a lot, have an oversized refugium, 8 gallons (thats all refugium too, it takes up 80% of my sump), and when I do feed it's mainly light coral food (a mix of zooplankton and phytoplankton, plus I just got reef roids to add to the mixture, hopefully make it a bit more potent), so thats probably why they are so low. I'll get it tested at LFS, maybe my calcium is fine and my tests are off.



I'm not but if it really will keep my Alk stable than I will, I'll get my magnesium tested.



I wish I could use natural seawater, bet there is loads of good stuff in it. I was never really able to identify them, I got them all for free in a mixed up order from fishnreef, my actual order of zoas comes this thursday too. One is a birdnest though, he is in the best spot of my tank and I'm pretty sure he is actually growing, even in the week or so I've had him, constantly has polyps out (which are beautifully green) that eagerly eat my coral food when target fed. Some of the others are acroporas (some of which have polyps out, others that don't, they still have great corals, but I'm worried about them). I've never tested this tank before and had great growth from everything else, I imagine I'll stop when everything stabilizes.

I have about 11 zoa groups (two huge groups), 2 acans, 1 duncan, 1 frogspawn, 9 sps, 2 groups of mushrooms (1 huge group), 1 small ricordea, and 2 leathers (1 huge leather), none of them are massive and most are just frags, but thats a lot of coral, how much calcium should that be absorbing?

To avoid the pain in the butt.
Test just the alk for a week (might even do it twice as a comparison and test error ) and find out what is being used by the system.
Cal alk and mag fall evenly , so just testing alk is and indicator of all 3.

Then do a normal water change and test again (one a week is actually fine ) and compare it to the daily tests.

Then you can determine how much is being used and that’s the amount to dose back in. You can dose once a week or If it’s a large amount you can beak it up to twice a week as alk will buffer pretty hard and mess with stuff , or look at an auto doser.
Or kalk wasser in the ato May be enough.

I mentioned NSW only to point out that it’s low alk cal and mag , but I still had great sucess growing Sps with only 10% water changes every other week. And yea , a lot got skipped too cuz life happens.



Depending on the species of acro ,you may or may not have luck with them. Some are really very easy.

Honestly the biggest sucess with acro was in knowing how much Light I had.


ime , pinpoint accuracy is really not that critical to have a happy thriving reef.
I might test magnesium this year.
But I doubt it.

 

[David S]

I have recently come into several SPS corals (I didn't want them but I have them). The tank is pretty new, less than 3 months (but 50% of its water and rock/25% of its sand came from a 1 year old tank. I used to never check my parameters but because of the SPS I am now. The corals all look healthy and I thought I had it all under control but when I checked today, it was off and what I thought I had previously fixed is messed up still.
Salinity 4/5 1.0245 Need to raise to 1.026
Calcium 4/5 360 Dosed to raise to 420-440
Phosphate 4/5 0 Perfect
Nitrate 4/5 0 Perfect
Alkalinity 4/5 8 Need to raise to 8.3

Salinity 4/9 1.0245 Need to raise to 1.026
Calcium 4/9 320 Still wrong after dose
Phosphate 4/9 0 Perfect
Nitrate 4/9 0 Perfect
Alkalinity 4/9 7 Need to raise to 9

What should I do to fix my Alk and Calc. I'd love to raise both of them and purchased some marine buffer today to bring the Alk to 8.3. I know those values would be prefered by the SPS. I have very little experience in this part of reefing, I've always ignored it and done it by guesswork with great results. For SPS I need to be more precise and that's what I intend to be, any advice is helpful.

Once you get your Alk & CA adjusted you should consider using a 2 part additive such as ESV. You dose equal portions of both to maintain your Alk & CA requirements.
You also might consider dosing Kalkwasser at night. It supplies equal amounts of Alk & CA.
You'll also want to dose Magnesium, as Kalk and Two part have virtually no MG. A suggested range would be 1300 - 1400 ppm

 

[Stigigemla]

I think the best thing to do is to replace Ca, kH and Mg test kits to Salifert. They are cheap and pretty reliable.
The next thing will be to raise magnesium. Low magnesium makes calcium to precipitate so tha can be the reason of low Ca.

Your corals look good so check the values before you do anything. And change your values slowly. Max 30mg/l Mg per day or 10 mg Ca or 1 kH.
If you think that is too slow do it morning and evening. Dont raise the dose.

 

[ZaneTer]

I'm trying to keep my nutrients as low as possible. I'll keep tracking my phosphates and add another light feeding in the week.

Be extremely careful having this approach. You would play it much safer by just having detectable nitrate and phosphate in your tank.

 

[cmcoker]

I would not use API phosphate kit to try to get a detectable number. Need a test with a lower resolution, the desirable phosphate level is 0.02 to 0.03. The Api lowest color change is 10x that at 0.25.

If your LPS are happy, I'd imagine you have some nitrate and phosphate in there even if you are getting no detectable reading.

Just worry about getting the alk, calcium, and magnesium stable right now.

 

[dimo]

If you haven't you could always test some fresh saltwater on water change days. Compared that to the water in your tank. Most salts have their parameters pretty well documented by users. It can give you a base line to see if your test kit may be off or not.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

I'm checking values, posting coral pics, and etc tonight.