help stabilising water

[David martin]

What is the best way to stabilise my readings, this is my first marine tank and my readings fluctuate
quite a lot on a daily basis, the size of the tank is 157 litres, fish = to small tangs two clown, cleanup crew, reasonable amount of coral ( which came with the tank)

T 78, SG 1.026, PH 8.6, NH3 0, NO2 0, N03 0.75, Ca 260, Kh 5.6 P04 0.08, Mg 1400

I seem to be struggling with Ca, Kh,P04 and i can never seem to get my PH down, I use R0/Do. Water, I was undertaking 25 later water changes twice a week, I am using NO3PO4 4ml per day, the skimmer is working well, really dark muck.

the corals are never fully open, I've also eased up feeding the tangs morning Noon night, I now just put red and green algae during the day, and feed about 7 o'clock at night.
thanks
Dave

 

[BoneXriffic]

What are specific readings?

 

[David martin]

sorry, what do you mean, I'm only 9 weeks into the hobby, so brain not engaging yet

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

What salt are you using? 40 gallons is a bit small for 2 tangs.. maybe consider taking 1 or both in to your LFS.

You shouldn't be needing to do more than 1 water change per week. I'd start doing 15-20% once per week instead of twice.

When was the last time you changed any of the cartridges in your RODI? If you're getting water from your LFS, maybe ask what their TDS meter is reading

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

How/ what are you feeding? If your feeding frozen, avoid pouring in the left over juices and instead just tweezers out the thawed out food. Those juices are full of phosphate which could be contributing to your problem

 

[David martin]

Hi firstly the tangs:
As a newbie at I asked the LFS if putting the tangs in a small tank whilst my second and bigger tank seeded, but I was told no problem so I purchased three times, sadly I lost our blue tang last week to whit spot, so I went back to the LFS, and complained that I was misinformed, and in fact after reading up about Tangs, I requested they took the fish back, of which THEY refused, after reading a lot of articles about Tangs I fully agree my tank is far far too small but they are feeding well showing no signs of stress.

my RODI unit is only four weeks old and my TDS reading is: Before 63, After 0.

I drain the water off the food and feed with tweezers.

Ive taken a screen shoot of my reading some feed back would be helpful please
many thanks
Dave

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Hi firstly the tangs:
As a newbie at I asked the LFS if putting the tangs in a small tank whilst my second and bigger tank seeded, but I was told no problem so I purchased three times, sadly I lost our blue tang last week to whit spot, so I went back to the LFS, and complained that I was misinformed, and in fact after reading up about Tangs, I requested they took the fish back, of which THEY refused, after reading a lot of articles about Tangs I fully agree my tank is far far too small but they are feeding well showing no signs of stress.

my RODI unit is only four weeks old and my TDS reading is: Before 63, After 0.

I drain the water off the food and feed with tweezers.

Ive taken a screen shoot of my reading some feed back would be helpful please
many thanks
Dave

I dont see anything out of the ordinary here. and beware of chasing numbers. What I do see is a multiple possibility of testing error. esp the po4 levels.
The PH is really odd. Not bad at all if its true really. how are you testing and do you have a second test to confirm it. what time is the test done?

Next would be light. How much do you have.
Do you have a fts of the tank?
DId I miss how your dosing ca/alk?

 

[David martin]

All my test kits are Red Sea, I have ordered a seneye, to help with my lights, and PH, I did put up a post regarding my lights, as they came with the tank with no instructions so I don't know if they're too high or too low (output and timings) I have also ordered an Digital pHospHor Meter Hanna Low Range Checker, and I will probably get a different one each month, to help backup my red sea.
Regarding the time I test is generally between six and 7 o'clock at night sometimes a little earlier but not much.
regarding the dowsing, this is something I'm trying to get into, so at the moment I'm mixing up "Tropic Marin" products we needed, however I do have a box of red sea Reef foundation complete liquid supplement pack. I'm sorry I don't know you mean by " fts of the tank".
many thanks Dave

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

six and 7 o'clock at night

That will likely be the highest PH.

If nutrints are low and light is high the corals can be upset. Same for too low, they just wont open.

fwiw my PO4 would make most folks scream. I dont rinse food. my n03 fluctuates. I look at the parameters in an overall montly not a daily. Imagine trying to figure stuff out monitoring your heart rate at the same time daily to figure out your overall health. thats chasing numbers, id keep an eye of the overall. and in most cases is a much simpler fix that requires ZERO$.

A lux meter is $14. test at the top of the tank. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lighting-upgrade-with-a-lux-meter-saltyfilmfolks.248417/
devide by 60.

Whats the photo period too.

fts= full tank shot.

 

[David martin]

Full tank shoot

 

[David martin]

diffrent angle

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Full tank shoot

I dont see a problem. except the nem want to go where it want so go. nems are weird.

 

[David martin]

ok, many thanks I can stop panicking, as for the Nem, yep went walk abouts!!
thanks again

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

ok, many thanks I can stop panicking, as for the Nem, yep went walk abouts!!
thanks again

Nem are weird. Mine was splitting when I got up this morning. I think I have three now.

And so you know. as far as calcium and alk, if you dont have a lot of stoney corals, you can easily get by with manual two part dosing or just more frequent water changes.

 

[beaslbob]

macro algae and other algae will create high pH readings by consume co2.

For calcium/alk/mag I suggest you try dr randy holmes Farley's diy 2 part system.

ref: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

FWIW high pH by lowering co2 is hardly harmful to any fish or corals as far as I know.

my .02

 

[beaslbob]

oh yea

BTW

and one of my pet peeves.

Stabilizing does not mean all values constant.

Stability is the reaction of a system to deviations from some balanced or steady state.

It is possible to have unstable constant values and stable varying values.

For instance, one could have a daily pH variation but that variation can be stable. Should the variation increase the system could respond and return back to the original values.

my .02

 

[David martin]

many thanks