Low Alkalinity - talk me off the ledge.

[92Miata]

Long story short - my Nuvo40 is mostly dry rock - there's probably 5-8 lbs of live, and 30 of dry in it. Barebottom. Lots of flow. I had to upgrade from a 10g on short notice. Its been up for a month or so - the 10g had been up for 6. I was having some issues with my toddler being able to reach the top of the tank, and had a ton of issues with stuff - tip burn, algae, etc. Alk was at 9. Just having all sorts of problems.


So I moved everything to the 40. There's a couple small fish, a bta, some shrimp, and then some zoas. On the SPS side - a couple of monti frags, and 3 acro frags. The tip burn has all healed up, and I'm seeing growth. Things seem good.

However, I went through a full battery of tests last night, and this is what I got:

Salinity - 1.025
N04 - 12ish ppm (NYOS) - It wasn't 12ppm, but I'm not sure which way it was off, but it was closest to 12. I hate these sort of color scale tests.
P04 - .37ppm (Hanna ULR Phosphate)
Ca - 400ppm (red sea)
Mag - 1400ppm (red sea - although this one is really fine gradations - the difference between 1260 and 1400 is like .04ml)
Alk - 5.6 dkh (red sea)

The phosphate is probably just the dry rock - so I changed out my phosguard. But that Alk number scares me - but again - everything looks good, so I'm really leary to start adjusting up considering I was having all sorts of tip burn in the last tank.

Salt is Reef Crystals, which is supposed to be super high? So what gives? I don't have enough corals at this point to think I'm using up all the alkalinity. Bad test kit? Some of the salt is from a box that's a couple years old. Some is from a new bucket.

No dosing yet.

Any ideas? Opinions? Plan of action? Anybody run succesfull tanks at these sort of levels?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

This is the second thread on this page with sps issues while using phosguard. Coincidence? I think not.

 

[92Miata]

This is the second thread on this page with sps issues while using phosguard. Coincidence? I think not.

I don't have any issues with my SPS. My SPS look great.

I'm trying to figure out why they look great when my Alk is at 5 dkh - or if this is a testing issue.

Does Phosguard lead to bad Alk readings?

 

[RM24]

How often are you testing alk? What is your w/c frequency? Have you tried a different test? I'm not a huge fan of the Red Sea alk test.

 

[Hydrored]

Poor water parameters with consistency, consistently bad is better than constant changes

 

[Tahoe61]

Have you tested a new batch of sw after mixing?

 

[92Miata]

Have you tested a new batch of sw after mixing?

Making buckets of the older box of RC and the new bucket now - will test both.

 

[92Miata]

Making buckets of the older box of RC and the new bucket now - will test both.

Just tested the bucket made from the older box of salt mixed to 1.025 - .24 ml of reagent used before turning green/yellow. Which is off the charts low- if the and test is linear that's 3.36 dKH

Had to make a bunch of RO, so just mixing up some from the new bucket now - I guess if that comes back normal I've got a bad box of salt. If it comes back low, I've got a bad test, right?

 

[Hydrored]

Just tested the bucket made from the older box of salt mixed to 1.025 - .24 ml of reagent used before turning green/yellow. Which is off the charts low- if the and test is linear that's 3.36 dKH

Had to make a bunch of RO, so just mixing up some from the new bucket now - I guess if that comes back normal I've got a bad box of salt. If it comes back low, I've got a bad test, right?

yes

 

[LardLad]

Best purchase I ever made was the Hanna DKH checker. I also like the Red Sea Coral Pro salt for many reasons. Also my nano tore up alk at that stage when it was packing on coralline algae. I was so surprised at how much.

 

[LardLad]

Do you really have a 92 Miata?

 

[92Miata]

Just tested the bucket made from the older box of salt mixed to 1.025 - .24 ml of reagent used before turning green/yellow. Which is off the charts low- if the and test is linear that's 3.36 dKH

Had to make a bunch of RO, so just mixing up some from the new bucket now - I guess if that comes back normal I've got a bad box of salt. If it comes back low, I've got a bad test, right?

To follow up - just tested the bucket of newer stuff - got 9dkh. stuck my hand in the bucket and there's still some grit - so its not fully mixed. So probably going to finish up higher.

I think RC is typically 11-13, so its almost certainly the old salt that's the problem and not the test kit.


I'm guessing that the best plan here is probably a couple water changes with the new stuff over the next couple weeks vs trying to adjust the alkalinity? My thought is that there's probably other stuff that's precipitated out/reacted/whatever if the salt is that low alk.

 

[92Miata]

Do you really have a 92 Miata?

Yeah - that's my cheaper hobby - and I when I set up this account I was feeling super uncreative.

 

[blasterman]

SPS will tolerate low alk because again consistency is more important than anything else.

However, you will hit a wall at a point and the next thing you will be dealing with is RTN or base die off.

Alk levels wont burn tips unless they are really high. A stable alk level of 9 or 10 wont cause tip burn.

Young tanks burn through alk because algae and bacteria consume it. This is why I keep preaching balanced dosing is stupid in young tanks.

Get a box of baking soda from the grocery store and use the online reef calculator to raise dKH where you want. We are making sea water...not a Covid 19 vaccine. Doing water changes to raise dKH when nothing else is wrong seems silly, but some people like doing water changes.

My favorite cheap and dirty and reliable alk test is Saliferts run at half resolution. It's cheap, reliable, and takes 30 seconds.

 

[92Miata]

Get a box of baking soda from the grocery store and use the online reef calculator to raise dKH where you want. We are making sea water...not a Covid 19 vaccine. Doing water changes to raise dKH when nothing else is wrong seems silly, but some people like doing water changes.

My primary concern with just adjusting the Alk is that the salt I set the tank up with is mixing up at 3.3 dKH - and my thought is that if that much alkalinity is precipitating out/unavailable/etc because of the salt's age/storage/whatever, then there may be other trace elements/etc that are no longer in the salt - IE, I don't trust anything about it.

 

[92Miata]

New bucket ended up at 10.5 dKH - which is lower than I understand Reef Crystals is supposed to be? Anyways - I did a 4g water change - which if my math is correct should get me up to about 6.1 dKH (from 5.6).

I'll do a couple more over the next couple days - I think I'll got to 7.5 and see how things go.

 

[dadnjesse]

Make sure whatever your using to test the Salinity is calibrated

 

[92Miata]

Make sure whatever your using to test the Salinity is calibrated

Yeah - that's my major concern here - I can measure the heck out of stuff - but I can't really validate anything. I think I'll order some refractometer calibration solution and see if I can make up an Alk reference solution.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Please remember if the tank is looking good to only make small changes over time. My sps tank is always around 7 dkh. And doing great.

 

[92Miata]

So, tonight, Phosphates are down to .16, Nitrates are steady at 17ppm (wife says 17, looks the same as last time to me - hate the color scale tests).

Alk is 5.6 though, which means it dropped a half degree in 2 days. Which is amazing to me because there's like 3 1" acro frags, a small piece of cyphastrea, and a couple frags of zoas. Algae is light at this point.

Time to mix up some of Randy's 2-part I guess.