Newbie with a salt question

[JVH]

No. If this is how you've been mixing your saltwater that likely explains why you have low ca. It's likely precipitating out of the water. Just get a 5 gallon bucket at Home Depot and pick up a cheap Maxi Jet pump. With the gallon jug, pour ro/di water into the bucket and mark the outside with a permanent marker and keep repeating so you now have a graduated container. Once the container is filled to the desired water change amount, add the correct amount of salt mix to achieve 1.026 (Confirm with a properly calibrated refractometer). Then let the Maxi Jet run for as long as the instructions say to mix. The Maxi Jet has an airline fitting you can put some airline tubing on to aerate the water for about 15-30 minutes before you perform the water change. The heat from the pump will likely be enough to raise the temperature, therefore there's no need to heat the water. I would still add a floating thermometer to insure you're not dumping water in that is drastically different. Ideally you want the water temperatures to match, but a couple degrees is nothing to be concerned about. You could also use the pump to assist you when doing the water change. That is the beauty of this pump, as it is very versatile. Pick up some vinyl tubing to hook up to the pump, an extra bucket (mark the outside so you know how much water you're removing), put the pump in the tank to remove the water and then put the pump in the other 5 gallon bucket to add new water.

Wow! I've done so much research on so many things with the tank since I knew nothing about.. I eat slept and breathed saltwater aquariums till I knew enough to start setting this up...I was able to set it up pretty successfully so far and have a nice tank except for these few issues but I never read or knew that about mixing the water.
In fact someone on another forum had told me they mix their gallon jugs with salt so they have them ready to go and they're easier to handle in gallon jugs so that's where I got the idea to even do that in the first place..
I really had no idea that was affecting my calcium.. it makes sense! Now I know my test is okay because I premixed 1 gallon with the reef salt and my calcium was 400 and I believe it was 1.024.. Well at tleast I'm Thank you for all that information.
I thought possibly my test kit could be bad since it was delivered via mail and it was during the week where we had 0° Possibly the temperature could've affected it it's it was sitting in the mail truck somewhere overnight.
I will get another one but I haven't considered salt being bad...
I do have A new box of reef crystals which is supposed to be a higher calcium level from what I understand so I will do my water change today and I will use the reef crystals and I will really carefully measure it and do it exactly the way it says on the box..

I wouldn't mind some stony corals someday since I really want to have a variety of everything but right now I have just soft corals. I guess I won't stress too much over it but I will keep my eye on it.

Someone told me also not to be too concerned over nitrates not zeroing out as long as it does come down with my water change.. And as long as it stays under 40 ppm it shouldn't be a problem. But some people have told me it should be zero.. Wouldn't it go up as the process is taking place?
on the right track to figuring it out now thanks to you!
I will get a 5 gallon jug and the pump maybe even a separate heater.. Thanks so much for all your help.. I was on another form for a while and nobody came up with this it's been a mystery!

 

[CuzzA]

No problem. Glad to help. In my opinion, 40 ppm nitrate is unacceptable for a reef tank so I would ignore that information. At that level there's is no doubt you will experience nuisance algae. A simple, cheap, effective way to reduce nitrates is with a remote deep sand bed. Do a search on this or the keywords "deep sandbed in a bucket."

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So I just want to make sure I understand what you were doing.

The 1 gallon of salt water was made highly concentrated to dilute later?

If so, that is a problem for calcium and also alkalinity as calcium carbonate can precipitate and not redissolve.

 

[JVH]

So I just want to make sure I understand what you were doing.

The 1 gallon of salt water was made highly concentrated to dilute later?

If so, that is a problem for calcium and also alkalinity as calcium carbonate can precipitate and not redissolve.

Apparently that's what I wS doing! Learned a lot hut new nothing about water prep!

 

[glb]

No problem. Glad to help. In my opinion, 40 ppm nitrate is unacceptable for a reef tank so I would ignore that information. At that level there's is no doubt you will experience nuisance algae. A simple, cheap, effective way to reduce nitrates is with a remote deep sand bed. Do a search on this or the keywords "deep sandbed in a bucket."

I agree. Soft corals and some LPS can be fine with nitrates from 10-15ppm in my experience, but for SPS nitrates need to be less than 5ppm and zero is even better. If you have 40ppm now, keep in mind that if you changed half the water, it would only go down to 20ppm. If you have a lot of livestock changing that much water might not be a good idea. I say all of this to point out that it takes changing a lot of water to get it down to where it needs to be. I use Purigen in my sump which helps. Also, keeping your other filter media such as sponges clean also helps. More frequent water changes also helps. I wouldn't add any coral until you can lower the nitrates and figure out how they rose that high. Good luck!!!

 

[JVH]

No. If this is how you've been mixing your saltwater that likely explains why you have low ca. It's likely precipitating out of the water. Just get a 5 gallon bucket at Home Depot and pick up a cheap Maxi Jet pump. With the gallon jug, pour ro/di water into the bucket and mark the outside with a permanent marker and keep repeating so you now have a graduated container. Once the container is filled to the desired water change amount, add the correct amount of salt mix to achieve 1.026 (Confirm with a properly calibrated refractometer). Then let the Maxi Jet run for as long as the instructions say to mix. The Maxi Jet has an airline fitting you can put some airline tubing on to aerate the water for about 15-30 minutes before you perform the water change. The heat from the pump will likely be enough to raise the temperature, therefore there's no need to heat the water. I would still add a floating thermometer to insure you're not dumping water in that is drastically different. Ideally you want the water temperatures to match, but a couple degrees is nothing to be concerned about. You could also use the pump to assist you when doing the water change. That is the beauty of this pump, as it is very versatile. Pick up some vinyl tubing to hook up to the pump, an extra bucket (mark the outside so you know how much water you're removing), put the pump in the tank to remove the water and then put the pump in the other 5 gallon bucket to add new water.

So with this maxi power or the Cobalt Aquatics Power Head/Pump which looks like the maxi,head I can use it to also remove water from the tank? And add the prepared water from bucket back into the tank? and it's still a circulator/power head? I am ordering one and I want to be clear on its functionality.
Thanks.

 

[CuzzA]

Yes.