Water Parameters - Thoughts

Smiler1875 · May 8, 2021

Hi, My tank is 5 months old and parameters (other than small increase in Nitrate ), have been fairly stable, but I'm not sure that Calcium and Magnesium should be higher ? Thoughts anyone ?. I have started to get brown like dust on sand and glass/wavemaker also, not sure if these parameters are casuing it, 55 gallon tank, 15% water change every weeks.

KH	11.8
Magnesium	900
Calcium	300
Phosphate	0.03
Ammonia	0
Nitrite	0
Nitrate	25
PH	8.3
Salinity	1.026
Temp	25.7

SPR1968 · May 8, 2021

The alkalinity is on the high end of ok but the calcium and magnesium are very low so I would raise them to around 430 and 1350 respectively over a few days/week

Deep · May 8, 2021

What salt do you use ? If your salinity is 1.026, then any decent salt should mix Mag and Calcium to much higher than your levels. Either your salt is bad or your salinity measure is wrong. How are you measuring salinity ?

Smiler1875 · May 8, 2021

Deep said:
What salt do you use ? If your salinity is 1.026, then any decent salt should mix Mag and Calcium to much higher than your levels. Either your salt is bad or your salinity measure is wrong. How are you measuring salinity ?

Hi, I use a refractometer and also have it checked at LFS every 2 weeks, not sure on Salt as I buy water from LFS for water changes

fachatga · May 8, 2021

maybe check the water from lfs next time before you add to tank. It’s good to have a baseline on what you’re adding in.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 10, 2021

What kit? Those values are suspiciously low.

If the kits are correct (don't assume so) I suspect either the salinity is way low, or the LFS is selling faulty salt.

Smiler1875 · May 10, 2021

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
What kit? Those values are suspiciously low.

If the kits are correct (don't assume so) I suspect either the salinity is way low, or the LFS is selling faulty salt.

Salifert kits, doing water change tomorrow so have 50 litres here of LFS so will test that and retest my own thanks

Uncle99 · May 10, 2021

MG at 900ppm.
I don’t know you could get that low.
Bump that to 1400ppm.
Then test for Alk and CA, bet you Alk lowers and CA increases.

Smiler1875 · May 10, 2021

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
What kit? Those values are suspiciously low.

If the kits are correct (don't assume so) I suspect either the salinity is way low, or the LFS is selling faulty salt.

Just tested LFS water and had Alk 8, Calcium 430, Mag 1300, PH 8.3 and Salinity 1.026, so all seems good, will do 20% water change tomorrow and retest my pararmeters then

Smiler1875 · May 10, 2021

Uncle99 said:
MG at 900ppm.
I don’t know you could get that low.
Bump that to 1400ppm.
Then test for Alk and CA, bet you Alk lowers and CA increases.

Just tested LFS water and had Alk 8, Calcium 430, Mag 1300, PH 8.3 and Salinity 1.026, so all seems good, will do 20% water change tomorrow and retest my pararmeters then

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 10, 2021

Smiler1875 said:
Just tested LFS water and had Alk 8, Calcium 430, Mag 1300, PH 8.3 and Salinity 1.026, so all seems good, will do 20% water change tomorrow and retest my pararmeters then

There's no chance the water you had lost 400 ppm of magnesium. Let's see what the tank retests at.