Dirt-simple chemistry MUST-knows for tank health

[Sk8r]

Yes---with qualification: some salts are low in mg because (a) it's one extra cost of manufacturing and b) the salt is intended for fish-onlies, and fish don't use it up that fast. SO if you have a salt like Oceanic or a reefing salt, it should be high enough; if you're using a fish-only salt, you may need to test and bring it up once, and then expect it to hold pretty well. LPS is a stony and a particularly hungry one: if I hand dosed, my lps tank at 54 gallons would take down 3 heaping tablespoons of pretty spendy calcium additive a day; or pennies worth of kalk. If you have only softies, you're pretty much like a fish-only, except that the softies want your water balanced and grow best when it is. If they go wonky, first run carbon (they fight among themselves with chemicals) and secondly test your water and bring it back to balance. If it's work you're worried about (as who isn't, if they've tried hand-dosing!) I can say a kalk-driven tank is no work at all. Mine runs for months on end without getting 'off' if I just keep the ATO tank full of water and enough kalk in the bottom to keep the saturation level up (ie, there's white residue in the bottom, which just means there's enough down there to supply several refills of that ATO tank) ---and I don't have to touch it. I don't clean filters (a reef usually doesn't have any); and I don't have to dose: the ATO handles that. I test periodically. That's it. But with any stony coral, SPS or LPS, you have to supply more calcium than any salt mix provides. If I weighed the stony mass of the coral in my 54, I'd probably have 50 lbs of coral skeleton in there, after several years, and all of that was built by dosing calcium via kalk.

 

[kingevil]

i am using red sea coral pro. however, i 'tainted' the water by mixing some sw from the lfs. i didn't have enough of my mixed water to fill the tank initially. i will do a big water change in the next few days and see if my levels go back up.

weird thing is... my coralline seems to be turning white, or disintegrating. i bought all of the contents from a previous owner. the old set up was using water from the lfs and the rock was covered in purple coraline. i brought it home and put it in a new tank with newly purchased live sand. i do have crabs and an urchin, but it's the same livestock as was in the old tank when the coralline was doing great. the lighting system has changed, however. i thought that by using higher quality salt, my coralline would take off and spread to the glass from the rock. instead it's going backwards.

 

[Sk8r]

If your coralline is failing, that could be either too-bright lighting too suddenly, or low magnesium. Coralline really depends on mg.

 

[fireanthodge]

Thanks for the easy to understand info

 

[avelino78]

The past few weeks I have been working on getting my mag,alk, and calcium levels to be perfect. I feel like yesterday I finally reached the number that I want. Mag 1320, alk 9.2 and calcium 425. Since I have been testing every day I noticed that after a water change my levels changed. Will they ever stabilize even after a water change or will I have to start over after each change??

 

[Sk8r]

To a certain extent that depends on your salt brand. Test. REad labels. Test, keep a log, and you may find at least the degree of 'off' is routine and easily handled.

 

[Envieddesigns]

Newb at water testing.

Newb at water testing.

Hey i tested my water & here is what i got. PH 8 KH 120 GH 180 Salinity a little below 1.026 & temps 78-80. Is this good? Also I attached a pic of the test strips I use.

 

[Sk8r]

If you're beyond cycling save the test strips for suspected-ammonia/nitrate emergencies and get separate test kits for alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium. Use the DKH scale, where your alk reading should be 8.3. Your ph is ok, but it's not really important for a marine tank to track it---it changes by the hour. It's your alkalinity that will tell you how your water is. Your salinity and temp are fine. Be sure to track that salinity with a marked fill line on your tank and a refractometer when adding specimens to a QT TANK. You're doing fine. Start a log book with the following readings: dkh alk (you'll run that one every few days at first, then weekly); magnesium; and calcium. If your alk is holding at 8.3 you don't have to run the other 2 tests. If falling, run mg, get it up [it'll almost certainly be low); and run calcium test. Maintenance isn't too hard if you just track alkalinity and temperature religiously. Salinity tends to stay put as long as your tank meets that fill line (get an automatic topoff unit for fresh ro/di water.)

 

[Envieddesigns]

Thanks sk8r you are a god when it comes to this stuff. Lol. I forgot to mention those readings are on my 5 gal QT tank with a damsel & 2 clowns they are about an inch very small an only feeding once a day frozen brine. I'm totally new to this so I appreciate all the advice. My 55g DT is cycling day #5 now with 45lbs live rock. I'll have to get one of those refractos an other test kit. An ATO I want to look into doing one do you just buy the ro/di gallons an hook the ATO to that with a hose or you mix your own?

 

[Sk8r]

Your 55 is going to evaporate a gallon a day. One of the buckets salt comes in (Oceanic has a lidded 7 gallon bucket free (and don't lose the lid!!!!) with its large-size salt. I collect those buckets) is excellent for a small tankside freshwater reservoir---ie, a topoff reservoir. If you're clever, you can set the 7 gallon old freebie salt bucket beside the tank, turn a basket or furniture-grade box over it and disguise it as a potted palm or a stereo speaker. Or put it in a garage-sale doored cabinet, which can give you room to store stuff or even hold a larger sump. Old furniture can give you a lot of extra space next to your tank.

If you've got a tank evaporating a gallon a day, this gallon-a-day evaporation rate becomes ideal for 'dripping kalk' (explanationn within this thread, above) to supply a stony reef. I'm lucky---I have a basement sump, so I use a 32 gallon Brute trashcan for my freshwater reservoir, and I so love it---I can go away for a month, and putting kalk powder in that trashcan full of ro/di will feed my corals and hold their chemistry rock-steady until I get back. An ATO is indispensible for this---some people use "dosers," and "controllers" for this. I just use a simple mechanical float switch I got from autotopoff.com---cheap, pretty well infallible as your bathroom ball float---same principle, only tiny and contained in a tube. Instead of maintaining a connection to a pressured water line, however, this just turns on a pump in that trash can that delivers a few teaspoons of water ever so often---adding up to that gallon a day, but so subtly the fish would never detect it going on.

 

[avelino78]

Sk8r. What salt do you use??

 

[Sk8r]

Oceanic. It's a good reef salt. I also drip kalk. BEtween the high-end salt and the kalk drip, stony coral grows fast in my tank.

 

[avelino78]

Thanks it does look like one of the best salts.

 

[avelino78]

Is the ALK low? I have been reading about the salt and people complain of low ALK.

 

[Sk8r]

Alk will GET low if you don't buffer, yes; if you get your mg up to 1300 as described in the topmost posts, you won't have any problem with it: alk will stay up if your mg and cal are up. Minute the mg runs lower than 1300, there you go.

 

[avelino78]

Makes sense and with Oceanic salt the mag is high so it should be easy to keep the alk spot on.

 

[Envieddesigns]

Hey Sk8r, thanks I checked out that website I emailed them, ill be buying one of those i noticed my water line just a hair below the lip where its visible now. One thing though. Since i'm a Newbie, I'm starting off with fish only & live rock is that Kalk needed still? Or I should be good with the gallon of Ro/Di with the ATO? I'm confused when i do the ATO, in that bucket I'm just going to have RO/DI water which doesn't have salt? or Ro/di water does have salt in it?

 

[avelino78]

Top off water has no salt. Water evaporates the salt does not.

 

[Envieddesigns]

Duh, I did read that before on one of the posts, Thanks Avelino78! Hey i'm a Newjersian too. lol. I'm new to the hobby so I still dont have everything locked down yet.

 

[avelino78]

Best hobby ever I can never get enough. Their are some great people on this site I have learned a ton since January.