salt reef salt flakes on the surface, what to do with it ?

[ghosty3]

Hi,

I have white flakes at the surface of the water in my tank and some on the bottom. I just started out and am 'cycling' my tank for 2 weeks without live stock.

I have pebbles of some sort of Magnesium or Calciumcarbonate and read online that the Mg can cause flakes by attaching to the calciumcarbonate forming crystals and flakes, is this correct ?

I have a pH reading of between 7.5 and 8 and I want to keep shrimp or lobsters in it.

Thanks for your help,
ghosty3

 

[mcgyvr]

So is it just particles from the sand? Did you use sand?
That would be very common.. They will either settle/fall down or you can just remove them if you want..
Did you mix the salt well?
When did this start?
How did you mix the salt and water?
and more and more..

Your question is really lacking any good details so you are just leaving us to guess which isn't a good thing..

You certainly don't need to start dosing (cal/mag) and more than likely never will with just shrimp/lobsters in the tank so I'm not sure why you are mentioning the "pebbles"..
Did you put some into the tank or something?

 

[ghosty3]

So is it just particles from the sand? Did you use sand?
That would be very common.. They will either settle/fall down or you can just remove them if you want..
Did you mix the salt well?
When did this start?
How did you mix the salt and water?
and more and more..

My substrate is common aquarium grind which I added white Ca/Mg 'pebbles', I put some of them on the surface of the bottom, they are small very white stones with something like crystalisation occurring (they give off a bit of light.)

My salt mix was 2 months old, there were a bit of clusterings, it started out the day after.

I poured in the salt in the 65 liter tank as it was empty except for some cement and porous rocks.

Your question is really lacking any good details so you are just leaving us to guess which isn't a good thing..

You certainly don't need to start dosing (cal/mag) and more than likely never will with just shrimp/lobsters in the tank so I'm not sure why you are mentioning the "pebbles"..
Did you put some into the tank or something?

I am no biochemist but I believe the reef salt I poured in clustered through the Mg (the pebbles) ending in some magnesiumhydroxide together with the Mg in the reef salt.

I bought the pebbles because I didn't want the water become pH < 7. I hope this is the right thing to do for having carbonates although I am not sure about carbonic acid. Though there is no active carbon in the filter which hangs in the aquarium.

I hope you can help me.

 

[mcgyvr]

And the results of your calcium and magnesium test results are?

It is certainly possible that you overdosed the tank and some of it precipitated out..
IMO you are over complicating this stuff..
There is no need to be a chemist..

You should have JUST added sand/rock/saltwater and let the tank cycle..
So please stop adding anything.. and certainly NEVER add anything when you are unsure if you even need to in the first place..
And let the tank cycle..

Also I would suggest you never look at PH again either.. You did.. you overreacted.. you potentially caused more problems than you had in the first place...

Focus on keeping salinity, temperature, calcium, alkalinity and mag in check and everything will be just fine..