Tank help!!

[C_Everett95]

Hello fellow reefers!

I'm having a bit of trouble with my water parameters out of nowhere.. I think I may have a few reasons why but I'd like some other opinions

A little background info

I'm running a 65 gallon ( 36x18x24) sumpless tank. Marine land penguin 350 hob filter with the regular filter it comes with until I pickup another filter media, also 100ml bag of SeaChem Purigen. 60 lbs of live rock and 60 lbs of live Aragonite sand from Caribsea. CUC currently consists of only 6 small blue legged hermit crabs. I have a 1x1 frag of GSP, a mushroom that I'm not completely sure the name of, and two different zoanthids frags. All of these corals were received from a friend who was going to start a nano tank and decided it wasn't the right time so I took them as soon as my cycle ended. My temporary lighting system is a marine land reef ready led system just to be able to have the blue and white lights until I am able to purchase the lights I'm wanting. I've done the research from Chinese black boxes up to kessils and maxspects and currently decided that I wanted the dimmability and sunrise/sunset programming option. So I think I'm going to purchase the 32" euphotica led system, reason being its almost as far as I can stretch my budget (I know I shouldn't skimp on lighting but I've seen Lotnof good reviews and I'm not keeping any sps any time soon). Aside from the it gives me all be options I wanted and I don't have to purchase more than one.

Tank problems I'm having

My cycle ended a few weeks ago after about 3 weeks and I waited another week to be sure just cycling with live rock/sand, so I went ahead and took my friends corals and acclimated them to my tank water and added a CUC.

The zoanthids are seeming to be doing fine as they do open up most of the way, and even a few times they've been fully open but not often. The GSP has only fully come out two times and the rest of the time it either barely comes out only for s little while or not at all, and now a hermit crab has been all over it the last few days so not sure if it's just cleaning or if the GSP is dying. My mushroom has been fully out since the start, looks like it doesn't have any issues other than it hasn't plumped back up to the way it was at the LFS and also looks like it lost most of its color other than the tips that are still neon green.

My water parameters are as follows: (salifert test kits for calc, mag, alk and API for the rest)

alk - 15 (alk was sky high last week, unreadable on my chart so I did two 20% water changes over the course of 3 days and now it's seeming to be detectable at around 15)

Calcium - 400

Mag - 1140

Nitrates 0.5

Ammonia - 0 - 0.2


Things that I've done and probably shouldn't have

First things first my friend gave me an api pH buffer and a bottle of Kent marine purple tech. I did senselessly dose the ph buffer and Kent marine purple tech a few times before I did any research which I know was dumb on my part. I decided to go through a lot of forums and found out the both of those really shouldn't be used or at least not but someone who's inexperienced like me.

I am assuming the what I dosed may be the problem with my alkalinity since the ph buffer raises carbonate hardness but honestly I don't know and I think I jumped into this way to quickly. I would like to continue the hobby, but more informatively from this point on.

The big question I would like to know is if maybe what I dosed is the cause of my water parameters going haywire, or maybe the fact that I've only had a cleanup crew and a few corals the last few week not producing enough ammonia to keep the cycle going and my tank has crashed.

Thanks in advance to anyone who sees this and wants to reach out! And I apologize if this thread is all over the place, it is my first ever forum post and I tried to be as neat as possible. Thanks guys!

Ps: I can't quite figure out how to add multiple Pictures directly from my iPhone to here so as soon as I figure that out I'll post some!

 

[homer1475]

The PH buffer and purple up both are making your ALK sky high. Stop dosing them. One of the golden rules in reefing, "never dose anything you don't test for".

Your CUC will add ammonia and your cycle has not stalled, your tank hasn't crashed. Your CUC is adding plenty of ammonia. The reason you start slow(with a CUC) is so the bacteria get a chance to grow as more ammonia is added to the system.

More then likely the super high Alkalinity is the reason for the coral health. Do a couple small water changes spaced a couple days apart to bring the alkalinity back in line.

PH buffer should never be used, keep your alkalinity in line(somewhere between 7 and 11) and your PH will fall in line. Most reefers never even check PH.

Have a read through this article to get your parameters in line. Remember the idea is to keep a stable system. Even if your levels are a little high or low, stability is the key.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

 

[gone fishin]

Welcome to the forums.

pH buffer can certainly increase the alkalinity. Typically someone will add some buffer, the pH will increase then drop back down again. They will then add more and this time it will take a bit more buffer to get the pH to move while increasing alkalinity. The process repeats until one gets a high alk.

From what you describe I would suggest doing WC's to lower the alk back down. What you have in the tank will not really use a lot of alk. I think once the alk gets back down to a normal range the corals will pick up. Good luck

Forgot to mention check out the sticky at the top of the forum called setting up, look for the big red arrow. It is chocked full of good info.

 

[C_Everett95]

Thank you both for the quick reply! Sorry if I can't properly tag you or if I even need to I'm not sure. I'll check out both of your recommendations. What about as far as the magnesium being as low as it is?

Nevermind, read before asking more questions