Varrying Test Results

[ReefinND]

First a quick storyline catch-up.

So my 90 gal tank (20gal sump) had been somewhat unattended for two months (live on a farm and just got busy with all the baby animals), mostly just refilled and fed the two fish. (also had/have a varying amount of snails, hermit crabs, a toadstool coral, and a polyp coral)

Well the last two weeks I've been attacking it as time allows, mostly focusing on raising the Mg daily (or every other day, still get busy) which was really low, scraping brown fuzzy algae off everything, took out the sump and washed everything, completely cleaned out the protein skimmer, adding two large batches of CuC and so far two 15 gal water changes.

At the beginning of this "revival", my nitrates were so high that on the little chart it was a solid dark pink. Mg was about 850 and Kh was around a 5. Those were the only things I really looked at, since from my understanding you need Mg to be in the correct zone to fix Ca and Kh?

I also started adding Prodibio BIO DIGEST . Did one vial three weeks ago and on Tuesday after the water change I added two.

Well tonight after doing a 15 gal water change on Tuesday my nitrates with two different tests, Saifert and the Red Sea Pro test, my readings came up 0 (or really low).

I did each of the tests three times and kept getting the same reading. Which would normally be great...possibly, if it was really believable. (not convinced)

I'm not convinced because: being still a noob, I didn't realize that having high nitrates is intolerable for most snails according to liveaquaria (yes I know, would have known that if I actually would read). So I go and make 2 of my own CuC package of a variety of snails, hermit crabs, two urchins, a peppermint shrimp, an emerald crab, and fighting conch. Well a large amount of snails have been sitting upside down in the fetal position for periods of time (which after reading I assume is the high nitrates).

Thinking most of them were dead, I moved any I thought where in a straight line up against the glass....well now most of them have moved...so not dead...?

The other test I did was the Kh again with both Saifert and Red Sea Pro, well with this test I got 9 with the red sea and 13 with Saifert.

Both of these test kits are recently purchased, and the Saifert even has an expiration label which is way into the future. Any suggestions on what to do here or what test kid to believe.....maybe look into another brand?

BUT to also make things more confusing, last night was the first night my toadstool almost fully opened. It got the little feelers sticking out but they didn't "bloom". First time I've seen it do that in months. I also seen the peppermint shrimp and crab for the first time since adding them two weeks ago (assumed they were dead).

So I really don't know what to believe. I don't trust my local fish store with a water reading, I could go to the next town over this weekend that's an actual SW fish store and see what they say I suppose...?

Any thoughts, suggestions if you've kept up so far.... :hammer:

 

[sde1500]

Snails were mailed? The tend to take a few days to come out of their shells after that, so I wouldn't be terribly concerned about that.

As for the Alkalinity tests, do them again. The tests are only so accurate and in part rely on precision of us as testers. I've had bad results before because I added too much water to start, or wasn't mixing well as I dropped. If the results aren't conclusive, test a few more times to be sure, never hurts.

 

[ReefinND]

Will do, I'll maybe order another brand one just to make sure too. I'm not a fan of the Saifert Na test or the Red Sea Kh test.

The snails were shipped, there were only a few that were actually in their shells. A lot of them though were out of the shells just motionless, usually upside down or on their side. So I've been righting them as I can but it just seems strange that so many would do that? I've also noticed a decent amount being up on the very edge of the water line, for days at a time in the same spot.

What about the nitrates do you think? Is it really realistic that they would drop that much..... I've bee holding off getting any corals or anything else until I get them down assuming that this was going to be a long drawn out process after many water changes.

 

[ReefinND]

So I think I came up with a theory that I'd like to bounce around see what others think.

My live rock is pukani, that I didn't clean up or anything at all. Which is why I assumed I would/will have a long fought battle with nitrates and phosphates.

My huge algae breakout happened mid December and that's about when it started to get neglected. So my whole tank was filled with long brown fuzzy/hairy algae, rocks, sides, everything.....for about three months.

Then I started doing the water changes and removing all of it etc.

Did my neglect turn into "cooking" the rocks? All the crap in the rock got to grow its algae; on top of that my tank is barely stocked, had at least 75% of the algae physically removed (I scrubbed it off with a toothbrush and was catching it my fish net for several hours), changed the filter sock several times, cleaned all the filters out several times also, had all the debris removed from the sump and now had a good dosage of Prodibio BIO DIGEST.

Note there is still some of this brown fuzzy algae on the rocks, but it's growth seems to have halted. You can see where a snail or crab has been hanging out for awhile because I have clean white patches all over the rock.

Also for awhile during the initial cleaning attack, I would have to scrap the glass off almost hourly because little brown things were attaching to it.

Haven't had to clean the glass in almost two weeks now either.