Oldmansanders
New member
Greetings everyone, long time lurker first time poster.
So I recently moved the contents of a 5 year old nano cube 12 G to a Mr. Aqua 25 cube that I have set up sumpless with the following equipment
Tunze 9004 skimmer
AC 50 hob filter runing Phosguard
Eheim Jager 100W
Smart ATO micro
Chinese black box LED from ebay
some Hydor Koriala powerheads
Anyway, I never really tested when I ran the nano cube and kept some easy LPS corals with good success for several years until last summer, when a dino outbreak coupled with what i'm sure were several other negligence based factors crashed the tank and killed pretty much everything but my fish. Afterward I replaced the sand bed and cleaned the crap out of the tank, pretty much starting over with my existing rock. Added a new duncan, some Zoas, a thumbnail size monty frag and a single head of hammer and things were pretty happy for a few months.
Three weeks ago I upgraded to the new tank and moved everything over. Things are running nicely and the diatom bloom from the new sand has mostly sorted itself out.
Anyway, I've never tested my params much in the past, and when I did I used API stuff, which I know is iffy. I handled issues with water changes mostly since the tank was so tiny. This time around, however, I decided to be more scientific about things and dropped the coin on the Red Sea Algae Control (NO3, PO4) and Reef Foundation (Kh, Ca, Mg) test kits. I was pretty surprised by the results I got this afternoon. I've run the tests several times, and carefully read the directions and watched Red Sea's videos and the results are consistent. Here's what I came up with
NO3: 0
PO4: 0.04
Alk: 7.8 dkh
Mg: 1600
Ca: 225 (!!!)
I was really, really surprised that a few frags and rocks with coralline on them would use so much Ca in a few weeks time, but I guess they did. My theory on why the Alk is still within the lower ranges of acceptable is that the Red Sea Coral Pro Salt I used starts at 12dkh, so even though it's been getting consumed with the CA it isn't miserably low yet.
I think the mag is high because my skimmer pulled a ton of water while it was first breaking in, and that was getting replaced with RO, driving my salinity down to around 1.022. To remedy this, I did a 5 gal water change with water I mixed at a 1.028ish to bump it back up. Must have added the extra Mg then? But even then, if I was just getting things back to 1.024, shouldn't the Mg have stayed the same?
Either way, I've got a problem here and I'm trying to figure out how to fix it, preferably without a huge water change. If I dose CA all the way up to 450 or so and bump the Alk to 9, then maintain with two-part, will the MG come down on its own?
I'm going to take a water sample to the LFS for a test to confirm before I do anything, but I'm just looking for a little guidance. Also, if dosing to correct is reasonable, i'm looking for product recommendations. All i have on hand is Seachem Reef Complete, which contains Mg, so I don't wanna mess with that.
Thanks
So I recently moved the contents of a 5 year old nano cube 12 G to a Mr. Aqua 25 cube that I have set up sumpless with the following equipment
Tunze 9004 skimmer
AC 50 hob filter runing Phosguard
Eheim Jager 100W
Smart ATO micro
Chinese black box LED from ebay
some Hydor Koriala powerheads
Anyway, I never really tested when I ran the nano cube and kept some easy LPS corals with good success for several years until last summer, when a dino outbreak coupled with what i'm sure were several other negligence based factors crashed the tank and killed pretty much everything but my fish. Afterward I replaced the sand bed and cleaned the crap out of the tank, pretty much starting over with my existing rock. Added a new duncan, some Zoas, a thumbnail size monty frag and a single head of hammer and things were pretty happy for a few months.
Three weeks ago I upgraded to the new tank and moved everything over. Things are running nicely and the diatom bloom from the new sand has mostly sorted itself out.
Anyway, I've never tested my params much in the past, and when I did I used API stuff, which I know is iffy. I handled issues with water changes mostly since the tank was so tiny. This time around, however, I decided to be more scientific about things and dropped the coin on the Red Sea Algae Control (NO3, PO4) and Reef Foundation (Kh, Ca, Mg) test kits. I was pretty surprised by the results I got this afternoon. I've run the tests several times, and carefully read the directions and watched Red Sea's videos and the results are consistent. Here's what I came up with
NO3: 0
PO4: 0.04
Alk: 7.8 dkh
Mg: 1600
Ca: 225 (!!!)
I was really, really surprised that a few frags and rocks with coralline on them would use so much Ca in a few weeks time, but I guess they did. My theory on why the Alk is still within the lower ranges of acceptable is that the Red Sea Coral Pro Salt I used starts at 12dkh, so even though it's been getting consumed with the CA it isn't miserably low yet.
I think the mag is high because my skimmer pulled a ton of water while it was first breaking in, and that was getting replaced with RO, driving my salinity down to around 1.022. To remedy this, I did a 5 gal water change with water I mixed at a 1.028ish to bump it back up. Must have added the extra Mg then? But even then, if I was just getting things back to 1.024, shouldn't the Mg have stayed the same?
Either way, I've got a problem here and I'm trying to figure out how to fix it, preferably without a huge water change. If I dose CA all the way up to 450 or so and bump the Alk to 9, then maintain with two-part, will the MG come down on its own?
I'm going to take a water sample to the LFS for a test to confirm before I do anything, but I'm just looking for a little guidance. Also, if dosing to correct is reasonable, i'm looking for product recommendations. All i have on hand is Seachem Reef Complete, which contains Mg, so I don't wanna mess with that.
Thanks
