water quality

[Buckeye Hydro]

Henry, do another clean reading (if you can) with the old resin and let us know. It would be interesting to know that DI resin can leach after being used up.

No question. After DI resin is exhausted, it will begin to release the most weakly held ions it previously captured.

Russ

 

[Henry Colf]

Sorry Dan, I threw it away. I wish I would have done that to get a reading before I tossed it. I just did a 25 gallon water change so i'll see what happens in the next couple of days. that's when the algae usually comes back on the substrate. I have been checking my water everyday though and the readings are at a steady zero...

 

[Henry Colf]

Well after three days the algae returned. Just came back from CF and had them test my water..
salinity-1.024
Nitrates- undetectable
Phosphates-undetectable
PH-8.4

I'm going to do another water change today and hope this gets better. Along with this all of my high end montipora(rainbow,orenji,chili pepper,sunset,purple haze and spongodes)all looked bleached out. I'm running 2 175 watt 15k xm's and 2 T-5's over the tank. I'm looking for some suggestions as what else to check...Thanks in advance

 

[dreaminmel]

I'm sure there's other possibilities, but any time I've had monti's do that it has turned out to be an Alk issue.

 

[Gravesj1s]

I agree with alk and bleaching ,I had a some bleach for that same reason.

If its been a while of using high tds water your substrate could have been accumulating phosphate and now be leaching phosphours.I wouldn't trust the test kit for the simple reason algae wouldn't be growing if there really wasn't any.Not to say the testkit is off,just that alage could be using it as quickly as its being released.
Just a hunch of course.

 

[Henry Colf]

I just added some PURA Complete hopefully if there was any metals leeched back into the water this will remove them...

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

working on what info has been given so far I'm at a loss for an explanation but I don't think metals are to blame.

 

[tmz]

Check ammonia.Alk could be part of it. If a toxin (metal. copper etc.) leached in polyfilter or cuprisorb would help over a period of time.Fesh gac too.

 

[tmz]

Pura complete looks ok too. For got if you checked PO4 or not.

Good luck.

 

[Henry Colf]

yeah, checked PO4 and was undetectable. My Alk was super low(I really don't understand why)but i've raised it back up over the last few days as well.My calcium was at 450 when I tested it and my Magnesium was at 1300. I drip kalk at a rate of around a drop every 30 seconds 24/7 and have done this for years this way. I'm also thinking with the age of my substrate it needs to be changed not sure if this is a contributing factor or not. So i'm hoping that getting the alk back in spec will bring the colors back on the montis. and will help get rid of the algae. I'm just lost on how it got so low as I dose B-Ionic every other day. The only thihg I can think of is that my load of sps corals tripled in like 2 months.

 

[GMaquarium]

how was po4 tested?

In case it actually is 0 that may explain some coral problems and heavy gfo use could explain low alk

 

[tmz]

I think some of the alkalinity may have been depleted by acids introduced with ammonia, amines and other crap from the failed di. CO3( carbonate alkalinty ) + 2H protons ---->H2 CO3 (carbonic acid).

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

The only thihg I can think of is that my load of sps corals tripled in like 2 months.

this gets my vote as for the cause of your low alk

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

this gets my vote as for the cause of your low alk

perhaps I should have posted

this gets my vote for at least ONE of the causes of your low alk.

obviously, SG 1.024 is a factor HOWEVER

if you're religious about water changes and your using a saltmix that mixes up to a low alk value @ SG 1.026 you might be losing ground with every water change...

 

[tmz]

I think so because ammonia(NH3/4) is loosely bound by the resin. It would be bound up in the resin accumulating for months and then when the resin exhausted it would be released in relatively large amounts as it was displaced by ions with a stronger bond in water flowing through the exhausted resin. Once in the tank it would break down , feed algae and add H and N to the system. The H would use up the buffering capacity and deplete the carbonate alkalinity needed by corals . As noted earlier ,post di tds is much worse than post ro membrane tds for exactly this reason as well as other potential releases.

PO4 is part of alkalinity but a very very small part. 96% is carbonate/bicarbonate. So removing it will not effect alkalinity very much and since as alkalinity it's not of any benefit to corals it would not explain the coral stress. It's also doubfull that a level limiting to corals could occur since reef values for PO4 are a scant .005ppm.

Removal will enocurage precipitation both biotic and abiotic of calcium carbonate and in this way it could enhance consumption and deplete alkalinity to some degree.

Gfo may also precipitate some calcium carbonate in the area of the gfo due to ph rises near the gfo related to the oxide in it. It may also cause some precipitation in other areas where the soluble iron that breaks loose
( fines/dust) lies. But I don't think it would cause a crash in alkalinity by itself.

 

[Paradiddle7]

Yup, the inline meter was well worth the $20-25 I spent. I always turn it on when making new RODI to verify my TDS is at 0, then i can flip the switch to monitor the other sensor. You can put the other sensor before the DI resin and one after, that helps show you the health of your RODI membrane too.

This is why I love those in-line TDS meters. One of the best tools recommended to me when I first started. The color changing resin is nice too!!

 

[Henry Colf]

Well got my water tested again today and here are the results
Salinity-1.025
Calcium-400
Alk-10.4
silica-0
phos-0.1
nitrate-5
mag-1440

And the algae is still growing, but was asked what the temp. of my tank was at and when I got home it was 83 and the lights were still on. The calibration for the temp probe on my RK2 was off 5 degrees.I haven't even looked in that direction until now. Mainly because the tank is in the basement and it's usually cool but with the high temps we've had this summer it's been warm down here too. This is what I think happened, I built some of those lumenstien relfectors(which work great) and when I redid the top I left it open hoping that the heat would escape out of the top. The reflectors measure 14x14 and that doesn't leave alot of room for air flow(which I didn't add any fans to the top) so i think essentially due to brain fart I think most of my issues stem from me.....

 

[Henry Colf]

I'm sorry the reflectors are 17x17 not 14x14...

 

[jfl14609]

I have a few fans if you need them

 

[Henry Colf]

cool