Wierd calcium,alkalinity, and magnesium parameters

[crazymnkeyman77]

I have a brand new 55 gallon tank... Its been running for about 3 months. It has 1 royal wrasse, 1 chromis, 1 black ice clownfish, and my bangaii died a few days ago. It also seems my purple firefish is missing. Anyways the tank was going to house sps corals. The easiest like monitpora digitatas as ive never housed sps before. My salinity is high at 37ppt. I will lower it today.. but I did my first ever tests today with my red sea pro kit and these were my readings.

calcium: 500
magnesium: 1600
Alkalinity: 14

What is going on with my tank?? How do i fix these!? I was wanting to get my first monitpora digitta today but im questioning it.

 

[outssider]

first thing I would do is make sure you are doing the tests correctly. go to youtube and look up the videos by red sea for those tests. red sea has excellent how to videos on all their tests. your salinity being that high will make your results a bit high too!

 

[GroktheCube]

What salt did you use to start the tank with? If Red Sea Coral Pro, it has outrageously high ca/alk/mg numbers, so that might help explain it when combined with your high salinity.

 

[downbeach]

Your higher salinity is contributing to those numbers. What are you using to measure the SG with? If its a swing arm type hydrometer, it may be giving you bad readings, causing you to add too much salt mix, and by extension too much of those elements as well. If a refractometer, is it properly calibrated with a 35 ppt solution? Are you toping off with plain RO/DI water, or are you using SW? If SW, then that is causing your high SG, and those elements in your DT. I would slowly get your SG down to 35ppt(1.026), and recheck.

 

[crazymnkeyman77]

What salt did you use to start the tank with? If Red Sea Coral Pro, it has outrageously high ca/alk/mg numbers, so that might help explain it when combined with your high salinity.

Your higher salinity is contributing to those numbers. What are you using to measure the SG with? If its a swing arm type hydrometer, it may be giving you bad readings, causing you to add too much salt mix, and by extension too much of those elements as well. If a refractometer, is it properly calibrated with a 35 ppt solution? Are you toping off with plain RO/DI water, or are you using SW? If SW, then that is causing your high SG, and those elements in your DT. I would slowly get your SG down to 35ppt(1.026), and recheck.

I use a refractometer. No I dont use the Ref Sea Coral Pro Salt, but I use a similar one called Red Sea Salt. Should I change my salt so it doesnt give me outrageous numbers? If so what salt should I change to?

 

[crazymnkeyman77]

I will Re check my alk,cal, and magnesium later today as I just lowered the salinity to 1.025

 

[71xlch]

I will Re check my alk,cal, and magnesium later today as I just lowered the salinity to 1.025

First thing in SPS tanks is don't make your SG swing from 1.027 to 1.025 in a night. Slow and steady changes win the race.

Are you using RO/DI water for topping off?

 

[GroktheCube]

I use a refractometer. No I dont use the Ref Sea Coral Pro Salt, but I use a similar one called Red Sea Salt. Should I change my salt so it doesnt give me outrageous numbers? If so what salt should I change to?

Regular Red Sea (also called Red Sea blue bucket on here) tends to have good alk, ca, and mg levels.

Have you calibrated your refractometer lately?

 

[crazymnkeyman77]

First thing in SPS tanks is don't make your SG swing from 1.027 to 1.025 in a night. Slow and steady changes win the race.

Are you using RO/DI water for topping off?

Ok I will make sure i dont do that again.

 

[crazymnkeyman77]

Regular Red Sea (also called Red Sea blue bucket on here) tends to have good alk, ca, and mg levels.

Have you calibrated your refractometer lately?

No I didnt now you even had to calibrate them... I will do some reading on it and surely calibrate it in the next few days here.

 

[GroktheCube]

Without calibration, it could be WAY off. That could easily explain your high numbers.

 

[Tweaked]

I've posted it before, but the RSP salts alk at 35ppt is just ridiculous. I am unsure how anyone is able to use it, but I guess some still like alk around 11, but not me. The RS regular salt is spot on every time from my tests of an alk range between 7.9 and 8.1 at 35ppt.

 

[Tweaked]

RIDICULOUS

 

[tdb320reef]

I've posted it before, but the RSP salts alk at 35ppt is just ridiculous. I am unsure how anyone is able to use it, but I guess some still like alk around 11, but not me. The RS regular salt is spot on every time from my tests of an alk range between 7.9 and 8.1 at 35ppt.

+1 great advice. I also use RS blue bucket since my rebuild and the params are solid.

 

[crazymnkeyman77]

RIDICULOUS

+1 great advice. I also use RS blue bucket since my rebuild and the params are solid.

So i should start using the RS blue bucket? What is that Red sea salt? Is that the red sea coral pro salt?