Water Quality

[anglfish]

I set up my nano 1 week ago and still waiting for the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate to go up... but nothing so far! (0 ppm for ammonia and nitrite and between 0 - 5 ppm for nitrate).

Could it be that it will not go up at all as I started off with fully cured live rock? (18 pounds of the live rock were taken from an established tank and didn't leave the water for longer than 5 minutes.)

by they way..my water change last week with quality salt brought my ph up from 7.9 to 8.2 :razz:

Ang

[Beverly]

With well-cured LR from an existing system, you will probably not experience a cycle at all in your new tank, especially since the rock was out of water for such a short period of time.

Now that you know your water quality is pretty good, now is the time to bone up on water chemistry, i.e. calcium, magnesium, alkalinity and pH levels. Here's a link from Christy's great Reference Library.....

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

There are a load of links at the bottom of the article for further reading to help you better understand the complexities of reef chemistry.

Good luck with your new nano :)

[Farrmanchu]

I started my reef the same way, cured LR, short transport time. NO CYCLE. I was adding fish and coral in the first week. Two months later and the tank is nearly full. Be carefull in the second and third week, that's when I got my only Ammonia spike (overfeeding).

[Farrmanchu]

BTW, you're getting Nitrate, so there was Nitrite and Ammonia, just was converted quickly to Nitrate, as it should be. Keep up the water changes, you're off to a flying start!

[anglfish]

this is weird. remember how I complaint about too low ph (7.8-7.9) due to low quality salt....

now I suddenly have a ph of 8.8. :sad:

after a water change last Thursday I had top water over the whole weekend (0 ammonia and nitrite, 0-5 nitrate, 8.1 ph). I took another meassurement on Monday and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate still were great but ph was up to 8.4. Did another waterchange yesterday to make sure that quality stays good and ph doesn't go up... but today the ph is at 8.8. (ammonia, nitrate and nitrite still reamins 0).

Why? How can I get it down? what is the cause?

I'm going to try finding some articles about that but I'm sure you experts out there know exactly what's wrong - don't you?

let me know if you need more info.

thanks,
Ang

[GrimReefer]

this is weird. remember how I complaint about too low ph (7.8-7.9) due to low quality salt....

now I suddenly have a ph of 8.8. :sad:

after a water change last Thursday I had top water over the whole weekend (0 ammonia and nitrite, 0-5 nitrate, 8.1 ph). I took another meassurement on Monday and ammonia, nitrite and nitrate still were great but ph was up to 8.4. Did another waterchange yesterday to make sure that quality stays good and ph doesn't go up... but today the ph is at 8.8. (ammonia, nitrate and nitrite still reamins 0).

Why? How can I get it down? what is the cause?

I'm going to try finding some articles about that but I'm sure you experts out there know exactly what's wrong - don't you?

let me know if you need more info.

thanks,
Ang
well don't buy low quality salt, silly! that's the most important part! :P i might suspect your test kit. make sure to rinse your test tubes well...

[Quagmire]

How is the air flow in the room with the tank? A small room,or one with no fresh air can cause your ph to go up.If so an open window will help.

[Beverly]

ang,

Here is the link to Canreef's Library's Chemistry page....

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=41

IME, when a tank is experiencing pH swings, you need to be concerned about alkalinity most of all, but also magnesium and calcium levels.

Quagmire,

When a room isn't getting enough fresh air, CO2 builds up and you tend to get lower pH.

[Quagmire]

Quagmire,

When a room isn't getting enough fresh air, CO2 builds up and you tend to get lower pH.

I know,sorry read the thread wrong.And my brain was on vacation

[christyf5]

What kind of test kits are you using?

What do you mean when you are saying "low quality" salt?

[anglfish]

Thank you All for your advice.
Beverly, I read most of the articles which took longer than expected as I had to visit some chemistry night classes in order to understand them. :wink: just kidding.
Anyhow I think reading up on the core principle of ph alkinity relationship, I think I figured out what happened. I took the reading of 8.8 pH at around 10pm. and that day I switched the lights on at around 7 am. that's way too many hours of light, I know. I do have a timer now to control the time.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the fact that I had daylight for 15 hours would cause a high pH level.
I know it can't be the salt, as I switched to Instant Ocean and had two water changes since.
Christy - the test kit is prolly to cheap too. I bought it with the old salt at petsmart. I don't know what brand that was I threw it out. I got a lecture from Allen at Creatures about that already :redface:

soo to make things short. I took another test.. in the morning, but well rinsed test tubes (:wink: genix) and I got a pH level of 8.2.

So I guess I worried too much again.

Kinda like I dragged my puppy to the vet cause I thought he was limping and paid 60 bucks to find out that he has a blister on his paw from running around. :neutral:

so thanks again for your help!

by the way if you are interested - look out for some tank pictures I will post in a new thread!

Angela

[Beverly]

Ang,

I'm not sure if having the lights on for 15 hours would give you such a high pH, but it might. I've never actually kept the lights on our tanks for so long.

Yeah, reading all those chemistry articles takes a lot out of a person. I've read some of them a half dozen times and am still learning each time I read them over :wink:

It is normal for there to be a pH swing from just before lights on and just after lights out, but if the swing is over, say, .3 points, I always suspect alkalinity is too low. I try to keep mine between 8 dKH and 11-ish dKH.

A good thing to do when testing and adding additives is to keep a log of when you test, what your test results are, and how much you add of each additive. Here are some calculators for determining system volume and how much additive to add after chemistry testing...

Aquarium System Volume Calculator:

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/volcalc.html

The Reef Chemistry Calculator:

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

HTH :)

[anglfish]

Thanks for the advice Christie.

I was actually thinking of keeping an electronic log/diary to track water changes, tests, etc.

Is there by chance some Database or even Excel Spreadsheet template that is build for such tracking? If not I can build my own but I would love to save some work. :smile:

[reeferaddict]

Do a google search for "ReefCon"... great little electronic logging & graphing program for free... you can totally track your tank with it... :mrgreen: