carbonate hardness <kh> and phosphate <po4>

[tgoeujon]

how hard is too hard? my top up water is usually at 140 mg/l but for some reason my tank is sitting at 195 mg/l. all thats in it is 2 seahorses and two pipefish with a clean up crew. my phosphate which is usually at nothing has spiked at 5 mg/l. i know i need to do a big water change but will altering the kh and po4 that much hurt the fish. also will the water being that hard actually hurt the fish or cause a reaction of some sort.

[i have crabs]

1DkH = approx 18 mg/l
so 195 is about 10.8dkh which i think is the way you should read this to make your life easier in the future, this is at the upper end of the scale but not really a problem on its own what you need to do is find out you calcium level and magnesium level and make sure they are all at the levels that they should be relating to each other.
are you adding anything to your tank to increase alkalinity?
you probably should do some reading about alk,calcium and magnesium so you have a better understanding of what might be happening
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=21968
as for the phosphate what are you feeding? sometime the food your adding has a lot of phosphate in it and should be rinsed out well before adding it to the tank or could be lots of other things as well.

[tgoeujon]

calciums at 410 but i dont have a test kit for magnesium. i cant figure why the phosphate would get so high. ive actually cut back the feeding and the phosphate increased. i was hoping the increased hardness and phosphate would be linked so it would be simpler to figure out but i guess not. lol.

[i have crabs]

since your calcium is on the lower to mid end and the alk is a on the upper end so i would add some calcium to raise it up to the 450 or even 475 range
thier can be a lot of reasons for phosphates feeding is just a common one,do you have a sand bed? and maybe check how dirty your filters are depending what you use

[michika]

8-10 dKH is fine. I run 8 dKH and 420 Ca with no problems, and some nice growth.

[marie]

since your calcium is on the lower to mid end and the alk is a on the upper end so i would add some calcium to raise it up to the 450 or even 475 range...


Why would you waste the calcium needed to maintain levels so high when anything over 380 is all you need?

[i have crabs]

im not sayin its a problem but a dkh of 10.8 seems a little on the high side to have calcium at 410, if calcium was at 410 and alk was 7-8 it would be closer to being balance in my eyes but im not tryin to tell him his tank is gonna explode

[tgoeujon]

thanks. im gonna try doing a water change, changing my filter media and bringing my calcium levels up. ill let ya know what happens

[mark]

no fear if Alk already high and Ca okay, pushing the Ca might cause problems (Ca pcpn) rather than driving the alk down?

See here (http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php) for NSW and aquarium ranges