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#1
03-22-2021, 01:35 AM
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Water Chemistry Frustration
Hello,
My 90G has been up and running for 1 year next month. I have 8 fish total. 1 Tomato Clown, 1 Sailfin Tang, 1 Niger Trigger, 1 Flame Angel, 2 Blue Damsels, 1 Bi Color Foxface & 1 Talbot Damsel. I have 3 colonies of zoanthids that have not grown since I bought them in November. For the first 9 months I did not test my water parameters. I had a 187G 10 years ago that corals would thrive in without testing. I assumed this go round would be no different. I was wrong. Every sps coral I put in my tank bleaches in 3-4 weeks. Every LPS coral has died within 3 months and my zoathids do not grow. The only thing that seams to grow is diatoms on my rock and sand bed. Coraline algae seems to grow. The only good news is that my fish are fat and healthy. I started to test my parameters in mid January. My alkalinity was 5.6dkh, PH 7.6, temp 78F, salinity 1.026, nitrate 10ppm, calcium 513. I started to dose kalkwasser in February and my PH stabilized at 8.2. Alkalinity only went up to 6.5dkh. I have been using Aqua Forest reef salt. I have an MP40W and Tunze 6055 wave pump for flow and surface agitation. My I open my windows to get fresh O2 in every day and now with the weather getting nicer, they are open all the time. I switched salt to Red Sea blue bucket last week and have been mixing the salt with half aqua forest. I took my readings today and my alkalinity was 4.5dkh. Every other reading remained that same. I test my salt mixing station in the basement and the alkalinity read 4.0dkh. I switched out all my RODI filters this weekend. I’m sure that’s not the cause of my low alkalinity but I’m running out of options... at this point, I’m ready to leave my tank alone for a while and just see if it corrects itself over time. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. 
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#3
03-22-2021, 02:49 PM
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#4
03-22-2021, 07:16 PM
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Just to clarify; you today tested 4.5dKH, not 4.5meq/L, yes?
First thing I'd recommend is you have your LFS test your Alk with their kit. If this shows your test kits are OK then I'd suspect your salt mixes have settled. If you don't use a whole bucket in one go, you've likely heard to roll each new bucket before opening. Hopefully it turns out you have 2 bad tests as I've not yet heard of a salt mix being so low. Other thoughts are possibly leaving your new water sit for too long. Apparently AF recommends using their brands within 48hours/5days respectively dependent upon which product you use. After this the minerals may/will precipitate out/bond together and there come your low readings. If this is the case, put the AF aside for emergencies and use the RS Blue going forward.
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#5
03-22-2021, 09:06 PM
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Thank you for the advice. I will have my LFS test my water.
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#6
03-22-2021, 10:06 PM
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Plz keep us updated
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#7
03-26-2021, 02:23 AM
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Update??
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#8
03-26-2021, 09:48 PM
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#9
04-04-2021, 10:49 PM
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I never made it in to get my water tested at my LFS... however, I bought a new Hanna alkalinity reagent today and I made the switch to Red Sea blue bucket salt a couple weeks ago. After my normal 15 gallon water change every Sunday, my DKH was 8.2 and my PH was 8.3. I think the new filters on my RODI unit are helping with the diatoms as well.
I think that all my issues are due to tampering too much with the aquarium, trying to get the right number when I needed to step back and let things happen naturally. Maybe it was a bad batch of reagent that brought on all my frustrations. Thanks for listening and your feed back.
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#10
04-05-2021, 12:57 AM
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Well I guess as long as things are going well ...
I don't like Blue Bucket prices but really like their Big3 parameters. If you want to be as anal as myself and many others, test your new water and tank water before each WC. It's good to know where you're at before and after
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