troubleshooting alkalinity

[kwirky]

in the tank's a royal gramma, and about 6 softy/LPS frags/very young colonies. I've been feeding 1/2 a pea sized fragment of frozen angelfish mix to the gramma once a day.

I'll take my hydrometer into gold's to get it compared, and I'll take in a sample of water to test.

Yeah, I think it's new tank syndrome causing the pH swings. My skimmer wasn't working properly for a while, too. Had to remove and clean out the air valve.

I think all these problems are just me being inexperienced and I should that I should be patient.

[support@proline]

Don't worry Sean
You 're doing fine ,the important thing is that you are trying to find solutions.
one thing I like to recomend just go slow on stocking the tank ,It always pays up ,I would just be happy with the corals you have & start to stock up in a couple months or so.
As for the PH swingwhat is the min & max ponits?
In what way are your corals responding to the swings ?

[kwirky]

it's min 8.1, max 8.3.

Not really. The xenia curls in on themselves in a real unpredictable way, and only for about 20 minutes if they do. The toadstools react when the PAR monsters turn on, but not to the pH. The green star polyps don't care about anything and neither does the frogspawn/hammer. And the echinophyllia frag, even though it's slow growing, seems bullet proof, between this tank, and the nano it used to be in. I made a newbie boo-boo of buying a small ellegance coral. It's feeding (gripping the food), but it's only been in there for 2 days. I'm going to be real antsy once it's been in there for a week. Heard that's when most of them die, if they do. *sigh*

I dosed 6 tsp's of baking soda the other night, and 6 more this morning, and it's sat at a rock solid 8.2 ever since I started dosing it. kH hasn't budged, but I'm going to continue this regimen since it's seeming to keep the pH stable. I don't have much of a calcium demand in there, so I'll just keep an eye on calcium and add kalk if I see it lower. I think i'm on to something, though, with the baking soda.

[albert_dao]

Constant drip or topoff is the norm for kalk.

[Farrmanchu]

I had a Deep Six Hydrometer. Found it to be three points off, i.e read 1.018, and it was actually 1.021. Taking that into account, it worked, until it got bumped or shaken, then it would change. My advice is to check it against a Refractometer, so you know which way it's out and how much, then use it gently, rinse carefully, and keep it in a safe place. A few times a year, recheck it with a refractometer. If that floating needle thing in the Hydrometer bounces around too much, it's gonna change the reading.