What am I doing wrong? Or am I just being impatient ?

[mandyplo]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

You might be better doing a larger water change less often, say 20 or 25g every 2 or 3 weeks. Greater dilution. The skimmer will help too. It doesn't sound like you're in deep trouble, just need to tweak water quality and figure out your lights more. I think they have a dial or something to turn them up and down, not really sure how it's indicated for brightness/intensity.

Hi I see what you mean now about the lights - Yes the brightness/intensity is about 1/2 way up. They have 2 dials, one for brightness(intensity) one for how much tuna blue/white light you want.

So what do I have to change about my water quality exactly and how do I go about doing so? If these are my params
Ammonia 0.00 ppm
Nitrate 0-2.5 ppm
Nitrite - 0.00 ppm
Magnesium 1300 mg/L
Alkalinity 11 dkh
pH 8.2
Calcium 400-410 mg/L
Salinity 1.024

Is the Alk the only thing that is high? Everything else seems to be in the right range?

And thank you for the tip on the water changes.

Update: As the day progresses the clam and frogspawn continue to open more and more and look happier and happier. I am relieved, I think they just took a few days to acclimate but I do want to get on top of my water quality, any tips will help - and I will be picking up a phosphate test kit. Anything else I should be checking or are those all the essential parameters?