ISR Jimmy
Community Member
Fellow reefers,
I am totally new to the reef scene. My past experience with saltwater has been with sharks in a FOWLR system. I recently came across a 29g Cardiff aquarium and thought I would try setting up a nice reef nano. Did all the normal best practices in setting up. Used pure RODI water for everything from cleaning, rinsing, filling, even rinsed my hands with RODI water before touching anything to prevent contamination. I even forked over the extra cash for a digital DTS monitor to ensure I am using the purest of waters. I also followed a slow cycle regime starting with raw shrimp, followed by live sand, and finishing with live rock. It took me weeks of patience, but everything appeared perfect in the end. I had what appeared to be a crystal clear aquarium with zero ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. All was well, or so I thought.
And now for the rest of the story.
I purchased over $150 in shrooms, Z's, and P's, only to watch most slowly fade away. Shrooms are doing good, but the rest were gone in a week. Retested the water using my API kit and all still showed healthy with a slight bit of nitrate, but under 5ppm. After reading nearly every blog I could in hopes to find some random post that sounded similar, I found nothing. I was ready to toss in the towel on this one. Then my wife found another API test kit that tests calcium, Kh, and phosphates. Not thinking it any of them could be the cause, I tested anyway. My calcium was hovering at 280ppm and my alkalinity was off the scale on the high side. Nearly double what is on the chart. I tried everything to include water changes with no luck. The water coming out of the RODI unit was perfect in every way to include Kh
And here was the self induced problem...
What I figured out (at the cost of my frags). With each new bucketful of water, I used a short cut to get my PH to 8.2. I added The "Exact 8.2 PH powder with buffer to better sustain the PH", which uses alkaline as a buffer. Unfortunately I unknowingly increased my Kh from perfect conditions to off the chart with each little scoop. It also prevented the aquarium from absorbing the limewater when trying to increase my calcium. I found a great little article on the subject once I identified the problem and knew what to search for on the web.
Chemistry And The Aquarium: Solving Calcium And Alkalinity Problems ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
I already completed a partial water change and am in the recovery phase. Hope this helps others just starting off.
Respectfully
James
I am totally new to the reef scene. My past experience with saltwater has been with sharks in a FOWLR system. I recently came across a 29g Cardiff aquarium and thought I would try setting up a nice reef nano. Did all the normal best practices in setting up. Used pure RODI water for everything from cleaning, rinsing, filling, even rinsed my hands with RODI water before touching anything to prevent contamination. I even forked over the extra cash for a digital DTS monitor to ensure I am using the purest of waters. I also followed a slow cycle regime starting with raw shrimp, followed by live sand, and finishing with live rock. It took me weeks of patience, but everything appeared perfect in the end. I had what appeared to be a crystal clear aquarium with zero ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. All was well, or so I thought.
And now for the rest of the story.
I purchased over $150 in shrooms, Z's, and P's, only to watch most slowly fade away. Shrooms are doing good, but the rest were gone in a week. Retested the water using my API kit and all still showed healthy with a slight bit of nitrate, but under 5ppm. After reading nearly every blog I could in hopes to find some random post that sounded similar, I found nothing. I was ready to toss in the towel on this one. Then my wife found another API test kit that tests calcium, Kh, and phosphates. Not thinking it any of them could be the cause, I tested anyway. My calcium was hovering at 280ppm and my alkalinity was off the scale on the high side. Nearly double what is on the chart. I tried everything to include water changes with no luck. The water coming out of the RODI unit was perfect in every way to include Kh
And here was the self induced problem...
What I figured out (at the cost of my frags). With each new bucketful of water, I used a short cut to get my PH to 8.2. I added The "Exact 8.2 PH powder with buffer to better sustain the PH", which uses alkaline as a buffer. Unfortunately I unknowingly increased my Kh from perfect conditions to off the chart with each little scoop. It also prevented the aquarium from absorbing the limewater when trying to increase my calcium. I found a great little article on the subject once I identified the problem and knew what to search for on the web.
Chemistry And The Aquarium: Solving Calcium And Alkalinity Problems ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
I already completed a partial water change and am in the recovery phase. Hope this helps others just starting off.
Respectfully
James
