Ready to Give up - Dosing problems
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Paul B
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Testing
I just had mine tested by an LFS. Every year or so I have it tested just so I can answer a question when someone asks me what my readings are. My calcium is 440 and the alk is 15 or what I like to call "good enough" :hat:
I just had mine tested by an LFS. Every year or so I have it tested just so I can answer a question when someone asks me what my readings are. My calcium is 440 and the alk is 15 or what I like to call "good enough" :hat:
jservedio
Active Member
The ONLY 2 ways calcium can come down without actually removing water are: 1. Growth consuming Calcium, Alkalinity, and Magnesium and 2. Precipitation consuming Calcium and Alkalinity. If you have little growth, that means your calcium is going to take forever to come down unless you simply remove all of your water and replace it with water that is properly ionically balanced.
Also - by "this will take a long time" I didn't mean 2 weeks. For a tank that isn't packed to the gills with SPS, using up 150+ ppm of Calcium can take months and months and months. Water changes are going to remove more calcium than your corals. The only way to quickly do it is to do lots of big water changes.
Keep in mind, if you have 65 gallons with 600+ ppm of calcium and change out 20g with IO, you are only reducing the calcium by around 50ppm (much less with Reef Crystals) while also increasing your Alkalinity - which is going to promote precipitation. You shouldn't worry about your magnesium unless it is UNDER 1350ppm. If it is over, don't worry about where it is unless it is like off the charts in the 2000s.
Like I said, it is a slow process - don't chase numbers and just keep your Alkalinity somewhere near NSW as best you can until your Calcium slowly stabilizes. Never chase numbers - only stabilization. It will take time - but it will stabilize. Sea water naturally wants to balance alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, and pH. As long as you don't do anything drastic and exacerbate the problem, it'll fix itself.
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Bernardhny
Active Member
Latest Update in the Saga of my water chemistry
I purchased the Salifert Magnesium test kits (Alk, Cal and Mag). Here are my results (two tests each).
My magnesium is still very high. To explain how high I will simply tell you that I followed the directions to the T, and the COLOR did not change after putting in the full 1.0ml syringe of the mg-3 reagent. I filled it up a second time (the syringe) just to see and it used an additional .14 before changing from the pink to blue. The instructions say to TURN IT OVER with the point at the top. The first full syringe shows that I had 1500ppm, and the second shows 210. So I am concluding that my first test kit is not lying, that I have 1710 ppm of magnesium.
I have watched videos on you tube just to make sure that I am testing correctly. For example, if I were to have used all but .03 of the material I would be at 1480 ppm. Since I used all of it, the reading is at least 1500. Am I not doing this correctly?
For whatever reason, even after doing all of these water changes, my magnesium, if I am reading two different test kits is NOT DROPPING at all. My calcium, according to the new Salifert test kit is above 500, again adding more shows the same result as my other test kit, 560. Alk is at 6, which again matches up with my other test kit. So I spent all of this money on test kits to show the same thing: My water chemistry is high on Calcium, Magnesium and low on Alk. The same battle.
I have not been dosing anything now for two weeks, simply doing water changes. The water going in tests fine, all the right parameters for Mag, Alk and Calcium, but something in my tank is causing the chemistry to go out of whack.
Let's go over the tank again.
55G square with a 10G sump.
Skimmer is running 24/7 and I get great dark skimmate, thick, not watery (remora S Pro)
I am running T5 lights
about 80 pounds of live rock
Sump has two inches of miracle mud in the fuge area and a bunch of Chaeto algae
I am not dosing anything
I am using Red Sea Coral Pro Salt (which tests fine)
Salinity is steady at 1.026
UV Filter (9watt)
GFO/Carbon reactor by BRS with new Carbon and GFO changed about 7 days ago
I have three power heads, two connected to a wavemaker, one that is always on.
I have been doing water changes religiously, with the entire quantity of water being changed over the last 20 days.
I feed once per day, frozen food: Emerald delight, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, Marine Cuisine, and I put a sheet of Algae (green) in for my tangs.
All corals are extended nicely and I have no sick looking or stressed fish.
PH ranges from 7.67 to 7.97 depending on the time of day of testing.
I am thinking I am going to run to the store, get a bucket of Salinity and do a 20G water change tomorrow, followed by another 20G on Saturday, followed by another 20G on Sunday. That will have changed all of the water in a 3 day period. Probably stress the crap out of my tank but at that point my Magnesium, Calcium and Alk should be at substantially lower levels.
Just a last thought, even though I am now looking at the culprit being the salt I truly do not think this is the problem. My salt water tests fine. Alk at 12, Mag at 1430 and Calcium at 430. I am putting in good water, something else is causing this problem and I have no idea what it is. Many are thinking I am chasing numbers, and frankly, I am chasing numbers now. I need Magnesium to be lower, calcium to be lower and Alk to be higher. This is ******* me off.
I purchased the Salifert Magnesium test kits (Alk, Cal and Mag). Here are my results (two tests each).
My magnesium is still very high. To explain how high I will simply tell you that I followed the directions to the T, and the COLOR did not change after putting in the full 1.0ml syringe of the mg-3 reagent. I filled it up a second time (the syringe) just to see and it used an additional .14 before changing from the pink to blue. The instructions say to TURN IT OVER with the point at the top. The first full syringe shows that I had 1500ppm, and the second shows 210. So I am concluding that my first test kit is not lying, that I have 1710 ppm of magnesium.
I have watched videos on you tube just to make sure that I am testing correctly. For example, if I were to have used all but .03 of the material I would be at 1480 ppm. Since I used all of it, the reading is at least 1500. Am I not doing this correctly?
For whatever reason, even after doing all of these water changes, my magnesium, if I am reading two different test kits is NOT DROPPING at all. My calcium, according to the new Salifert test kit is above 500, again adding more shows the same result as my other test kit, 560. Alk is at 6, which again matches up with my other test kit. So I spent all of this money on test kits to show the same thing: My water chemistry is high on Calcium, Magnesium and low on Alk. The same battle.
I have not been dosing anything now for two weeks, simply doing water changes. The water going in tests fine, all the right parameters for Mag, Alk and Calcium, but something in my tank is causing the chemistry to go out of whack.
Let's go over the tank again.
55G square with a 10G sump.
Skimmer is running 24/7 and I get great dark skimmate, thick, not watery (remora S Pro)
I am running T5 lights
about 80 pounds of live rock
Sump has two inches of miracle mud in the fuge area and a bunch of Chaeto algae
I am not dosing anything
I am using Red Sea Coral Pro Salt (which tests fine)
Salinity is steady at 1.026
UV Filter (9watt)
GFO/Carbon reactor by BRS with new Carbon and GFO changed about 7 days ago
I have three power heads, two connected to a wavemaker, one that is always on.
I have been doing water changes religiously, with the entire quantity of water being changed over the last 20 days.
I feed once per day, frozen food: Emerald delight, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, Marine Cuisine, and I put a sheet of Algae (green) in for my tangs.
All corals are extended nicely and I have no sick looking or stressed fish.
PH ranges from 7.67 to 7.97 depending on the time of day of testing.
I am thinking I am going to run to the store, get a bucket of Salinity and do a 20G water change tomorrow, followed by another 20G on Saturday, followed by another 20G on Sunday. That will have changed all of the water in a 3 day period. Probably stress the crap out of my tank but at that point my Magnesium, Calcium and Alk should be at substantially lower levels.
Just a last thought, even though I am now looking at the culprit being the salt I truly do not think this is the problem. My salt water tests fine. Alk at 12, Mag at 1430 and Calcium at 430. I am putting in good water, something else is causing this problem and I have no idea what it is. Many are thinking I am chasing numbers, and frankly, I am chasing numbers now. I need Magnesium to be lower, calcium to be lower and Alk to be higher. This is ******* me off.
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Bernardhny
Active Member
Ok so here is the plan. I picked up Salinity today. Made 10 gallons of water and I am going to let it mix overnight. I will change the 10G tomorrow, then 10G every week for the next 4 weeks. I am not going to test the water, not going to do anything but do water changes for the next month and then start testing. I believe that my problem will be resolved by then. I think I need to stop chasing numbers and start measuring my tank by what the corals are telling me Alk is low, Cal and Mag might be high but the tank looks great and the inhabitants are happy. I need to chill.
ound:
Alabamareef
Well-Known Member
I think you said your using Red Sea Coral Pro salt. Well as many water changes as your doing your adding all the trace elements to your tank and dosing on top of that. In lies your issue. Quit doing so many water changes. If your phosphates or nitrates are high, change water but other than that quit doing so many water changes. Your washing out your system, or beneficial bacteria.
Quit dosing all together and let your numbers fall back into line. From what your saying your current numbers are they will fall back into place. Number chasing can make you old fast. Your getting some great advice here. Paul is a 60 year vet who has had success that most of us here have spent thousands to achieve. Randy Holmes Farley is a great source of info.
I think if you've been in this hobby long enough you've chased some numbers. And most of us that have had long term success have learned to not make so many changes so fast. Keep it simple. Quit dosing everything will fall into place. Test weekly and when your number come into range adjust your dosing at that point. Mg is very important to help your corals use Alk and Ca.
Wish you the best of luck and put away those test kits, water changing supplies, and turn off the dosing pumps and sit back and watch for a while.
Just think after you get this problem worked out you'll find something else in this hobby to chase.
Good Luck and I'll keep watching for updates.
Quit dosing all together and let your numbers fall back into line. From what your saying your current numbers are they will fall back into place. Number chasing can make you old fast. Your getting some great advice here. Paul is a 60 year vet who has had success that most of us here have spent thousands to achieve. Randy Holmes Farley is a great source of info.
I think if you've been in this hobby long enough you've chased some numbers. And most of us that have had long term success have learned to not make so many changes so fast. Keep it simple. Quit dosing everything will fall into place. Test weekly and when your number come into range adjust your dosing at that point. Mg is very important to help your corals use Alk and Ca.
Wish you the best of luck and put away those test kits, water changing supplies, and turn off the dosing pumps and sit back and watch for a while.
Just think after you get this problem worked out you'll find something else in this hobby to chase.
Good Luck and I'll keep watching for updates.
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petemichelle
Well-Known Member
okay I'm going to jump in here with my 2 cents. please give this some thought. I have gone through this same problem twice. I am still going through the second one. here's how my problem started. same as you, alk just won't hold. by the way I am also using red sea pro salt on both my tanks and all red sea test kits with at least 2 other brands of test kits for each parameter. back to the problem alk just won't hold. would drop all the way to 5.9. spiked my magnesium and calcium by accident, just like you. I got my levels back down by going to the local fish store and buying their pre made water. why because they don't use red sea pro salt, so their parameters if you test them before you put then in your tank are really low. mag will probably be as low as 1000 or 1100, cal down to like 280 or 320. why do they do this? because it is good for fish only systems and then you have to buy additives to bring it up. $$$. so the lower numbers in your store bought water will start to bring your mag and calcium down. I have seen my mag levels go up to 1480 and the tanks is still okay. calcium I have had up to 500 as well and it's okay. once the mag gets to what you want it is pretty stable. the only time I will see mine swing is when I do a water change. I wanted to comment on the calcium. My friend at the local fish store has a large sump with miracle mud in it and he told me that after adding the miracle mud his calcium is always 500 or better and he has to add nothing. you might want to look into that. see if the miracle mud manufacturer sight says this is normal. I know they advertise that it gives off lots of good stuff for your water and stabilizes it as far as adding stuff. I have never used it so I can't personally comment on it, just what my buddy at the fish store says about it and the calcium in their tank. Now abut the alk. yes gfo will lower your alk.. I have a 29 gal bio cube that was very very stable as far as how much additive I was putting in. 1/2 tsp of ABC, and 1/4 tsp of alk everyday. I would dose for a month without testing and when I did, they would be spot on. 1380 mag, 450 cal, 12.2 alk. this went on for 6 months or better. when I added a gfo reactor because of algae, guess what, the alk took a dive, and now I have to dose 2 tsp of alk and 1 1/2 tsp of ABC. but that daily dose keeps it stable. same readings. same levels. same fish, same corals, all other equipment the same.
my second goof up is with my brand new 150 gal setup. it is still cycling. I wanted to get the parameters stable but overdosed alk and had white percipertation over all the equipment and display tank glass. seems I used the BRS calculator with the meg/l abbreviation instead of the DKH. pretty stupid but it is what it is. okay, massive water change to get the levels back down. weeks of cleaning and readings are mag 1480, cal 410 and alk 5.9. I started dosing. and dosing, and dosing I tried dosing 150m. then 300m. then 500ml then 700m. could never get it up over 10. then in the matter of 5 hours the alk would drop back down 1.5 maybe 2 DKH finally stabilizing around 5.9. percipertation once again all over everything. I cleaned again. I did a lot of reading and found out that new aragonite sand and dry rock will suck in the alkalinity. which kind of makes sense because in spas and pools they check and balance the alkalinity, and they also say if the alkalinity is too low, the water will suck it out of the equipment, ie piping and pumps causing premature failure, if it is too high it will start coating the equipment. so I did a kind of test. I added the calculated amount of alkalinity into the tank to raise it to 11.8 and in 1/2 an hour took a large glass of water sample out of the display. tested it. sure enough it was 11.8. but instead of putting the water back in as I always do after testing. I let it sit with a cover over it. over the course of a couple of days the water in the display tank dropped as always too 5.9. but the water in the glass was still the 11.8 alk mag 1480 and cal 1450 that it was 2 days ago. I then waited another two days, same results, I then added a piece of rubble dry rock, and guess what , the alk levels took a plunge.
my plan now is to let the tank finish it's cycling then dose alk only in small amounts to bring it up 1.4 DKH per day until it gets to the natural sea level readings of 8. leave it alone for a couple of months then try to bring it up another 1.4 and so on. I hope this works and I hope this helps you. I am sorry to be so long winded but wanted you to know that what I am telling you is from actual experience happening right now. not 40 years ago back in the day. I will tag along on this thread to see what happens for my own sake. I don't have all the answers, sometimes I feel like I have more issues than answers, just wanted to share and help if I could.
my second goof up is with my brand new 150 gal setup. it is still cycling. I wanted to get the parameters stable but overdosed alk and had white percipertation over all the equipment and display tank glass. seems I used the BRS calculator with the meg/l abbreviation instead of the DKH. pretty stupid but it is what it is. okay, massive water change to get the levels back down. weeks of cleaning and readings are mag 1480, cal 410 and alk 5.9. I started dosing. and dosing, and dosing I tried dosing 150m. then 300m. then 500ml then 700m. could never get it up over 10. then in the matter of 5 hours the alk would drop back down 1.5 maybe 2 DKH finally stabilizing around 5.9. percipertation once again all over everything. I cleaned again. I did a lot of reading and found out that new aragonite sand and dry rock will suck in the alkalinity. which kind of makes sense because in spas and pools they check and balance the alkalinity, and they also say if the alkalinity is too low, the water will suck it out of the equipment, ie piping and pumps causing premature failure, if it is too high it will start coating the equipment. so I did a kind of test. I added the calculated amount of alkalinity into the tank to raise it to 11.8 and in 1/2 an hour took a large glass of water sample out of the display. tested it. sure enough it was 11.8. but instead of putting the water back in as I always do after testing. I let it sit with a cover over it. over the course of a couple of days the water in the display tank dropped as always too 5.9. but the water in the glass was still the 11.8 alk mag 1480 and cal 1450 that it was 2 days ago. I then waited another two days, same results, I then added a piece of rubble dry rock, and guess what , the alk levels took a plunge.
my plan now is to let the tank finish it's cycling then dose alk only in small amounts to bring it up 1.4 DKH per day until it gets to the natural sea level readings of 8. leave it alone for a couple of months then try to bring it up another 1.4 and so on. I hope this works and I hope this helps you. I am sorry to be so long winded but wanted you to know that what I am telling you is from actual experience happening right now. not 40 years ago back in the day. I will tag along on this thread to see what happens for my own sake. I don't have all the answers, sometimes I feel like I have more issues than answers, just wanted to share and help if I could.
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Bernardhny
Active Member
Like deja vu
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