water chemistry

The Reefbot is now compatible with Giesemann Aquaristic Iodine Test Kit. You can read your Iodine levels between 0 and 0.1 ppm! Don't forget to use coupon code rklovesr2r at checkout for a 50$ discount!

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Hello Everyone! So a week ago I realized my ATC refractometer was calibrated wrong by about .003. No big whoop, instead of being at 1.025 my tank was at 1.021 where it was running stable. I did a PWC of about 30%, brought the water up to 1.022 and figured I would just do some manual saltwater...

I just cycled my fish tank and getting ready to add my first ever salt water fish this weekend. I picked up a hydrometer and Phosphate, Calcium, and Alkalinity test kits at the saltwater fish store because that's what they recommended. My specific gravity was 1.021, Phosphate levels were 0...

Can anyone tell me the difference between an RODI filter and a Black Berkey Ceramic Filter (Click on Extended Description for test results)? We are on municipal water and have used it without filtering for about 8 years, but we want to step up our game a little bit. We don't have huge tanks and...

Hi, I am having a heck of a time with inverts and it's only getting worse. Tank: 70 gallon mixed reef. Kole tang, 2 anthias, bi-colored blenny, and 2 clowns. Several SPS and LPS (SPS grow well in the tank but LPS is hit and miss) and softies (grow really well). I lose cleaner shrimp every...

Have been experiencing low alkalinity with my sps dominant mixed reef tank. Any suggestions as to what I should do? I was wondering if it is possible the current calcium reactor is too small. The tank is a red sea 525XL (525 Liters) plus about 50 gallons of sump. Current alkalinity is 6.1...

I have a standard 75 gallon tank. I was wondering if I need to take into consideration the volume displacement of my live rock and sand when calculating the percent of water to change. For example 20% of 75 is 15 but with 85lbs of live rock my actuall water volume is only 62 gallons and 20% of...

:( Not sure why or how my fish are starting to disappear one by one. So far have 3 fish have "disappeared" all of this started after i did 25-30% water changes for the past 2-3 weeks. I'm positive it's not the salt, my WC procedure is simply adding the RODI, adding salt for 1.026 salinity and...

Anyone have any experience with this salt, I have been running HW Marinemix for years but order it by the pallet from Germany. Anyone have any experience with this salt? Apparently it is supposed to be ionically balanced and even better. Thanks in advance!

Running low on the regular Instant Ocean salt and since I'm planning to switch over to Reef Crystals because I will be converting to reef soon enough. Is it okay for my next water change to mix my left over of IO with the new RC? The way I prep the water is I let the salt mix for at least a...

I currently have slightly low alkalinity between 6.4 and 7 and high calcium (a little over 500). Things in the reef are thriving. I have heard you can set the reactor for the desired alkalinity and the calcium will fall into proper range since it’s all about balance. pH is fine (maybe a...

Am I doing something wrong or is API test kit being wonky? Did a 20% change and normally I always see the nitrate drop as it should. For the first time after my waterchange today, my nitrate didnt budge a bit. Is it because I didnt siphon the sand enough? Not enough CUC (I only have around ~5...

Going to do 20-30% changes over the course of the next two weeks, I was thinking of adding a full bottle of bio spira at the end of the all the water changes to keeps things balanced. Good idea or bad idea?

For some reason my Nitrite rose up a bit from 0, not sure why but would the remedy be adding live bacteria? Tank is about 7months old

While the piping above our aquarium was being installed, a drop of PVC glue fell into the empty tank. This wasn't noticed until later, well after the glue had dried. Will this cause problems? What is the best way to clean if so?

Hello, I started a 60 gallon saltwater tank about two months ago. I would like to eventually get corals and such. There's currently one black and white clownfish, some hermit crabs, nassiurus snails, and one peppermint shrimp. I'm having trouble with aiptasia and I am wondering what type of...

Hey everyone, I have a 125gal DT and probably a 10-15 gal sump. I plan on doing a 10 gal water change from the DT but I have a feeling that its too little. It is currently a FOWLR system with 2 snails, 3 shrimps, and 12 fish. Would it be bad if I did 10 gal changes every 2-3 days to get...

I bought the Santa Monica Drop 1.4 for my BioCube 29 a few weeks ago. I have been running it for about 6 hours a night the last month and have ZERO growth... I have green hair algae on the rocks and glass, so I know there's nutrients. Any Ideas why I can't get any growth in the scrubber? Should...

The other day, as I arrived home from work, I opened the door to a smell of slightly burned stir fry. It's not uncommon for me, my wife, or the baby sitter to have cooked up something in the kitchen and created an odor which permeates the immidate living space surrounding the kitchen. As the...

I have had this spaghetti leather for about two months now and it has been doing great until the last week. It has retracted all of its polyps and shrunk to 1/3 its normal size. I have checked the water parameters and everything is on par. All the other corals in the tank have had no changes...

I use one of my Neptune Dos's for automatic water changes. The salt line got totally clogged recently. Have you guys experienced this and how do you keep your lines clear? The tubing goes into my salt mixing trash can which also has a power head in there. Both the power head and the bottom of...

Hello everyone i've recently started my first reef tank, and it's been going for about 2 1/2 weeks. tank is a 13.5 G all and one, with cured live rock, live sand, seachem Seed as the bacteria booster, and temp at 86 degrees F. the first week I set everything up and let the tank run. all the...

So I am new to corals and only have one at the moment, a zoanthid. I am only using the stock LED lights that came with my aquarium kit so I was not going to introduce any corals until upgrading my lighting system at all, but it seems I gave in to try out one that was known for not needing much...

So my tank is about a month old and my clownfish seem to be doing great (they have great color and are very active) also my cleaner shrimp has molted once and he seems to be doing great (moves around the tank a decent amount but loves the middle rock the most). The only thing I think I should do...