Alk, Ca, Mg very low. Best method to bring up?

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I use an electronic salinity tester and target 35 ppt (+/- 0.2) so it should be closer to 1.0264 than 1.025. All I can say for sure is that even if we ignore the exact corresponding numeric values of the tests, I definitely measure relatively more calcium and alk after changing salts than I was ever able to detect in IO. AFR made no difference on peak detectable calcium either

When I changed salts it was the only thing I changed, hoping to isolate it as the only variable, and it seemed to make a huge difference for me. with that one change I went from struggling to keep happy LPS corals to seeing them thrive

It’s entirely possible that there were other variables in play that made the difference. All I can say is that before I changed salts I had a hammer die and I watched my duncans abandon heads and after changing salts my duncans bounced back, they have many heads now, and I can also keep hammers alive and happy

you’re a lot more knowledgeable than I so I’m not surprised you don’t have the same problems with it as I did

Sorry, I was confused. There are too many people posting values and I thought you were the one who said 1.025 via a TM hydrometer. lol

What did you switch to?

 

[rtparty]

10am-12pm ramp up
7-8pm ramp down to 1% blue until 10pm then pitch black

So after a few hours lights are at full blast and the corals look worse? Then at night as lights ramp down the corals start to look better?

If that is the case, cut your light in half at peak and watch the corals

 

[commod0re]

Sorry, I was confused. There are too many people posting values and I thought you were the one who said 1.025 via a TM hydrometer. lol

What did you switch to?

No worries! I’ve been using red sea blue bucket salt since then. I also dose AFR throughout the day and nothing else, but I did that with the IO too

 

[therealraf02]

10am-12pm ramp up
7-8pm ramp down to 1% blue until 10pm then pitch black

So after a few hours lights are at full blast and the corals look worse? Then at night as lights ramp down the corals start to look better?

If that is the case, cut your light in half at peak and watch the corals

Not quite all the coral, but my micromussa does seem to be slightly better now. Monti cap is generally okay. My digitata is a bit upset still. Zoas are still upset as it's 7:32 pm and they're practically closed.
I've lowered whites to 10% and blues to 50%. Could it also be an adjustment thing?

 

[therealraf02]

Update: it's rodi jug refill day. I managed to get a tds checker as well (from amazon).
My BRS 4 stage 100gpd RO water while flushing (so before the di stage) reads around 35ppm. Tap water is testing at 43ppm.
I did replace the sediment filter a couple days ago. I think it's time to replace the other filter media. Anyways, final product has been reading 1ppm consistently.

Here's where it gets interesting. I measured the tds for the jug of rodi I made today for my other tank (that's doing pretty good, no major issues, also a 20 gallon). Tds of 1.

Then I measured the jug I just finished making (for this tank--the one this thread is about that's been having issues). I'll let the comparison photos do the talking:

Yeah. 132 vs 1. Both images of two different rodi reservoirs, by the way (both of which are 5 gallons. I'm thinking a contaminant got into the bucket one day somehow, and boom.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

A little bit of salty dust will boost the TDS, so I would not assume that tds is coming out of the plastic.

 

[therealraf02]

A little bit of salty dust will boost the TDS, so I would not assume that tds is coming out of the plastic.

Hmm, well as of now I'm not sure what else I could do besides let things play out and hopefully with time the corals start to open up more. They're certainly not melting on me which is a plus.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

AFR!

 

[therealraf02]

AFR!

Thanks for the reminder. I definitely do want to start AFR

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

My 2 cents is try using a salt with higher values, from what I read, your tank appears to be consuming Calcium and magnesium. i use IO reef crystals instead of regular IO, regular water changes allow me to dose minor amounts

 

[therealraf02]

Update: not really sure what's *really* going on. I'm still battling the hair algae and it's just spreading despite having my skimmer on 24/7, bubble algae spreading throughout the rocks, and I'm now seeing cyano starting to grow amongst some section(s) of hair algae. Also spot bryopsis. I only have two fish in the tank, feed conservatively. Corals are still doing pretty poorly. I'm seeing some die-back on the edges of my encrusting montipora on the rock scape (so, going towards the center from outside--no flesh, just pure white ring that wasn't there when I left for work, but was a decent size when i got home) as well as multiple frags of monti cap.
I did dose nitrates slightly the night before (abt 1ml of neonitro or whatever it's called) since I read the cyano could be caused by an imbalance of nitrates and phosphates). I also turned my skimmer off for now.

There's just a lot going on and considering the fact that water changes didn't really help much and corals are still closed up, I'm thinking of slowly moving most of them into my other display that is doing really well after peroxide dipping the zoa rock and the frags that I can dip. An anemone box I ordered arrived today, so I'm thinking of transferring the 7 splits into it (they're not really large) in the other tank.
Which, I'm not really opposed to. Due to some factors I'm considering focusing on just one reef and using this tank as a QT/Observation tank or downsizing it into a smaller 10 gallon or two 10 gallons somehow?
I suppose I can try a 3-4 day blackout and see how that goes.

Anywho, I'll probably take some test readings tonight once I get home.