Coral help

[MrPorter]

I'd step it up a little more in your monitoring. Time to invest into a decent test kit and track whats occuring from week to week. alk-cal-mag, nitrates/phosphates at the bare minimum. You might be consuming more than you think and the water change is increasing alk far more than they are accustomed too. In adition you might want to start considering dosing if your consumption shows such. Get a baseline for where you are and then 3 days later test to see what you're consuming as far as alk/cal/mag is concerned. Remember to test at the same time period as your alk will be much lower in the afternoon prior to the photoperiod.

It sounds like a lot and seems intimidating at first but once you get a handle on it you'll be fine. It's cool to gain insight as to what your tank is doing and your corals will thank you for the added stability by blossoming.

 

[Seadoc]

Agree with the rest. You should start measuring Alk, Ca and Mg. I added a few LPS frags to my system (reefer 350) a few weeks ago and measure Alk daily. Even with just a few frags, there is a small but significant Alk consumption. If I don't dose (ESV 2-part), the Alk goes down and the frags look unhappy. The same will happen on the other end of the scale if the Alk is to high. "Consistency" is the most important "parameter" you should keep .

What’s a good test kit for alk cal mag?

I use the Red Sea reef foundation test kit. It tests Alk, Ca and Mg. You can start with it and then buy refills for the different tests once the reagents are used. You can also consider the Hanna Alk checker.

 

[Deontae]

I'd step it up a little more in your monitoring. Time to invest into a decent test kit and track whats occuring from week to week. alk-cal-mag, nitrates/phosphates at the bare minimum. You might be consuming more than you think and the water change is increasing alk far more than they are accustomed too. In adition you might want to start considering dosing if your consumption shows such. Get a baseline for where you are and then 3 days later test to see what you're consuming as far as alk/cal/mag is concerned. Remember to test at the same time period as your alk will be much lower in the afternoon prior to the photoperiod.

It sounds like a lot and seems intimidating at first but once you get a handle on it you'll be fine. It's cool to gain insight as to what your tank is doing and your corals will thank you for the added stability by blossoming.

Thanks for the help and info

 

[Malifry97]

Ph-8.0
Ammonia-0.25
Nitrite-0ppm
Nitrate-0ppm
The only thing I did differently was add my new water after 3 hours of mixing compared to usually using water I mixed a week ahead of time

Ammonia is WAY HIGH. Use prime to get that down

 

[Deontae]

I'd step it up a little more in your monitoring. Time to invest into a decent test kit and track whats occuring from week to week. alk-cal-mag, nitrates/phosphates at the bare minimum. You might be consuming more than you think and the water change is increasing alk far more than they are accustomed too. In adition you might want to start considering dosing if your consumption shows such. Get a baseline for where you are and then 3 days later test to see what you're consuming as far as alk/cal/mag is concerned. Remember to test at the same time period as your alk will be much lower in the afternoon prior to the photoperiod.

It sounds like a lot and seems intimidating at first but once you get a handle on it you'll be fine. It's cool to gain insight as to what your tank is doing and your corals will thank you for the added stability by blossoming.

So my tank is only a 20 gallon long and when I was reading most people said I should just do weekly water changes and I shouldn’t have to dose. Is this correct or would you still recommend dosing

 

[Ed Hutchings]

So my tank is only a 20 gallon long and when I was reading most people said I should just do weekly water changes and I shouldn’t have to dose. Is this correct or would you still recommend dosing

There's no use even discussing dosing until you can test and verify the consumption of alk/cal/mag. Blindly dosing can be just as bad if not worse than letting the levels get too low.

If you're doing weekly water changes religiously, there's no reason to dose in such a small tank with limited corals. You just don't have the uptake right now.

 

[Malifry97]

So my tank is only a 20 gallon long and when I was reading most people said I should just do weekly water changes and I shouldn’t have to dose. Is this correct or would you still recommend dosing

depends on how much your consumption is per day

 

[muzikalmatt]

Whether you need to dose or not is dictated by your tank's alkalinity consumption. If your tank is using up more alkalinity than your water changes are replenishing each week you will slowly deplete the alkalinity in your tank and the corals will suffer as a result. Typically smaller tanks with few corals will not need dosing to satisfy their demand, especially if you're just keeping softies and some LPS.

As others have recommended, you should start testing alkalinity, calcium and magnesium. However, the one you really need to keep an eye on is alkalinity. Salifert test kits are a great cheap test kit to start with but I would highly recommend a Hanna Checker for alk. Test your water three days in a row without making any changes and see how fast your tank is using up alkalinity. Odds are the rate is low enough that water changes will be able to keep up with the demand.

Regarding the issues with your coral, the other posters are likely correct that the high alkalinity in your fresh saltwater is upsetting the corals. Reef Crystals mixes at anywhere from 9 - 10.5 dKH depending on the batch and what salinity you are targeting, so if your tank's alkalinity is significantly lower than that the difference in parameters can upset them.

Another thing is how are you adding the fresh saltwater? Early on I was simply dumping the fresh saltwater from a 5 gallon bucket into the top of my tank which would sometimes land right on top of corals. I once I dumped it near or directly on top of a Xenia and boy did it not like that. The high alkalinity really shocked the coral as it was getting a huge burst of new saltwater that had significantly different parameters. It took the coral a while to recover and Xenia is nearly unkillable. Since then I've been using a small pump and hose to direct the water slowly into the back of my sump in my all-in-one so that even if the parameters are different it's not shocking any of the corals by being poured directly on them. Just something to potentially keep in mind with a small tank like that.

 

[MrPorter]

So my tank is only a 20 gallon long and when I was reading most people said I should just do weekly water changes and I shouldn’t have to dose. Is this correct or would you still recommend dosing

At the end of the day, the overall theme we are trying to provide is stability in our little eco-systems, wether small or large. I would shoot for a decent test kit (I like red sea) and do some numbers, find out whats really happening as that is going to give you the best answers. Test you new batches of water to understand the impact it has as well. Once you get that baseline of consumption and what changes can occur with a water change you'll be able to make a more informaed decision on wether water changes will suffice, or if you need to supplement throughout the week. That would be my first step, find out whats really going on.

Another anecdote to this is 0 nitrates & 0 phosphates isn't always good. Once you get further down the line with stability and understanding your tank, to enjoy more colors and health of corals you'll need to have some of the bad stuff to keep them feed and colorful. Its great your inquisitive though, shows your concern and willingness to want to find answers. Don't be shy as no questions a dumb question, so keep asking.

 

[Deontae]

At the end of the day, the overall theme we are trying to provide is stability in our little eco-systems, wether small or large. I would shoot for a decent test kit (I like red sea) and do some numbers, find out whats really happening as that is going to give you the best answers. Test you new batches of water to understand the impact it has as well. Once you get that baseline of consumption and what changes can occur with a water change you'll be able to make a more informaed decision on wether water changes will suffice, or if you need to supplement throughout the week. That would be my first step, find out whats really going on.

Another anecdote to this is 0 nitrates & 0 phosphates isn't always good. Once you get further down the line with stability and understanding your tank, to enjoy more colors and health of corals you'll need to have some of the bad stuff to keep them feed and colorful. Its great your inquisitive though, shows your concern and willingness to want to find answers. Don't be shy as no questions a dumb question, so keep asking.

Alright thank you everyone for the help. All of my coral is acting normal again so it must have been a swing from new water. I’m going to get a decent test kit and start monitoring then go from there

 

[Calpoly2103]

What’s a good test kit for alk cal mag?

I've been using Salifert for Alk / mag / cal. They are fairly straight forward and are priced well. You can even get them on amazon.

Also, I don't agree with the comment that you wouldn't notice changes if you do weekly water changes. It depends on a lot of variables (what you have in the tank, water volume, how quickly its used up). For example I have a 40 Gallon, with lots of LPS. The corals use up about 0.3 - 0.4 dkh per day. If i didn't dose for a week, my alk would have fallen ~2.1-2.8 dkh.