Your Instant Ocean salt should be mixing up to 9dkh at a 1.025 or 1.026 salinity with calcium at 400ppm.it was at 1.24 or higher before my top up when I got the 5.93 dkh. Today is WC change day, ill check the alk of my saltwater mix
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Your Instant Ocean salt should be mixing up to 9dkh at a 1.025 or 1.026 salinity with calcium at 400ppm.it was at 1.24 or higher before my top up when I got the 5.93 dkh. Today is WC change day, ill check the alk of my saltwater mix
Hmmm that’s weird... there’s either something eating away the alkalinity or my salt is bad. Some parts are kind of clumpy so maybe that’s what makes it no good. I thought it was normal for salt to catch humidity and don’t see how it could affect calcium and alk but I’m no scientistYour Instant Ocean salt should be mixing up to 9dkh at a 1.025 or 1.026 salinity with calcium at 400ppm.
Yes sorry I meant 1.0225 and 1.024In a couple different posts, you've mentioned Alk of 1.225 and 1.24 ...
Are you missing a zero in both those readings?
Did you mean 1.0225 and 1.024?
I just bought a used Hanna tester yesterday and changed the battery. Also bought fresh reagentsHave you tried other test kits? Maybe your test kit is old/bad.
Idoc posted what it should look like when mixed. First comment 2nd pageWhat Sg are you mixing your salt to, and what Alk Ca and Mag does it mix to?
I said clumpy salt lolYou mentioned clumpy sand. Clumpy sand in a new tank that is also dropping alkalinity abnormally is a major indication of abiotic precipitation. If that's the case, over time, that will go away. There are things you can do in the interim, but it's complicated, and the specific approach depends on several factors and I don't want to hijack this thread, so I won't go into that here But your salinity is also low (if your salinity is accurate--what are you using to test your salinity, and did you calibrate the instrument first?), and low salinity will always result in low calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium, which are not healthy conditions for reef tanks.
Like others have mentioned, 20% rate change every 3 days is perhaps excessive. Consider 10-20% once a week at first. Once your tank ages to perhaps a year or two old, you'll find you can go much longer in between water changes. And like others have mentioned, growing Coraline will take time. Lots and lots of time. But when it does, you will wish it hadn't
Oh sorry, AS YOU WERE, ignore me, I am clearly drunkI said clumpy salt lol
for wcs, I do it often so I can get the trates down
I have a refractometer for testing which I calibrate before every use.
salt is now 1.024, it was only lower yesterday because I did a massive topoff that’s higher than usual
Oh sorry, AS YOU WERE, ignore me, I am clearly drunk
All good, I’m very curious where you were going with the biotic precipitation so I’m already looking it up. I love to learn stuff so thanks for pointing me into that direction!Oh sorry, AS YOU WERE, ignore me, I am clearly drunk
HA! Guilty.Carbon dosing?
Yeah, new tanks I've started with dry rock tend to have LOTS of abiotic precipitation for several months. I'm not sure why, though I have untested opinions I won't subject you to ... but for me, abiotic precipitation usually goes away at about months 4-7, under normal water parameters, for my last 3 tanks at least.All good, I’m very curious where you were going with the biotic precipitation so I’m already looking it up. I love to learn stuff so thanks for pointing me into that direction!
Sometimes salt mix is not mixed very well at the factory. It's possible the majority of the Alkalinity component could be at the bottom of the bucket/bag. I'd try to stir up the salt container and then mix up some water to see if that helps improve the dKH reading.Hmmm that’s weird... there’s either something eating away the alkalinity or my salt is bad. Some parts are kind of clumpy so maybe that’s what makes it no good. I thought it was normal for salt to catch humidity and don’t see how it could affect calcium and alk but I’m no scientist
I do have a mg test that came with my tank but its expired so I never bothered testing it. I will buy one at the LFS tomorrow - it's my favourite place to go on saturdays especially with nothing being open because of the stupid lockdowns and police state / curfew bs going on where I live.Do you have a magnesium test?
All parameters seem so low for such a new tank, especially doing a 20% every 3 days. I believe someone else mentioned it; test a new batch of saltwater for Alk, Ca, and Mg and see what it reads. With everything reading so low, there could be some settling and you have mentioned clumping. How big is the salt bucket?
I believe I have seen Randy mention bad testing, bad batches, settled bucket contents, and precipitation on mixing. Testing newly made saltwater is really going to help ID what's going on here.