Help Levels too high to start the triton method

[Night Reefer]

it’s been 2 months plus and I have not added any supplements to the system other than salt to rasie my salt levels. I have 2 lps and about 8 sps in the tank let’s not forget the fish, crabs, snails, 2 shrimp along with 2 clams.

My current parameters are 180g with 60g sump
Salt 34-35 I try to keep it between 34 and 36
ALK 9.2
Cal 470
Mag 1540
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Ph 7.6-7.8

I just switched salts to Fritz’s rpm from instant ocean not the reef crystals.
IO has a ALK of 11.5 and Fritz’s is at 8.5 I believe.

What could be keeping the ALK and MAG so high, shouldn’t the corals be using some of the ALK? I know by adding 16oz’s by volume of the old salt mix every 10 days or so to keep my salt levels up shouldn’t keep the values that high. I know that MAG slowly goes down by 1 or 2 ppm daily which it has been doing as it was 1560 at one point. I have not added any salt in about 10 days and I will need to in the next day or two.

One thing I am going to do is bring my salt down from 34-36 to 33-35 I think that should help a bit but not enough to start dosing parts 1,2,3,and 4

 

[Night Reefer]

Bump

 

[CMO]

Is it a new tank or already established on another method? My new tank didn't really start consuming a fair amount of alk until about the 4-5 month mark. My required dosing until that point (even thought I had a fair amount of SPS and LPS frags from about the 3 month mark) was very low. Sounds like you have corals in the tank but they're just not really growing yet and alk is elevated from the water changes. If you're at zero nitrate and phosphate why are you still doing water changes if you're trying to go Triton - or am I mis-reading that?

 

[Night Reefer]

Full triton method tank 5 months old no water changes. Just adding salt when needed.

 

[Fishfinder]

Why are you adding salt? Where is your salt going that fast?

You don't need to dose if your not consuming

 

[Night Reefer]

I was keeping a level of 34-36 and it would drop below 34 in 10 to 12 days. I would add between 16 to 32 ozs by volume to raise it back to 36ish. I was using Instant Ocean the non-Crystal version and realized last week that the Alk is 11.5. I switched over to Fritzs which is 8.5 to 9 but I have not used any yet as it seems that the salt has settled a bit. I’m still in range and it’s been two weeks. I don’t need no if this is a parameter that needs to settle in overtime but my ALK as of today is now 9 and my salt is around 35 so the ALK is coming down slowly now. Elk is being tested by Hannah and the salt is being double tested by a probe in my Apex Unit and my refractometer.

 

[Night Reefer]

List added two more lps let’s see if that will drop the ALK

 

[Shameless_Dood]

I would try and figure out why your salinity is dropping that much first. I would look for things which would get salt out of the tank. How much water are you taking out to do your testing, feeding, etc? Is your ATO maybe malfunctioning? Unless you have a leak you don't know about I wouldn't think you would be seeing a drop in salinity.

Just remember when you're adding salt you are adding the whole list of macro and trace elements along with it. With your current stocking list and water volume, it's feasible you are adding elements faster than they are being consumed at the moment.

 

[Night Reefer]

I would try and figure out why your salinity is dropping that much first. I would look for things which would get salt out of the tank. How much water are you taking out to do your testing, feeding, etc? Is your ATO maybe malfunctioning? Unless you have a leak you don't know about I wouldn't think you would be seeing a drop in salinity.

Just remember when you're adding salt you are adding the whole list of macro and trace elements along with it. With your current stocking list and water volume, it's feasible you are adding elements faster than they are being consumed at the moment.

Still going strong, no salt added as of yet. I did raise my ph from 7.7 to 8 but that shouldn’t rasie salt. Yes you are correct adding salt will rasie my levels. Instant ocean was very high in ALK at a low salt level. That that would raise the ALK a bit. Now I am using Fritz’s but I have needed to add any as of yet. My last ALK test it dropped .2 in 2 days so the levels are dropping which is good. I will keep everyone up to date.

 

[305Reefer]

You shouldn't really have to "add salt" to your tank. Only fresh water evaporates, so I can't imagine why you would need to add salt. Also these fluctuations are not good. I mix my water change water to 35ppm and my tank is always 35ppm. It shouldn't be going up and down unless you are removing water from the system and the ATO fills it back up and dilutes the water. Nail that part down first. After that just test Alk every day or every other day to determine how much alk/calc demand the tank has. Then dose whatever you want to stop that drop. If you are dosing very little to a tank that doesn't SUCK alk out, then it may be too early to switch to Triton and you might want to wait a bit. I always start new tanks on Kalk, then move on to two part.. Eventually with lots of growing corals the alk demand will start going up and up and it makes it easier to figure out what kind of dose you need. If my 2-part runs dry in my SPS reef (mostly frags but lots of them) my alk will plummet in one day from 8 to 7... Plugging in that information into the BRS calculator (https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-calculator) its easy to figure out the dose necessary to keep the system stable. With time you can get it to it never budges. My tank only varies from 8.2 to 7.7 at most. Ive slowed my testing to maybe once a week. You can also noticed alk drop if you increase lighting or coral feeding and growth accelerates. Same as doing a black out period, you'll see Alk skyrocket if you dont compensate for those couple days of low/no light.