New tank - Alkalinity dropping

Frans1992 · Mar 11, 2024

blasterman said:
Young tanks / cyling / establishing biological beds eats alkalinity, and can eat it really fast. They need to get carbon to grow from somewhere. Also, live sand and crushed coral contains some organics, and as these decompose (they go from a sealed bag to lots of fresh 02 in salt water) they use up alk.

Short form is alk is used up by all kinds of biological processes, especially when tanks are cycling. I woulnd't even bother test calcium and magnesium. It's not going to go anywhere and you are just wasting test kits. I would also target a higher alk value like 8.5 or 9 if you are going to balance calcium at 450.

Use a capfull of ammonia vs that dead shrimp. Saves you a lot of time.

I'm ussing dead shrimp now. I can't find any ammonia solution here in the Netherlands that I trust.
Do you know a good solution I can get here

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 11, 2024

Frans1992 said:
I'm ussing dead shrimp now. I can't find any ammonia solution here in the Netherlands that I trust.
Do you know a good solution I can get here

The person you are asking has not been on in several years. I’m not sure what is available. Can you buy ammonium bicarbonate or ammonium chloride?

Frans1992 · Mar 12, 2024

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
The person you are asking has not been on in several years. I’m not sure what is available. Can you buy ammonium bicarbonate or ammonium chloride?

Maybe I can use this:

https://www.labshop.nl/ammoniumchloride/

Frans1992 · Mar 12, 2024

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
The person you are asking has not been on in several years. I’m not sure what is available. Can you buy ammonium bicarbonate or ammonium chloride?

I started with "live sand" and "microbe lift nite out 2". I put 4 shrimp in a filterbag and this are my readings now.
If I see this I think everything is oke, only nitrate is already getting very high. I use "Red Sea Coral Pro Zout" with alkalinity of 12, it dropped already to 8.45. Is this normal for a cycling aquarium?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 12, 2024

Frans1992 said:
I started with "live sand" and "microbe lift nite out 2". I put 4 shrimp in a filterbag and this are my readings now.
If I see this I think everything is oke, only nitrate is already getting very high. I use "Red Sea Coral Pro Zout" with alkalinity of 12, it dropped already to 8.45. Is this normal for a cycling aquarium?

The nitrite is causing interference in nitrate testing. Nitrate is likely not that high.