Possible tank crash - loosing all corals

[Brian1f1]

Something is way off. As others have said have the LFS check everything.

How are you measuring your salinity? How much coral pro are you mixing with your RODI to get it there and how are you measuring?

 

[jacob963210]

Your not in the Chicago land area by any chance are you, I can bring over my Hanna marine master, and salinity checker and red sea a, b, c or new salt if you are.

 

[Brian1f1]

Your not in the Chicago land area by any chance are you, I can bring over my Hanna marine master, and salinity checker and red sea a, b, c or new salt if you are.

Very kind.

 

[jacob963210]

Also side question how are you mixing you salt, I just learned this today.
You're not by any chance putting the salt in first then mixing to salinity?
It should be dosing salt into all the water your going to use first so things don't precipitate out, however I wouldn't suspect numbers to be this far off from doing this.

 

[hashbrown1408]

So I just took a sample to the LFS. Unfortunately they don’t offer TDS test for customers.

Results:
Alk: 15.1
Calcium: 384
Magnesium: 1400

It appears that my Hanna reagents for calcium and alkalinity are likely bad. I still can’t believe it read 2.6. I have purchased new reagents to confirm. Otherwise I’ll switch batteries in testers.
My plan is to perform another large water change. My LFS recommended I switch from coral pro to blue bucket Red Sea (as my corals have already died anyway) as a method to help control the alkalinity and bring it down faster.

Does anyone have any better ideas or think this is the best approach?

 

[Jimbobalou622]

So I just took a sample to the LFS. Unfortunately they don’t offer TDS test for customers.

Results:
Alk: 15.1
Calcium: 384
Magnesium: 1400

It appears that my Hanna reagents for calcium and alkalinity are likely bad. I still can’t believe it read 2.6. I have purchased new reagents to confirm. Otherwise I’ll switch batteries in testers.
My plan is to perform another large water change. My LFS recommended I switch from coral pro to blue bucket Red Sea (as my corals have already died anyway) as a method to help control the alkalinity and bring it down faster.

Does anyone have any better ideas or think this is the best approach?

Water changes is the way to go here

 

[crazyfishmom]

So I just took a sample to the LFS. Unfortunately they don’t offer TDS test for customers.

Results:
Alk: 15.1
Calcium: 384
Magnesium: 1400

It appears that my Hanna reagents for calcium and alkalinity are likely bad. I still can’t believe it read 2.6. I have purchased new reagents to confirm. Otherwise I’ll switch batteries in testers.
My plan is to perform another large water change. My LFS recommended I switch from coral pro to blue bucket Red Sea (as my corals have already died anyway) as a method to help control the alkalinity and bring it down faster.

Does anyone have any better ideas or think this is the best approach?

I am sorry to hear but it’s good to have gotten to the bottom of it. I guess I’ll turn this into a question for you: what are you targeting for alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium? I agree that this is likely the time to change salt mixes to one that’s in close range to where you want to keep those numbers. In general, I’ve learned not to react when numbers seem really far off and test with a different source. Recently my Apex had a temperature reading of 104 and I thought my fish might be boiling or that my house was on fire. After asking my husband to run home from work (he works 10 minutes away) he reported that everything was fine with the tank. Fish were happy, the house was not on fire. Turns out a hose had come loose and my sump ran dry. My tank was totally fine, the probe was out of the water and measuring all sorts of odd things, there was some water on my floor, but everything was mostly fine and I was freaking out. If ever this happens again, just step back and wait for a bit. Get a second test source and always test your freshly made salt water. Good luck!

 

[Ziggy17]

I have another nano tank which all my test kits + refractometer are reading correctly for so I don't think its that.

Knowing what we know now, this was impossible.

 

[williamCreery]

Idk, I would just use an LFS store saltwater temporarily just to give you some time, ground to pick things back up honestly.

I’ve moved a lot too, never lost corals or fish… as long as you have a beneficial bacteria sponge from the last tank set up you don’t need to cycle the tank… I never have. Relay on the LFS stores water… what they use in their display tanks to get by?? Temporary if or so to save anything, if not… start all from scratch, sorry for the loss.