While at the FFM, I was talking to a long time reefer who told me that he had recently gone through a rough time with his tank. Like me, he had fallen out of the habit regular of testing. When he noticed one of his "indicator corals" not looking so good, he pulled out the test kits and discovered his alkalinity was 3.5 DKH! Hearing this and considering that it's been more than a year since I tested, I repeated several times that I would test when I got home.
So Sunday I pulled out my (Red Sea Feef Foundation) test kits. Calcium: 440. Check. Mg: 1500. Check. Alkalinity: I couldn't get a reading, meaning my alkalinity was supposedly LOWER than the 1.8 where the kit scale starts! I tried a second test and got the same result.
I think the alk test kit is bad. It has no expiration date that I could find, but it's at least 2 or 3 years old. My reef looks better than it has in years, and since my only source of CA/alk is a kalk reactor, I can't imagine the two parts being so out of whack.
A Hannah alk checker has been ordered; it'll be here tomorrow. I can't wait to see what it says. Coincidentally, I put ALL of my FFM raffle tickets in the bucket for the Hannah akl checker. So of course I assume that as soon as mine arrives I'm going to get a call from Jon telling me that I won.
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Steve
So Sunday I pulled out my (Red Sea Feef Foundation) test kits. Calcium: 440. Check. Mg: 1500. Check. Alkalinity: I couldn't get a reading, meaning my alkalinity was supposedly LOWER than the 1.8 where the kit scale starts! I tried a second test and got the same result.
I think the alk test kit is bad. It has no expiration date that I could find, but it's at least 2 or 3 years old. My reef looks better than it has in years, and since my only source of CA/alk is a kalk reactor, I can't imagine the two parts being so out of whack.
A Hannah alk checker has been ordered; it'll be here tomorrow. I can't wait to see what it says. Coincidentally, I put ALL of my FFM raffle tickets in the bucket for the Hannah akl checker. So of course I assume that as soon as mine arrives I'm going to get a call from Jon telling me that I won.
--
Steve