The Reef Chemistry catastrophe

[Rockedash]

In the beginning of my issues i was struggling with high alk and high phosphates. Its been around a week and i have been doing daily 5-10% water changes to lower these with rodi water. I know nothing good in this hobby happens fast so ive been expecting this to take a few weeks to resolve but alot of issues have changed. In the photo I was testing my RODI water just incase and it it tested around the .5ppm (photo doesnt do it justice). My fresh mixed salt water was testing at .5ppm of phosphate and 10kh
In the weeks time my paramaters went from this:
salinity -1.026
ph-8.2
ammonia- 0.10ppm
Nitrite-0.1ppm
nitrate-21ppm
kh-16
cal-415
mag-1457
phos-1.3ppm

To this:
Salinity-1.026
ph-8.1
ammonia-0
nitrite-1ppm
nitrate-19ppm
kh-12.27
cal-419
mag-1412
phos-.80

Both were tested with my local fish stores aqua spin to get a more accurate test then my crumby API test kit

The nitrite though is the issue. The tanks been up for around 11 months now and has been cycled. Could it be that the water i am removing is temperaraily slowing down my benneficial bacteria and it doesnt have time to regrow? Thank you for taking the time to read this I really appreciate it. Everyone has been so kind and helpful and I really appreciate that thank you all very much.

 

[CoralB]

Your nitrate is fine but your phosphates are thru the roof . Need to get those down to between 0.05 and 0.1 . Just don’t bring them down all at once . Do it over the next few days . Phosphat E from brightwell is what I use . And api is not a test kit I would use nor the spintest . I’d Find a lfs that uses Hanna , salivert, or even aquaforrest. Do this before you make changes to have more reliable accuracy to know where you are at .

 

[Rockedash]

Your nitrate is fine but your phosphates are thru the roof . Need to get those down to between 0.05 and 0.1 . Just don’t bring them down all at once . Do it over the next few days . Phosphat E from brightwell is what I use . And api is not a test kit I would use nor the spintest . I’d Find a lfs that uses Hanna , salivert, or even aquaforrest. Do this before you make changes to have more reliable accuracy to know where you are at .

Thank you for the reply! I think they have those instore aswell but just offer the aqua spin as another method. Do you think that the test results are completly off or do you think that its just not accurate enough to make any huge changes.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, there's no catastrophe.

Ignore the nitrite. it's not toxic and is no concern, whether it is real or a test error. Folks who worry about it are mistakenly extrapolating from fresh water where it is toxic to seawater where it demonstrably is not.

Phosphate is trending the right direction (if accurate).

 

[Reefer_kano]

My experience with aquaspin is that it tends to test low.
I use it when i go to my LFS just to see how close it comes to my hanna testers and it always quite low so i dont rely too much on it if at all

 

[CoralB]

.

 

[Julbra]

I find it odd that you’re measuring any phosphates in your freshly made RODI and mixed water. I would triple check this with other test kits e.g. Salifert or Hanna checker.

EDIT: from what I read measuring phosphates in RODI might not be reliable with any test kits.

If you still have phosphates in your freshly mixed saltwater then you might need to revisit your RODI system.

 

[Rockedash]

IMO, there's no catastrophe.

Ignore the nitrite. it's not toxic and is no concern, whether it is real or a test error. Folks who worry about it are mistakenly extrapolating from fresh water where it is toxic to seawater where it demonstrably is not.

Phosphate is trending the right direction (if accurate).

Sweet! I’m hoping to get things stable once again and try to find some equalibrium for my corals . Thank you again for your help I very much appreciate it!