Re: Kh/Ph/Ca lesson please

The problem is Oceanic Salt. I used it for 9 months, and could not get my Calcium level down where it belonged. It ended up killing many of my SPS corals, and I stopped using it finally.

My tank showed improvement when I went back to Kent Sea Salt, but then PO4 and NO3 have both been giving me grief. I finally got PO4 under control after months of hard work, but I only found out last night my NO3 is sky-high -- my test kit was giving me false readings all this time. *sigh* Now I'm working on that, so I can finally have gorgeous corals again.

Marc


Yuriy Krushelnytskiy wrote: 
Mislav,

I use 3 different brands (faulty test kit was my first suspicion):
Aquarium Pharm, Red Sea and Mardel (test strips).
Calcium and Phosphate are the only ones without backup since those are
the only ones local LFSs stock.

I didn't test freshly mixed water recently, but 2-3 day old water
tests OK - Ph 9.2-8.3, Ca - 500, KH - 12 dKH

Also, thanks for the link. The article was is very good.


Thank you
Yuri

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 09:47:56 +0200, "Mislav" <m@xxxx> wrote:


My guess is that your test kits are to blaim. What brand of test kits do you use? How old are they? Try testing water with some other kits before you do any attempt to fix the problem.
Did you test freshly made saltwater? What are the readings?
The problem could also be that you've bought bad batch of salt.

Many answers you can find by reading the articles in www.reefkeeping.com and going through past issues. Here is one link that could answer some of your questions http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-12/rhf/index.php


Mislav

"Yuriy Krushelnytskiy" <y.krushel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:59elg1pb52p7a212eloa46v6d4mid7njll@xxxxxxxxxx

Hello,

I ma fairly new to the hobby (reef keeping) and probably need good
chemistry lesson: I am having some issues with my water parameters - I
can not get my Ph/Alk/Ca to balance right.

Test results are as follows.
kH - 10 dKh (average between 6 samples)
Ca - 600
Ph 7.6 -8.0 (using 3 different kits)

Phosphates - not detectable (used to be .25 about a month ago)
Amonia/Nitrite/Nitrate - not detectable (3 different kits)

The tank is 90 usg + 30 usg sump/refugium.
I have no filters other than Euroreef protein skimmer.
~150 lbs live rock (20% Fiji, 20% Tonga, 60% cultured Florida) and 3
inch sand bed
I am using Oceanic sea salt, which I think is high in Calcium and
Magnesium, but I still have no idea how did I get my chemistry that
messed up. I am not dosing any additives, not even Kalkwasser. The
tank is on auto top-off from RO/DI. In addition I was doing 5% per day
water changes for last 10 days.

I even had my Ro/DI water tested "by professionals" and it is fine.

Besides normal tests I did an experiment by measuring Ph straight from
the tank and from a sample that was vigorously aerated and results
were within 0.1 apart (i did 6 measurements on each sample to
average), so I don't think there is Co2 issue...

My LFS suggested using an array of buffers/magic potions to "fix the
tank", but if at all possible i'd like to correct the problem in some
natural way.

I would greatly appreciate any help.

Also, what are good sources of information on the net?

Best regards
Yuri





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