i have a 10 gallon mixed reef with 10 different sps, 6 different lps, and a wide assortment of zoas and other softies.. ive noticed my coral not looking their best for the past few weeks. well today i tested calcium, alk, and ph and they are all out of whack. alk 7.5, calcium 280, ph 8.4+. i dose kalkwasser on a regular basis. is there a big difference between doising with vinegar and dosing without?? any idea of how this could have happened?? i havent seen snow in the tank but every time i dose kalkwasser, nothing happens.. no calcium+ or alkalinity+. i havent checked the magnesium and im not real sure but wouldnt the levels still rise before they fell even if magnesium were low??? can i fix this using kalkwasser? iplease help i dont want my tank to crash.. p.s. the tank is 6 months old if that helps anyone.

maybe start dosing 2 part and see if that changes anything

very low magnesium will make it VERY difficult to get the Alk and Ca to play nicely.....

I also believe in 2-part.....

what kind of affect will it have on the ph? also, this problem started a week ago when i moved my tank from room to room and did away with my air driven counter current skimmer.. is it at all possible that air stone or "lack there of" rather have something to with this. up until a week ago seemed like params were fine.. then again i could be wrong and just didnt knwo it. also whats a good 2 part?? bionc?

also would low mag and calcium be a good reason for my corals looking sad? sps and lps?

That's a good one. Bulk Reef Supply sells a nice two-part kit as well.

IME, low Ca and Mg don't affect how SPS and LPS look. It is alk that really dictates how healthy they look.

If I were you, I would quit using the kalk for now. Kalk is a "balanced" Ca/Alk additive and your Ca/Alk are way out of whack... This is something kalk can't fix. As others have said, get yourself a 2-part Ca/Alk system and make sure you keep your Mg up around 1350 ppm.

magnesium right now is 1260

get recipe #1 from bulkreefsupply.. the starter kit comes with mag, calc, and alk. you'll want to raise your calcium by 50 per day. Your alk by 1 per day till it hits 9-10, but first you'll need to raise your mag up to 1350.. but I'm not sure how slow you need to do it.. someone else can post that.

Well, that's enough that you will be able to get your Ca/Alk back in bounds easily with a 2-part solution. If it were <1100 ppm I'd say bring it up.

i still cant understand why everything looks so sad.. i mean seiously, my duncans havent come out all the way in a month. also a green fuzzy mushroom that has sorta started turning brownish.

I don't want it to seem like it's the miracle parameter, but if your alk is off, your corals will be off. Even your softies can be affected because the pH isn't stable at low alks.

Get your alk up above 8 dKH (shoot for 9-10 dKH) and keep it there. You can bring your alk up now by using baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) or baked baking soda (sodium carbonate).

Make up the alkalinity part (either recipe #1 or #2) found here. Once you have it made up, use a good aquarium chemistry calculator to help you get the doage right.

i believe you 100%.. my alk is somewhere right around 8 right now though.

Have you been able to keep it up there and stable or is it there only after having dosed it up? You said in the OP that it was 7.5 dKH.

ok i picked up some kent liquid calcium today and started dosing.. ran into another problem when i tested parameters. nitrate and nitrite were undetectable but ammonia was around .75 i had a small clownfish die awhile back and couldnt find it anywhere so i figured the crabs took quick care of it.. ok soooo... i did a water change of 30% 4 days ago so the ammonia is either dropping or rising very slowly because its still kinda low. i was thinking about checking it tomorrow and seeing if its going down or up before i make any quick actions. what do you think?

I would say that the NH3 is a major contributing factor with regard to your coral issues.

I'd dose your Ca/Alk regardless of the NH3 results. Keep an eye on the NH3 but don't let it stop your plan.

well the nh3 is a recent problem.. fish dies a week ago+.. the problem ive been having has been going on for longer than that. as a matter of fact today is the first time ive seen one of duncans polyps all the way open in a month.

More proof that you should stick to your plan?

i mixed up some alk using uncooked baking soda.. i want my ph back to 8.3. i dosed .5ml of liquid calcium (which should be somwhere around 50 ppm) 3 hours ago and started an alk drip consisting of 5.7ml of alk buffer consentrate topped to a pint with R.O. water. this is enough to raise the alk .5 as well as slightly lower the ph. now what about the ammonia?? i guess if its increasing ill do water changes for the next few weeks to keep it low atleast until the system catches up. if its decreasing ill let it go and this weekend ill do a good water change to relieve the system of some of the toxins from organic decay.. sound like a good plan?

Sounds fine.

Before you do your waterchange, be sure to check the Alk/Ca of your change water and amend it if you need to.

ok well the ammonia started dropping and today at lunch it was around .25. calcium was 340 alk 8 and ph 8.2.. i already got the temp thing straight.. once i get the parameters stable and beat the cyano, again( from the ammonia of course) ill start looking for another fish.. the scroll coral came out of it. the RTN stopped although it took out the green cap before it did. i was glad to see the scroll survive. the unstable parameters did however do other damage. the hydnophora has some black on the underneath side as well as my orange digitata having the same issue. my blue oregon tort acro is doing great through all this and i see some new little white nubs on my ponope birdnest.. i heard those things grow fast. ive only had it for 3 weeks. my green b-nest is doing good as well.. of course the duncans stay pissed but that's just "my" duncans, and for the record they have put out two new heads through all this so ... all else is well. ok im gonna give carbon a go.. i have the feeling ive mixed and matched to the point of allelopathy. so im gonna try running some good high end carbon for a few days and see what happens.. if everything improvesill know its chemical warfare and ill have to start the process of nailing the culprit down. i did a 25% water change today. the params of the makeup water were cal 400 alk 9 ph 8.3. good numbers, not to far off and i could use the adjustment without dumping chemicals so i slowly added that. everything did fine through the water change other than little slime from my duncans who do it every time i do a water change.. why is that mine are so attitudish?.. for some reason i cant find the median with them.. its got to be allelpathy if its not parameters..

update: ammonia finally hit 0, calcium 410, alkalinity 8. no surprise that everything is looking alot better..

Glad things are looking up. You may want to consider going to 9 dKH alk.

trust me im trying. but you know every time i add calcium my alk drops.. im dosing alkalinity too. ive dosed alk twice and calcium 3 times.. ive brought my calcium up 130 ppm and have only been dosing enough alk to bring it up .5 each time so its slow inching up to 9.. whenever i have an alk swing everything looks horrible.so im working at it cautiously. i went and got some high end carbon tonight so we will see what happens. maybe it will get some of the toxins that some corals may be producing and ill see what i have then. i know my duncans look rough but i noticed 3 more new heads today.. so thats a total of 5 new ones in a matter of weeks. even with all the parameter swings.

added another clown and red scooter to the tank today.

This may not have been the best time to do that.
You may see a mini cycle, or increase in Ammonia, Nitrite, etc. for a few days as a result.
I would strongly suggest getting all parameters looking really stable for at least 2 weeks before trying to add anything else.

I just have one question....what all livestock are in this 10 gallons? I see LOTS of corals, crabs and several fish mentioned....just wndering if you have a bit of bioload issue. I know this is generally NOT prescribed to any more, but the OLD rule of thumb was one fish per ten gallons.....

well it was 2 weeks ago max that my previous fish died. the clown was lost in the tank and i had a rise in ammonia and then it went back down to zero and has stayed there. since it hasnt been that long since i had the previous fish i should be ok as far as a cycle goes. im hoping anyway.. it will help alot having 50+ pounds of live rock..


i only have 2 fish. a red scooter blenny and a true percula. 6 hermits a few snails and syes quite a few corals

calcium 440 alk still 8

carbon has bee running for 3 days now so apparentally its not allopathy.. im pretty sure ive narrowed it down. i tested my ph this morning before lights on and yesterday afternoon before lights out. im having a huge ph swing from lights out 8.3 or 8.4 to lights on 7.8.. wow!! i guess thats a good sign i need to get a refugium of saome sort going. is there anyway to combat this for now?

pH should go up after the lights come on.

it is. thats what im trying to say.. between dark and light periods im having around .6 ph swing. could this be the reason everything in the tank is acting out? like my duncans are doing? or is that a pretty normal thing is most peoples tanks?

A swing of 0.6 is large but I don't know if I would say it's "the" reason that the duncans are unhappy.

parasite maybe? lugols dip?

I still say keep your params stable and chill for a week or so. Things have been swinging all around for some time now and it might be a good idea not to add any more livestock or do anything else to perturb the system.

Let it simmer for a bit while you keep your params stable and see how things do.

ok interesting little deal here.. my alk is dropping about .5 to .75 each day. do stonies use this much alk? alos, my calcium is dropping as well. from 420 or 430 to probably 410. my guess is, since they are both dropping, and not teetering that its just being used up pretty fast. and it has to be the corals because i havent had any increase in coraline or anything. as a matter of fact when i changed the lighting i had a big die off. im tired of adding supp's all the time.. man im ready to build a kalk reactor.. this having to constantly monitor is seriously taking the fun out of the hobby for me. its to the point im lookinf at the reef keeper systems and dosers.
im thinking of building a kalk reactor and setting it up on 1- 2 hour intervals starting at midnight and running for 15 minutes, @ 1 drip per 2 seconds, per interval. this will give me some ph stability as well as some balance on my calcium and alk. sound like it will work?
on a side not, i was looking at my tank this morning and i have a few acro's that ive recently (within the past 3 weeks) purchased and they are begining to encrust their plugs.. now this is a good thing right?? right... the thing is that im still having problems out of my duncans.. they arent opening all the way.. as a matter of fact the look horrible.. but everytime i look into the tank they have a new head forming.. my first thought is flow.. but it doesnt seem like they are getting that much.. i could be wrong.. i dunno... i give up.. all i can say is that they are growing and i think ill just let them do their thing.

all in all, looking at my growth and development, i really cant say that the tank is unhealthy.. guess i just expect this big WOW you know.. think im OCD....?

Those drops are similar to those I reported in my tank thread some time ago and I have only LPS and softies (and a lot of coralline algae).

Once you get the hang of keeping things relatively stable (including a firm feeling for your system's use of Ca/Alk/Mg), you can back off the supplementation or go back to dripping a little kalk during the night as a means for keeping your Ca/Alk up. You don't want to do this until your tank has had some time to recover from the latest craziness, however.

Some months ago, I ran into some coral problems, mainly caused by very low alk. I started doing daily testing/dosing on my system and kept it up the better part of two months before I felt I had a good handle on what doses needed to be added daily or semi-weekly. I then changed over to a weekly/biweekly testing schedule whereby I tested only before I did a waterchange, dosing if I had to get the params where I want them.

This is possible only because I haven't made any changes to my system that will change the way it works. No new fish, no new corals, just let it chill and let my current livestock grow. As a result, my tank looks better than any of my previous tanks and it takes a lot less work as well. I'm not even dosing daily anymore. I dose maybe 1-2 times per week. I haven't even done a waterchange in more than a month (not something to brag about ) but the corals and fish are fine because I'm not jacking them around all the time.

Of course, if you want to do SPS, you won't be able to run a ship as loose as mine no matter what. SPS require a lot of maintenance and if that saps the fun out of the hobby for you then you should think about leaving out of your system. This is why I'm not keeping them. LPS are attractive and forgiving, ditto for softies. I'm not interested in the headache or expense of SPS.

not to thread hijack, but can you run a loose ship and successfully keep easier SPS like montipora in your opinion? Always interested in your opinions, Fosi.

Of course, if you want to do SPS, you won't be able to run a ship as loose as mine no matter what. SPS require a lot of maintenance and if that saps the fun out of the hobby for you then you should think about leaving out of your system. This is why I'm not keeping them. LPS are attractive and forgiving, ditto for softies. I'm not interested in the headache or expense of SPS.
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NO!!!!!!! I REFUSE!!! . im in it now.. i fyou look at my thread when i first started this tank, youll see ive come a long ways... and move forward and learn more every day.. eventually ill figure this out.. im gonna just have to get the system timing figured out first.. ill tell you this.. things went sideways when i dropped in 10 sps in a matter of a month.. i was fortunate not to have a system crash.. everything looks so much better these days. the problem is, not having a sump.. ive noticed, with small water volume like this you have to be extremely careful.. its very easy to overdue something.. you almost have to work round the clock to. THANK GOD FOR TIMERS!!!! mr.fosi, do you have any experiance with kalk reactors? hey also, thanks for tagging along with this thread.. youve been alot more help than you know.. sorry if i seem set in my ways sometimes, you know with not wanting to dump my sps and what not.. i have a 30 gallon that its probably time to set up.. a little more stability... but if i know me, ill pack it full in 2 months and youll see another thread "help with system parameters" lol


hey i do it and ive got acros.. kidding fosi . on a serious note though.. montipora cap is as hardy as you can get IMO. mine has grown and gotten brighter through all this

It has been my experience that Monti's can be pretty forgiving on the whole.
And believe me, I've put mine through a lot!

ScubaSteve, I've experienced the exact same thing with Duncans before.
In my case, they started opening up when I moved them to a tank that was lit by PC and was fairly low maintenance.
Low maint. in this case meaning just regular WC's, no dosing, PC lighting, etc.
It's possible that it's an Alk issue or a reaction to Coral Warfare.
What other corals are they close to?

all of them lol.. small quarters.. actually no.. cabbage leather but a few inches away.. also im running carbon since a few days ago.. bottom in the middle. oh and the elegance is not in there anymore


also if youll look at the mushroom in the low left hand corner, man that thing used to be huge.. for some reason it wont come out all the way without throwing up some white twirly crap..

IMO... Maybe. Some people (like Weet) say that it can work, but it hasn't worked for me in my system.



Some. I've not had one on any of my personal systems, but I've been privy to their construction and maintenance on a couple of the larger systems here at school.



I'm hardly a god of reefing, as I have had my own system/livestock issues. As such, you don't have to do anything I suggest.

I'm just offering up my experience in the hope that you'll find something useful in it.



And I've lost two of them, despite a lot of hard work. Their loss is a major reason that I've decided not to try SPS again until I can dump more money into equipment to support them.

And I've lost two of them, despite a lot of hard work. Their loss is a major reason that I've decided not to try SPS again until I can dump more money into equipment to support them.
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halides?? ive got mine under the 6x18 t5ho halfway up in good flow.. maybe you could get another and just drop it in the tank.. it would probably take off then. it was one of my first sps when i was still running 2x18 t5ho's and it has really impressed me..wander why they die off in your tank..

I dunno. The lighting, placement and chemistry are all the sort that should support them.

There is an outside chance that there is some allelopathic interaction but carbon and a skimmer didn't stop the montis from crapping out.

However, Euphyllia, Acanthastrea, Favia, zoas, palys, colts, etc... all do fine.

Wait, is this a 10g tank with 6x18w T5HO over it?
If so, it's possible that the light is too strong for the Mushroom and maybe even the Duncans.
I think the above light over a 10g might be too strong for a lot of things.

Also, if I'm seeing it right, it looks like the Duncan is open in those pics.

well weet it was going on when it was just regular 2x18 t5ho.. no changes when i went to my diy setup. zoa's wouldnt open for a while but they are now.. the duncans are open they just look cupped you know? theyve been like that for a month or so
weet, would you consider this moderatly high, high, or intense lighting?

If there are individual reflectors, I would consider 6x18w T5HO over a 10g fairly intense lighting.

its the parabolic but also there is no lense on it.. somwhere around 2 1/2" off the surface..

ok test results for the night are in. calcium 460 alkalinity 8. thinking of starting a kalk drip tonight before i go to bed. any objections. ok well i had no takers which is good because i disided to go against everything and bring my alk on up to 9 over the course of a few hours. i know big alk swings arent good on sps but im gonna do it and keep my fingers crossed. i brought my calcium up to 460 this morning just for this.. ive been balancing out about 410 and 8 over the past few days.... that 9 dkh has been hard to reach in fact it seems like i have hit a wall and cant get over it. we will see tomorrow. to think the system used to stay at 9 and 450+/-

well i dosed the tank last night and this morning my alk was 9+. i checked it tonight and it was 8... calcium was 460.. now im teetering.. so once again i broke out the dkh buffer and started another drip.

When I was dosing two-part, I had to dose for Alk every single day to keep it around 9 dKh.