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chemistry help


grafxalien

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My tank has been really confusing me over the past month or so. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Tank has been running for 3 ish years now. It is a 10gal display with 20 gal sump. Corals have looked so-so for the past year or so. With work I really didnt have time to check in to it. I was doing weekly 10% water changes with reef crystals and that seemed to keep things stable visibly.

 

I had some extra time in october so i brought some water into the lfs and to my surprise my levels were all low. Ca 380, kH 6.6, Mg 1100, salinity 1.023

 

I looked into kalk but since the amount my ato runs varies greatly with room temp i didn't want to go that route. My LFS had continuum aquatics 2 part in stock so I picked some up as well as some mag.

 

I started dosing slowly, 5ml of each 2 part. I also slowly increased my mag to 1350 and that has been stable, no longer requiring dosing. I am now up to 15cc of part A and B to maintain kh 8.3 and ca 440.

 

All was well for the first fews weeks; corals all started looking great again until about 2 weeks ago. Now all my sps have stn and my frogspawn looks like crap. Only thing that looks ok are zoas. This has been another busy week at work so today is the first time i have had time to test water. Kh 8.3, ca 440, mg 1350. The salinity was now at 1.029 which didnt make any sense to me.

 

Thinking back, things started going downhill around 2 water changes ago. that water change tested 1.026 410 8.3 1140. I added 30cc of the mag to match the WC water with my tank water.

 

After this weeks WC things got even worse. That wc was 1.026 440 10.5 1200. I once again added mag to match.

 

I know that was very scattered but I am lost. I feel like I am requiring way more 2 part than I should because I really don't have that much many in my tank. I also dont understand why my SG keeps climbing so much and why my water change water mixes up with different parameters each time and have seemed to make things worse. Any thoughts?

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Deleted User 8

What are you using for water? Where do you get it? Your own RO/DI? Do you test said water?

 

Might be better if you had more time to test so your parameters won't get so out of whack. Those swings in salinity are not good (as you have noticed).

 

Buzz

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I shake the bag of reef crystals before each use.

 

I use a spectrapure RO/DI. Filters are a little on the older side but I only make ~5 gal of water a week. Reads 0 TDS on meter.

 

i agree more time for testing would be nice.

 

Any ideas on what would be causes the salinity swings? ALso, what is a typical consumption of two part?

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params have been stable for a few days now and pretty much all my sps is deals, lps on its last leg. zoas still look fine. however, my tank is somehow still requiring me to dose 2 part to keep kh and ca stable. where could it be going?

 

Anyways- im think of doing a large % water change this week to maybe help reset things. Any thoughts?

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