How to Adjust Parameters

[icedearth15324]

Although I've been reefing for awhile, I've never had a tank with this much coral to the size of the tank.

 

I have a 20L tank that has been running for about 3 months now, but the rock is from a different tank that has been up for about 2 years.

 

I'm starting to monitor my levels a lot more closely particularly since I currently have a cyano outbreak. I did my tests this morning maybe about 45 minutes after my lights turned on, so I'm not sure if my parameters are caused by the night.

 

My salinity is 1.025

Phosphates are around .02-.04ppm

Nitrates are around 10-12ppm

Calcium is 480ppm

Alk is 14 dkH

Magneseium is 1050ppm

 

 

I know the alk and the mag are a little out of whack and I was wondering what I should do to try and regulate them. Considering my calcium is looking good I don't want to dose for all of them, but should I just try a water change to try and fix it? Or should I retest now that it is the middle of the day?

[Pinner Reef]

I'd do a water change, wait 24hrs and recheck params. Then dose as necessary. Raising the Mag would be priority.

 

What test lit do you use

[icedearth15324]

I used Red Sea kits for everything except salinity. That was done with a refractometer.

[Admonition]

As far as your question to regulating the mag and alk, raise the mag first. Once that's at the level you want, then test for the alkalinity and calcium, and raise them as needed.

 

As far as the cyano, are you doing anything differently now than you've done over the last few months to the water column? Picture?

[icedearth15324]

I'll keep that in mind with the mag and alk, I'm going to do a 4-5 gallon water change later tonight, and then I'll check all of my stuff tomorrow.

 

For the cyano, I haven't really done a whole lot other than feeding the corals a little more, which I have slowed down on since. I put a GFO reactor on it to help get rid of phosphates, which it seems to be doing really well. I also replaced the sponge/carbon in my AC70 with some chaeto to help. All these changes were added after the cyano started taking over. It has since been slowly dying away but I wanted to see if the low mag was causing this, since I know increasing mag can help with GHA.