My water parameters are really really off

[Abzdot]

Hi,

I have a 50 litre (13.5 gal) tank and a few weeks ago my parameters were good: 460 calc, 1230 mag, 0.03 ppm phosphate and 12 dkh but now everything has maxed out my Salinger’s test kit. Apparently I’m over 1500 mag, over 500 calc and god knows what with dkh. I’ve had very hot weather recently and I added water with salt into my mini sump, would’ve this caused the problem? Also my salinity is roughly 1.025 and I use Red Sea pro coral salt

[Tired]

Well, your salinity is too low, for one. You should do water changes with a proper salinity to get things more towards normal.

 

Why did you add water with salt? Evaporation should be replaced with fresh water, not salt.

 

Are you sure the test kit hasn't gone bad? 

 

What livestock do you have, and is anything showing any signs of distress? 

[Abzdot]

1 minute ago, Tired said:

Well, your salinity is too low, for one. You should do water changes with a proper salinity to get things more towards normal.

 

Why did you add water with salt? Evaporation should be replaced with fresh water, not salt.

 

Are you sure the test kit hasn't gone bad? 

 

What livestock do you have, and is anything showing any signs of distress? 

well everyone says aim for 1.025 SG which I do. and I also forgot that I added salt to that container 😕. 

The dates on my test kits say they'll last for another 3 years.

I have 2 clowns. 3 zoanthids, 1 blasto, GSP, 1 Acan and 1 pocillopora. They are actually thriving, everything has grown (except from acan and blasto as i got them recently).

I'm quite new to the hobby so mistakes with me are prone 😛

[Superdave]

1.025 is pretty much ideal so you are good there.  You can keep fish and corals at 1.026 as well; some fish stores use a lower (1.022) to help prevent disease.  Perhaps Tired read your data different?  

 

In my experience, the corals and fish are an excellent indicator.  It is difficult to have really "bad" water parameters and have happy, thriving corals.  If one slowly adjusts the parameters, the livestock will adjust and you can "push" them into a bad range but if the data from your test kids are way off as you say, but things are doing well that doesn't seem to add up.  

 

I would test again at a different time of day and make sure you follow the directions very carefully.  Wash out all the measuring devices with RO water if at all possible and maybe even let them dry so you know you are good there.  I bought an eye dropper so that I can know I have exactly the correct amount of water in the test kits.  Another option would be to go to a local fish store as many are willing to test for free.  That is what I do these days if I wonder about my tank.  Its been set up for so long that its stable, but I like to have them check it from time to time.  Their kits are likely very new and their staff have tons of practice using the tests.  Perhaps a friend/fellow reefer could test for you as well?  

 

Hope that helps!

 

--Superdave

[Melfy77]

I had the same issue with my Alk and Calcium being wayyy to high, I was also using red sea coral pro. I guess corals were not consuming enough?? I switched to Instant Ocean salt, as I now only have soft corals, slowly bringing those parameters down, closer to 8.

[Tired]

(yeah, my bad, I misread that as about 10 points low.)

[Abzdot]

2 minutes ago, Superdave said:

1.025 is pretty much ideal so you are good there.  You can keep fish and corals at 1.026 as well; some fish stores use a lower (1.022) to help prevent disease.  Perhaps Tired read your data different?  

 

In my experience, the corals and fish are an excellent indicator.  It is difficult to have really "bad" water parameters and have happy, thriving corals.  If one slowly adjusts the parameters, the livestock will adjust and you can "push" them into a bad range but if the data from your test kids are way off as you say, but things are doing well that doesn't seem to add up.  

 

I would test again at a different time of day and make sure you follow the directions very carefully.  Wash out all the measuring devices with RO water if at all possible and maybe even let them dry so you know you are good there.  I bought an eye dropper so that I can know I have exactly the correct amount of water in the test kits.  Another option would be to go to a local fish store as many are willing to test for free.  That is what I do these days if I wonder about my tank.  Its been set up for so long that its stable, but I like to have them check it from time to time.  Their kits are likely very new and their staff have tons of practice using the tests.  Perhaps a friend/fellow reefer could test for you as well?  

 

Hope that helps!

 

--Superdave

As you said "It is difficult to have really "bad" water parameters and have happy, thriving corals.".  I was confused because my parameters changed so much without very much change at all towards the looks of the corals

[Abzdot]

1 minute ago, Melfy77 said:

I had the same issue with my Alk and Calcium being wayyy to high, I was also using red sea coral pro. I guess corals were not consuming enough?? I switched to Instant Ocean salt, as I now only have soft corals, slowly bringing those parameters down, closer to 8.

My tank is quite under stocked at the second and am slowly adding more LPS corals in (the hardy kind). I went with coral pro salt because I really didn't want to dose but thinking of it, it would've been much less of a headache so I guess I know what i'm changing to next!

[Tired]

What does the salt mix up at? Unless you're topping off the tank with saltwater instead of fresh, I can't think of any reason why calcium, alkalinity, and the like would go up from what they are when the salt is freshly mixed in.

[Clown79]

I had similar experience with RSCP.

 

With every waterchange my parameters slowly were increasing. 

 

I didn't care about ca or mag because high numbers aren't known to cause any adverse effects but the jump in alk caused my sps to rtn.

 

My alk started 9.5, and slowly increased to 10.5, 11.5, 12.5

 

 

I switched to blue bucket and much prefer the moderate parameters it gives. 

[jservedio]

38 minutes ago, Tired said:

What does the salt mix up at? Unless you're topping off the tank with saltwater instead of fresh, I can't think of any reason why calcium, alkalinity, and the like would go up from what they are when the salt is freshly mixed in.

A lot of salt mix is very inconsistent - a bag that wasn't properly homogenized or just a bad batch can cause all kinds of issues. I've had these sorts of issues with both RSCP and Reef Crystals back in the day before I knew better and kept a really high alkalinity. Better results with cheaper IO and Blue Bucket as well, just like Clown.

 

Buying a larger batch (150g bucket or 200g box) seems to help a lot with consistency and makes it easier to homogenize the mix yourself. I've never had issues with a larger bucket/box before, only the smaller bags.

[Abzdot]

15 hours ago, jservedio said:

A lot of salt mix is very inconsistent - a bag that wasn't properly homogenized or just a bad batch can cause all kinds of issues. I've had these sorts of issues with both RSCP and Reef Crystals back in the day before I knew better and kept a really high alkalinity. Better results with cheaper IO and Blue Bucket as well, just like Clown.

 

Buying a larger batch (150g bucket or 200g box) seems to help a lot with consistency and makes it easier to homogenize the mix yourself. I've never had issues with a larger bucket/box before, only the smaller bags.

thank god I didn't buy 22kg 😛