Input Please

salty rick

salty rick

Member
I just did my weekly water check and I got the following:
Nitrates - 10 ppm
Ammonia - 0.25
PO4 - .2
KH - 10
CA - 650
Salinity - 1.023
PH - 8.0
I know I need to raise my PH and will begin doing that as sson as I make a water change. I think the Ammonia and Nitrate level is due to a missing fish from about a month ago. I will do a water change to deal with that.
Do you think my Ca and PO4 is too high?
 
tangman99

tangman99

Active Member
I'm no expert, but being you're not getting much input, I'll give you my .02
Nitrates at 10 are not unreasonable, but I would not let them get any higher if this is reef tank. If this is a FO, then 10 is pretty damn good.
Any Ammonia is too much
PO4 at .2 is the max you want to tolerate, but difficult to get to zero.
Alk at 10 is OK
Ca at 650 is high. Are you getting snow in your tank at times?
Salinity is fine.
PH at 8.0 is fine, but 8.2-8.3 is better.
HTH
 
salty rick

salty rick

Member
I appreciate your reply. I guess sometimes I don't have very interesting questions. I will cut back on my calcium additive. I use the Red Sea liquid calcium in my top off water. Up until know it was staying around 450 to 500. I think the water change will help some there too.
 
barracuda

barracuda

Active Member
Your question is good!!! Really!!!
I agree with all TangMan99's reply and just want to add one suggestion.
Check your Ca test kit. Sometimes they are wrong. What test do you use?
 
nm reef

nm reef

Active Member
I just did my weekly water check and I got the following:

Nitrates - 10 ppm ...acceptable but target is zero
Ammonia - 0.25 ...possible test error
PO4 - .2 ...above .1 causes concern
KH - 10 ...within range
CA - 650 ...high reading(type test?)
Salinity - 1.023
PH - 8.0
I would suggest you have a trusted LFS run the same tests and compare results. I have a old test kit that always provided a ammonia reading of .25...but the same water tested at zero with a Salifert test. Phosphates above .1 should be addressed in my opinion. I try to maintain zero or at least non-detectable levels of nitrate...and ammonia should never be present.What type tests are you using and are the accurate(not expired)....if you need accurate reliable tests check into getting a series of Salifert tests...readily available and accurate...plus easy to use.
 
salty rick

salty rick

Member
The PO4 and CA tests are Red Sea. The ammonia and nitrate are Aquaium Phamaceuticals and the PH and KH are Tetra. These are the only types that I have been able to find around here. I guess I need to order Salifert from somewhere on the web.
I did a retest this morning and the Ammonia was back to zero and the CA down to 600. The PH is still running at 8.0. I did not doa PO4 test this morning.
PO4 is a constant battle. I am not sure where it is coming from. I use Phosguard in my filter. I change the Pohguard every month or so. I use RO water to for water changes and topoff. The RO tests 0 for phosphates.
 
barracuda

barracuda

Active Member
I would try another test kit for Ca. When i had Red sea Ca test kit it was always driving me crazy. As for PO4 i use the same test kit. I never got the reading that is less than 0.2 ppm. Strange isn't it? Even when i test my RO water, is still 0.2 ppm As NM reef mentioned iwould also check your test kits and compare your readings with LFS.
 
tangman99

tangman99

Active Member
If your ammonia is bouncing up and down, watch your feeding. You may be offering too much and too often. Also watch how much livestock you add to your tank over a specific period of time.
All a cycle means is that your tank has reached an equilibrium where the breaking down of waste and the coversion by bacteria are occurring at the same rate. You can only develop enough bacteria that can be supported by the waste.
Every time you add something to your tank, you increase the waste load and this causes a mini cycle that you will probably never notice if you do it right. Now that the waste increases, the amount of bacteria must also increase until it is in equilibrium again. This can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days depending on how big of a bioload you just added.
When I was stocking my tank, I never added more that one fish at a time and waited at least two weeks between additions.
Not sure if this fits your current situation, but just some additional help if it applies.
Tangman
 
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