Stability in SPS Tank

DAS212

DAS212

Member
As some of you know I've been working on establishing a SPS dominated 57g oceanic tank. After noticing whitening of some of my corals like I have never seen before I realized alkalinity was at 5 ad way to low. I began dosing to raise and brought it up to 6.5. After doing a water change I dropped back down to around 5 and decided to test the salt water I bought from beyond the reef. I discovered their water was at 5 Dkh. Wtf? Is this normal?
 
Smitty

Smitty

Premium member
Nope, that isn't normal. It's best to try to keep a sps dominated tank between 8-11dKh alk.
 
maidia

maidia

Team CR
Did you ask them what salt they used? That's not good. You need RO/DI system and mix the salt you like for your self..
 
KeishaKornbread

KeishaKornbread

Banned
WOW!! That is insanely low. Since you're focus is on SPS, you'll need to take action pretty quickely. SPS can start going really fast with alk that low. For my tank, alk is the problem while calc stays pretty stable. My corals and the coraline suck it all up.
 
DAS212

DAS212

Member
I have been dosing to get it back up and like I said I have never had this problem before and have always used their water so maybe something just recently went wrong? I was going to call them today but that seems so irresponsible, wouldn't they test all of those params before they sold anything?
 
KeishaKornbread

KeishaKornbread

Banned
DAS212 said:
I have been dosing to get it back up and like I said I have never had this problem before and have always used their water so maybe something just recently went wrong? I was going to call them today but that seems so irresponsible, wouldn't they test all of those params before they sold anything?
Click to expand...
They might have made water with a bad batch of salt. I bought water from my LFS during the first 2 months of my setup. Lugging those jugs of water to and from the LFS got really old really quickely. One day I was there to get more water and the salesperson said they were out of water but I could come back in an hour and they will have some ready. I thought to myself "so you want to make a fresh batch of salt water so I can dump it in my tank and burn all of my coral?" That's when I realized you never know what is in the water that the high school student just made. You have no way to check if he used tap water, even though they said they only use RO/DI. The kids might be having a long day and is exhausted and feeling lazy. That was the last time I bought water from anywhere. I have a lot of money invested in my setup and I don't want to lose it just because I was feeling lazy. I make my own RO/DI and I mix every batch of saltwater myself. Best practices trump my laziness.
 
R

Rich130981

New member
KeishaKornbread said:
WOW!! That is insanely low. Since you're focus is on SPS, you'll need to take action pretty quickely. SPS can start going really fast with alk that low. For my tank, alk is the problem while calc stays pretty stable. My corals and the coraline suck it all up.
Click to expand...
Same here. My calcium sits at 410-420 without much change. My alk requires alot of work to keep constant.
 
DAS212

DAS212

Member
KeishaKornbread said:
They might have made water with a bad batch of salt. I bought water from my LFS during the first 2 months of my setup. Lugging those jugs of water to and from the LFS got really old really quickely. One day I was there to get more water and the salesperson said they were out of water but I could come back in an hour and they will have some ready. I thought to myself "so you want to make a fresh batch of salt water so I can dump it in my tank and burn all of my coral?" That's when I realized you never know what is in the water that the high school student just made. You have no way to check if he used tap water, even though they said they only use RO/DI. The kids might be having a long day and is exhausted and feeling lazy. That was the last time I bought water from anywhere. I have a lot of money invested in my setup and I don't want to lose it just because I was feeling lazy. I make my own RO/DI and I mix every batch of saltwater myself. Best practices trump my laziness.
Click to expand...
I am prepared to buy a RO/DI but know nothing about them so am going to have to start doing some research. It seems like a much safer idea.
 
badazztealcobra

badazztealcobra

New member
Unfortunately that's like asking "what skimmer?" or "what lighting?".... LOL

There's a ton of good salts out there that will all work, most of it is personal preference really.

I've seen tanks look great from salt ranging from IO to Tropic Marin Pro.... Personally I use Seachem ReefSalt on my tanks, but have used Red Sea, red sea coral pro, Tropic Marin bio-activ, TM Pro, Tunze, Reef Crystals, etc.... Just find a good brand of salt, mix a batch and test it to see what kind of numbers you get and you can adjust from there.
 
madjoe

madjoe

Premium member
DAS212 said:
What kind of salt mix do you guys recommend?
Click to expand...
I run a 75 gallon reef all sps i use reef crystals. Lots of people run salinity or tropic marin but im cheap snd it works. I dont even trust ro from stores they test nothing and barely change filters asking for trouble useing there water
 
ColaAddict

ColaAddict

New member
badazztealcobra said:
Unfortunately that's like asking "what skimmer?" or "what lighting?".... LOL

There's a ton of good salts out there that will all work, most of it is personal preference really.

I've seen tanks look great from salt ranging from IO to Tropic Marin Pro.... Personally I use Seachem ReefSalt on my tanks, but have used Red Sea, red sea coral pro, Tropic Marin bio-activ, TM Pro, Tunze, Reef Crystals, etc.... Just find a good brand of salt, mix a batch and test it to see what kind of numbers you get and you can adjust from there.
Click to expand...
Where do u buy your Seachem? I use the same salt and usually buy fro Foster and smith when they are on sale, but they havent been on sale at their website in awhile.
 
Tank2379

Tank2379

Active member
Try not to raise you're Alk to fast I would dose over a few days maybe even a week to get you're alk back up. You can cause more harm than good getting it readjusted back to 8 or 9 dkh...
 
fwadiver

fwadiver

New member
reef crystals is known for low alk, one of the reason i use red sea is it mixes up between 11-12dkh, plus the alk can settle in the reef crystals so you can get the first few batches super low, the last few super high.
 
FlyinBryan

FlyinBryan

New member
Im running Kalk to keep my params stable and it works great!!! BRS has imo the best alk and ca. They have a calculator to let you know how much to add, takes the guess work out of how much to add. Also pay attn to Mg to prevent precipitating out. Good luck!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top