I am soooo confused....

[Timmy's Marine]

Our tank is cycled (or at least was!) Hense the confusing part. We have been keeping track of our readings from the beginning. We are using the RED SEA marine lab kit. The main problem we are having is the little cards for grading. It is hard to determine an accurate reading when there are ranges.
Here is the readings so far. Please note that the readings are one week apart.


Amonia/ium 0-.25 for the last six weeks (the range has been in between the colour codes, leaning more towards 0 for a while)
Nitrite 10-50, 0-0.05, 0 for the last 4 weeks
Nitrate 5, 2.5, 2.5, 5, 5, 2.5
ALk 2.8, 1.7 for 7 weeks, 2.8 at present
PH 8.2, 8.4 for 5 weeks, 8.6, 8.6 presently


My confusion is here - if you look at the ammonia readings you will see it is not completly 0 right now. We do regular water changes, have a skimmer, don't over feed. Our 2 clowns are showing NO signs of stress, no hidding, heavy breathing (anything that would prove to be in stress). I have tested our RO water that we get from a water place and it tests the same as our tank water. I understand that ammonium is less toxic than ammonia, is it possible that is what it is reading since you can't test them seperately. Or is my tester old...We are going to take the water to a LFS to get their take on the readings.

Also, the alk and ph are those ok? I have been told that they are, but I would prefer to get as many opinions as possible. I have tried and done some reading on this part of reef keeping, but can only do so much at a time!

We put some PRIME in the water two days ago to see if this would alter the test and it didn't!

 

[Witfull]

first thing,,,ditch tr redsea kits. second, take a smaple of water to your LFS in a glass container and have them test it. then for the basic 3 tests amm NH# an trItes

for trAtes and others,,,,get lamottes, salifert, or sera.

 

[Snelly40]

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idProduct=HG17860

how would this be?
i need a new test kit and was wondering about brands?

 

[Timmy's Marine]

I am still new to all of this, but I don't think I would use a HAGEN test kit. Just my opinion.

I have looked at Salifert but need to find a place locally that sells it rather than paying all that shipping for something that is sold here.

 

[BHinAK]

Get the Salifert, I had the Red Sea when I first started I'm not color blind and I never knew what and when about the color.

$15 shipping for 3 kits are year is nothing in this hobby. Getting the Salifert will be like night and day once you use them.

Alk needs to come up to atleast 8 to 11

 

[ghostwolf]

We switched to Salifert and some of the LaMotts. We get the same reading with both kits. We do a double test if the tank seems off at any point. I know that is necessary - but gives me peace of mind -LOL.

Lin

 

[BHinAK]

understanding the chemistry part of reefkeeping on top of the fish and corals is tough. I have read every night about some part and have learned sometime for the past 1 1/2 yrs after reading for 3 months before even starting.

 

[ghostwolf]

It is a continuing ed thing, BH. Too bad we don't credit for it - LOL. Oh, wait a minute we do - our tanks!

Lin

 

[lcstorc]

If you are trying to get a handle on the chemistry look for boomer links or check out the new chemistry forum on RS. PH, alk, and calc are all related and a problem with one often indicates a problem with another. Here is a link to the reef chemistry calculator that will show what to add to make adjustments to the 3 I mentioned.
http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

One other thing. What time during your light cycle are you testing? Ph goes down when the lights are up so that may be part of the difference in that one.

 

[Timmy's Marine]

We have been testing in the afternoon-evening. The ammonia we have been testing every day for the last four days with no time schedule attached.

As for our ALK - if you do the conversion it is 7.84 which is within the normal range - but I have begun to have a lack of trust in this kit!!

Our PH is 8.6 wich I have read is considered high, but we haven't done anything - no additives to cause it to rise. Should we add something to lower it. I have been hesitant in doing this becuase I read that it is not a good idea to start doing this unless there is a real concern for it.

 

[lcstorc]

Hmm,
Well I would definitely get another test run. Your lfs should be able to at least to the basics for you. How big is the tank? When you say regular water changes exactly what do you consider regular? Also what substrate and what filtration other than the skimmer?
Personally I would stop with the Prime. We used it initially and then heard that it merely masks the trates not eliminates them. Not sure if it is true, but by removing my bio-balls and making other changes I was able to get mine under control without the added chemicals.
I can look for the links but Boomer did post something about raising and lowering ph. If it really is that high I would take some steps to reduce it. Daytime is always the highest, but from what I uderstand a small change in the number on your ph is actually a big difference on the actual water. I'll see what links I can find for you.
First step though is get someone else to test with a different kit.

 

[cheeks69]

Did you cycle the tank with the clownfish, if not when in the cycle did you add them ? Do you have Live Rock and if so how much was it cured or uncured ? Which skimmer are you using ? How big is your tank ? When you do the water changes how much are you changing ? How often are you feeding and how much ?

 

[Timmy's Marine]

Ok, the 2 fish were added after the cycle. All we have are the two clowns which are babies, two skunk cleaners, frogspawn, xenia, and a ricordea, strawberry conch and a porcelin crab. It is a 72g with 4" of aragonite sand, coralife skimmer 65 (will be upgradding within the next couple of weeks), 10% water change once a week, regular top ups, RO water, 120 lbs of live rock which was in the store for several weeks. We added the Prime not to mask the reading, but more to see if it would effect the reading because the water change did not. We have no intentions of continueing with it. We have also a canister filter running with no media in it - we took that away for two weeks to see if it made a difference and it did not. So we have it hooked up again with some carbon in it. We have a Seio 820, two 1200 maxi jets (upgrading to a seio 1100 or 1500).

We took a sample of water to the LFS and they did two seperate tests and found our ammonia to be 0 on both tests. So it has been suggested to bring the kit in and get a new one. The only comment made was that our water is hard! I am glad of this ( the 0 reading) because I couldn't understand why our xenia would not be showing any signs of stress when our ammonia was .25. I have read that they are a good reader for water qualitiy.

 

[Boomer]

Was this moved here ?

Some thest kits have a bad habbit of reading ammonia when there is none. It is usually .25 ppm. Most fresh salt mixes will read .25, as they have ammonia. Some kits the water sample turns cloudy and is hard to read. This is due to some kits running the pH up in the sample procedure and you get a precip of magnesium clouding the sample water. Prime can mask the reading of some kits, Nessler's based and give false readings.

Red Sea makes very poot kits. Their Alk kit is about the worst there is often reads very high when the Alk is actually low. All Red Sea kits shoudl be filled under G===> trash can

I would leave things alone until you re-test with a good kit/s. High pH will come down on its own and faster than you think n no time, as would a high Alk. If need be high pH can be dropped by using soda water.