Salvaged Acros and monti, think they'll make it?

....or dose the bejeebus out of calcium to make them both precipitate....

 

Lowering the hardness

I guess it lowers both..

 

Randy Farley the reef chem guru suggests just letting it be used up and water change reduction. He states himself that soda will not lower alk at all. Miriatic Acid will lower only the alk but he strongly suggests never doing this because of the risk involved to yourself and the system.

Not saying you or LeRoy are wrong though.

 

Thanks for the article Night-Rida. That was really informative and i'm glad I read it. I guess seltzer water won't work for me since it will lower my pH even more than it is. I think 7.8 is low enough.

I only wonder now, what can I do with 2 gallons of seltzer water? They should take it back if I didn't open them

I also just did a 5 gallon RO water change and since my lights went off, I'll do testing in the morning/noon time to get the reading always at the same time for better comparison. I'll update you.

 

So, I finally added the saltier salt water last night, but apparently it wasn't enough for the 5 gallon RO water I put in the tank, so my salinity is a little low (for what I usually keep it 1.025) and it's reading at 1.022. I made another gallon with more mix in it, and I'm adding 1 cup of this saltier water every 2 hours to slowly bring the salinity back up.

I also measured a big change on other, more relevant tests. I only measured the ones I thought would matter in solving my issue:

Temp: 79
SG: 1.022
pH: 7.8
Magnesium: 1500 (exactly!!! )
Calcium: 340 ppm
dKH: 11.2

So, as you can see, I had a pretty good drop on Alkalinity and Calcium. A whooping 140 ppm of calcium, which I understand can easily be fixed by adding "Purple Up". I believe Puprple Up will also raise my ALK by approximately 1 or 2 points, so I don't know about that. Maybe more and smaller RO water changes, but this will keep me adding Calcium for a good while.

The pH though.... that's another story. I'm sure there's plenty oxygen in the water with the open top, sump and skimmer. But I can't seem to get the pH stable at 8.3 or 8.4. I would really appreciate your thoughts and advice as to how to proceed here. I don't really want to risk my misinterpreting an article and mess it all up again since I think these are more easy to fix problems than the one I've been dealing with. But that may be just my opinion.

I am, though, trying to find an article that Mike linked me to not long ago. But it seems to be lost in my bookmarks.

- Mag.

 

Point your circulation pumps and return water at the surface to increase gas exchange.

 

well that was a big drop in alk from 15.7 to 11dkh. I would only use a calicum only booster now not purple up.. I use kent liquid calcium for that. $9 at petco. aim for 400ppm on calcium for now. ph 7.8-8.4 is normal. Im glad you got your high alk down, now once you get your calcium inline, hopefully in the next week you'll start to see some progress on your sps corals.

 

I have pretty good ripply water on the tank. But I'll bump it up a bit and I hope it helps!

Yes, it was a big drop!! I was not expecting that much of a drop at all. It left my ALK almost on target, and that's the closest I've ever been! I'm really excited about this. It is a great achievement. Let's hope it lasts

Thanks everyone for your help. And please, tag along since I'll be updating this thread daily.

- Mag.

 

purple up is sort of frowned upon due to all the 'extra' it puts in

 

I believe you're correct on this one. I bought this because of the "super sea calcium" thing and thought it would help me a lot, but also got my alk very high and my ph very unstable. I agree that I need to buy some calcium chloride and correct this soon.

Here are my new readings from today, 6/20/2010:

Temp: 79
SG: 1.024
pH: 8
Amonia, Nitrite, Nitrate all at 0 (zero)
Magnesium: 1500
calcium: 350
dKH: 12.3

I have not added anything chemical to the water, only vitamin C (Scorbic Acid?).

But my calcium went up a little bit from 340 to 350 in 3 days. I wonder if I should add some calcium chloride like Holmes-Farley instructs in his Chemistry and the Aquarium or just let it be for a few more days and see if they become stable?

I added some new corals of which I'll take pics tomorrow at daylight. I will definitely need ID so I may try to post here or the "ID This!" section.

Any advice on how to proceed with my water? Corals in general, with one or two exceptions are showing a very tiny improvement.

Thanks again!