Think I May Be Figuring Out My On Going Tank Problem Finally

[craigybaby37]

Finally got round to getting a KH (carbonate hardness/alkalinity) test kit. Results are as follows along with other tank stats.

Temp 80F
salinity 1.023
nitrite 0ppm
ammonia 0ppm
nitrate 30ppm (water change due in a day so thats why its a bit high)
calcium 440ppm
KH (alkalinity) 160ppm measured with a nutrafin test kit. Booklet said that a figure between 105ppm and 125ppm is suitable for a saltwater aquarium.

So how do i go about lowering the KH in the tank then as ime aware that if u need to raise it u use a buffer but to lower it can u get a reverse buffer of some sort??

Hopefully the KH being strangley high is causing the few probs in the tank?? and will this being to high cause my corals to not open up???

If none of the above are the cause of the corals not opening up ive run out of ideas so if anyones got any ur input is more than welcome

 

[craigybaby37]

Just found another forum with some very interesting info sayin that the only way to get the KH down is to stop using any calcium additives and PH adjusters as they will simply add to the KH.

And once the KH has come to a suitable level if need be then u can adjust the PH with a buffer of some sort which i am not doing so ime just letting it take it course naturally.

One thing i dont get is if the KH comes down from temporaraly stopping to add calcium how will i get on for adding calcium to the tank with water changes to keep a steady calcium supply to the tank???

 

[jeasko]

your KH test should be for carbonate hardness and as far as all the tests I have seen it should read somewhere between 8 and 12, I've never seen a KH test expressed in ppm.

someone please correct me if im wrong?

 

[craigybaby37]

thats what i fort but ive just looked in the booklet again and it says mg/l?

so my result is 160 MG/L

 

[dilbert]

1 degree hardness (or °dKH) = 17.8 ppm.

So, your 160 ppm are roughly 9 °dKH and somewhere I read that in a marine tank it should be 9 to 12 °dKH. So, there shouldn't be any need to lower it.

Someone has to watch out as most people use dKH (d=deutsch=German) hardness where there exists also English and French hardness. Those are slightly different simply to confuse people.

Some people use also milliequivalents per liter, that is meq/l. The fasTest from Aquarium Systems uses this primarily and I got 6 meq/l that correspond to 16.8 °dKH. Two other test kits (Kent and Nutrafin) measure 12 and 13 °dKH. So, I'm on the upper limit.

So, you see even if marine ain't that complicated per se you always got lots of ways to make it really complicated , overall if you start thinking about lowering your alkalinity if it ain't needed at all.

 

[jeasko]

dilbert

thanks for correcting me, and you are correct with 9-12 Dkh some people say 8-12 and some say 9-13, either way craigybaby's readings are fine and no action should be taken to reduce KH

 

[dilbert]

Well, I actually needed to do this fasTest four times to figure out that their results are really NOT °dKH but meq/l instead. All the time I was wondering why are the results from that fasTest on the lower edge while the other test are on the upper side of the recommended range.

This whole thing is quite confusing. It starts that alkalinity is practically the same as carbonate hardness (KH), but exactly speaking a different term.

 

[craigybaby37]

ok thanks for clearing things up on that 1.

So now ime realy realy confused as if my tank stats are all fine, and all fish and inverts are perfectly fine then why hasnt my 1 remaining corals opened up??

The coral itself is a polyp frag of some sort....it was fully open from when i added it for about 2 weeks before all the problems started, and now it just sits there with all the heads closed up. The skin of the coral looks perfectly fine and its the same colour still as it was before the problems.

And just to finish with a few of the head u can see into they are still the same bright green colour which ime guessing is another indication that its not dead.

 

[jeasko]

while 30ppm Nitrates may not be massivley high some corals do not cope well with nitrates (i speak from first had experience!) so there is a possibility that thats not helping, also it would be good to see a pic of the coral if your not sure what it is then people may be able to give you more specific advice on it, ie if its in a dead spot or flow is to high for it.

Also are you running carbon in your filter as there may be a tiny trace of something that it does not like in your water that s undetectable with our usual test kits.

Also i noticed on my xenia that wasnt opening that there was a kind of powdery coating on it (looked like cynobacteria) which I had to gently brush off with a clean soft paint brush, but turned out it was my angel (which has now been removed ) that was picking at it which was stopping it from opening, is there anything in your tank that could be doing this?

 

[craigybaby37]

ill get a picture up tomorow night as ime over my mums for a few days an will be back tomorow night.

I am running carbon in the filter is this a good or bad thing??

Cant say anything in the tank has ever picked at my corals ive only got 2 clowns 1 mandarin goby and 1 yellow watchman. and as for inverts i only got 2 hermits and 5 nassuris snails or how ever its spelt.

Well ive done a 10% water change so nitrates are a little lower but ill do another in a few days to try get them down to 0 which i know they have been.

 

[jeasko]

running carbon is a good thing although how long it is usefull for is a controversial subject, somepeople say a few days others say for 3-4weeks but everyone aggrees it isnt a bad thing.

Once you have uploaded a pic a few more people will be able to comment on possible problems.

 

[SkiFletch]

That chemistry sounds fine to me. What you read was correct in that the only way to lower either calcium or alkalinity is to stop adding either to the tank. Calcifying organisms (those with hards skeletons) will consume calcium and alkalinity over time and naturally lower their values in a small closed home aquarium. So whatever you're doing for calc/alk (waterchanges, dosing, etc), keep doing what you're doing since your values are pretty much spot-on for coral growth/health.

The only "elephant in the room" is your salinity. You say your sg reads 1.023 which if true is just fine. Problem is, most affordable devices which measure sg tend to be woefully inaccurate and unreliable. In order to account for this, aquarists usually turn to one of two options (I prefer to do both). First, have someone else whose salinity measuring device you trust (friend, good LFS, etc) test your water. Bring them a sample and find out what they think your water is. Don't tell them, just ask them to measure and tell you what they think. Second, read this article about creating your own salinity verification standard using a 2L bottle and table salt. Then use that standard to test your meter and find out if it's reading properly. Although you think its 1.023 it could be 1.019 or worse yet 1.030...

 

[craigybaby37]

Thanks for the info ski ill have a read through the article for sure. And i will take a sample to my lfs just to see what they make of my salinity aswell.

 

[craigybaby37]

Had a read through the article suggested by ski and made up the suggested solution with the salt in a 2L coke bottle and to my amazment my refractometer measured 1.027 and the website said it should be 1.026 so only 0.001 out.

anyways heres a few pics of the coral i was talkin about.

Heres when it was very first added to the tank only a few hours after.
http/img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/cra...ks081207006.jpg

And here it is now with a few heads starting to open very slightly
http/img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/cra...airalgea006.jpg

 

[jeasko]

firstly I think they are zooanthids/button polyps (ski or lynden would be better for naming what coral it is) could be several possibilities firstly have you looked very closely at the coral as they are prone to being home to nudibrach which are a type of slug that like to feed on these types of coral, they may be very small to start with but will grow quickly and can be toxic to us if squashed in the tank, if not that it may be to do with either not getting enough light or nitrates are to high (not sure if thats a common prob with these), other than that I'm not sure what else it could be so hopefully someone else has got other ideas as to the problem.