mountaineer
Non-member
Background: I set up my first reef tank, a 27 gallon cube, on Sept 28, 2014. I`ve added fish but no corals or inverts besides CUC. I want to add corals soon. I started the tank with 25 lbs of reefcleaners dry rock and 5 lbs of live rock to seed.
I`ve been using Red Sea Coral Pro salt and mixed it according to directions. I usually do a weekly 5 gallon change, but I did a big 10 gallon change yesterday, since the tank was kind of grungy after spending a few days with a sitter. I have an RODI unit and my water comes out 0 tds.
Santa brought me some new test kits! Now I can junk the API kit and see where I`m actually at. Without furthur ado, here`s where I`m at tonight:
Nitrate -- 0 (Red Sea Kit)
Phosphate -- 0.03 (yikes, is that too high?) (Red Sea kit)
Calcium -- 420 ppm (Salifert kit)
Alk -- 11.5 dKH (Salifert kit)
Mag -- 1150 ppm (Elos kit)
temp - 78
salinity -- 1.025
pH - 8.0 - 8.2 (API kit)
What do you think? Is it time to add coral, or do I need to work on tweaking these numbers?
My concerns:
1) Phosphate. I`m running PhosGuard in a HOB filter, as I don`t have a sump and thus no place for a GFO reactor. I`ve just tricked out my AC70 into a fuge, but I`m still trying to run down some chaeto...Any other suggestions?
2) pH. The level looks good now, but before the big water change, I was routinely getting a reading of 7.8, and occassionally 7.6. I`m hoping that my fuge will help combat the night swing, but those low readings worry me...
3) mag. I see it`s low. After getting that 1150 reading, I dosed it with Tech M leftover from a bryopsis battle. I`d like to get it up to 1350. I noticed that my coralline algae growth had really slacked off in the last 2-3 weeks. Perhaps that low mag had something to do with it.
All advice and comments are welcome!
I`ve been using Red Sea Coral Pro salt and mixed it according to directions. I usually do a weekly 5 gallon change, but I did a big 10 gallon change yesterday, since the tank was kind of grungy after spending a few days with a sitter. I have an RODI unit and my water comes out 0 tds.
Santa brought me some new test kits! Now I can junk the API kit and see where I`m actually at. Without furthur ado, here`s where I`m at tonight:
Nitrate -- 0 (Red Sea Kit)
Phosphate -- 0.03 (yikes, is that too high?) (Red Sea kit)
Calcium -- 420 ppm (Salifert kit)
Alk -- 11.5 dKH (Salifert kit)
Mag -- 1150 ppm (Elos kit)
temp - 78
salinity -- 1.025
pH - 8.0 - 8.2 (API kit)
What do you think? Is it time to add coral, or do I need to work on tweaking these numbers?
My concerns:
1) Phosphate. I`m running PhosGuard in a HOB filter, as I don`t have a sump and thus no place for a GFO reactor. I`ve just tricked out my AC70 into a fuge, but I`m still trying to run down some chaeto...Any other suggestions?
2) pH. The level looks good now, but before the big water change, I was routinely getting a reading of 7.8, and occassionally 7.6. I`m hoping that my fuge will help combat the night swing, but those low readings worry me...
3) mag. I see it`s low. After getting that 1150 reading, I dosed it with Tech M leftover from a bryopsis battle. I`d like to get it up to 1350. I noticed that my coralline algae growth had really slacked off in the last 2-3 weeks. Perhaps that low mag had something to do with it.
All advice and comments are welcome!
