Symptoms of bad KH

[Breakthecycle2]

Some of you guys probably saw my other post about my low KH. I need to know what some of the symptoms of low KH are (for corals obviously). Is it bleaching? Recession? Tissue loss?

 

[Gregcoyote]

Recession and melting.

 

[jeffaquarius]

Just curious if you don't have a KH test kit.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

Of course I do. I have three and they all give me different readings

 

[jeffaquarius]

If they are not far way off i would average the 3 readings.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

My red sea says 9.8. Api says 10 Elos says 7. I am going with the Elos.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

I was relying soley on the red Sea. I started noticing corals dying, bleaching and receding. I was thinking it was my lighting, but after two months of keeping the light low, they did not get better.

 

[mr_X]

7 is not a death sentence if that's the correct reading. Stability is the key. Alk bouncing up and down is what wipes out corals IME.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

You might be right about the bouncing up and down. I wasn't dosing anything, instead, I was using water changes only. My corals weren't doing good, at least some of the LPS wasn't.

 

[Mr. D]

I'm going to agree wit X on this one. Ocellating

 

[Mr. D]

I'm going to agree wit X on this one. Ocellating

Don't know how to delete that.. I'm usin my phone.

Like I was saying oscillating patterns are much more dangerous than low readings in general.

 

[jeffaquarius]

You might be right about the bouncing up and down. I wasn't dosing anything, instead, I was using water changes only. My corals weren't doing good, at least some of the LPS wasn't.

What is your calcium and magnesium readings?

 

[Breakthecycle2]

CA is 430. MAG is 1450

 

[mr_X]

You might be right about the bouncing up and down. I wasn't dosing anything, instead, I was using water changes only. My corals weren't doing good, at least some of the LPS wasn't.

Then why would it be jumping up and down? Wouldn't it be staying consistently low if you were just using water changes? I don't think a water change (I'm assuming 10% or so) would raise alk that much to consider it a spike.

The calcium reading doesn't matter IME. All low calcium will do is slow the growth of stony corals, not kill them.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

It's not jumping up and down. It was always down Im assuming and between whatever the corals were using and me not dosing, it stayed low.

 

[jeffaquarius]

What salt do use and salinity?

 

[Breakthecycle2]

I was using Tropicmarin but I started to just buy the caribsea saltwater. Salinity was also down to 1.20 in one tank, to 1.22 on the other, so obviously I was doing something wrong. Iv'e brought it up to 1.25 solid in both tanks during the course of the week with water changes.

 

[jeffaquarius]

Abrupt change of salinity is not good for inhabitants. You should always check salinity of new salt water and adjust before pwc. You can gradually raise salinity by using salt water on your top off in drip mode. It will take about a day to increase specific gravity by 0.001. It's better to use your own salt mix and best at 1.026.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

I think I really need some help. I am testing my KH daily, sometimes twice. My one tank is up from 6.5 to 8.5. The other is up from 6. to 7.5 -8. I am dosing Elos 01 and 03 daily. 15mg of the 01 and 20mg of 03 daily. The issue is the alkalinity either stays the same or goes down every day. What do I need I need to do keep it 9 or above and keep in there?

 

[Breakthecycle2]

Both tanks are Nuvo 38's.

I'll add this in. My tank with KH of 7.5 (ish) and salinity is 1.25 per my retofractometer. It has four wellsy's, green BTA, two frogspawns, aussie plate, one lobo, some GSP, an aussie gold/purple torch and multiple zoa frags. I have a reactor running GFO and I just upgraded my Kessil lighting to one AI Hydra. It's set about 6 - 8 inched off the tank and the LED's are set to:

whites - 25%
Violet - 20%
Red - 18%
Green - 10%
Royal Blue - 34%
Blue - 35%
UV - 34%

Three of my wellsy's are bleached. I originally thought it was the Kessil lighting, so I kept them dimmed (approx 25%) lighting. They have not gotten any worse and have been this way for about 1.5 - 2 months.

The other tank has one Kessil a350 (set same as I did the other tank), reactor with GFO and CAD - PLS-50 skimmer. The filter basket has a sponge, seachem and a phosphate sponge. Corals are dfferent, but I also have an aussie gold/purple tip torch that is bleached. Alkalinity is 8.5 right now. Salinity is 1.26.