Water tests?

[tooldini]

Hello,, I have had my reef set up for over 10 months and up till recently everything has been pretty good. Got alot of bubble algae but just got emerlad crab working on that My question is about testing. I do the normal 4 tests( nitrate= 0, nitrite= 0, ammonia= 0, PH= 8.2) Are there any others I should be doing? My glove polyps and some of my zooanthids are not opening. So something is going wrong but I don't know what it is. Here is a pic of my Zoo's and gloves. Hope someone can help. nothing is stinging them and it is all gloves no matter were they are in the tank.

thanks
Jeff

 

[Brenden]

If your tank has been up for 10 months I would test for NO3, PH, ALK, CA. I do not test for NH3 or NO2 unless I add something or something is missing etc. even then it has never been detectable. By the looks of your coralline (correct CA) I bet you will find that ALK is off if anything. By the way. Nice tank.

 

[tooldini]

thanks,, I did 4 test on Jan 22 and haven't changed anything since. I got these readings
nitrite=0
nitrate=0
PH=8.2
ammonia=0
I do have 5 fish in a 30 gallon reef,, but if waste was a problem wouldn't I have some ammonia? I need to figure this out its starting to bother me

thanks
Jeff

 

[seaham358]

phosphates and silacates are some other things to test for. With BA your phosphates may be up. Calcium and alkalinity are 2 other good test kits to have. Keeping these balanced is important to a reef tank.
Do you use any additives.

 

[tooldini]

Hello,, I do use kent marine essential elements and kent marine Liquid calcium. Can high calcium cause problems for some corals like my gloves?

Jeff

 

[tooldini]

Well I just had my wife do a calcium test. I thought maybe my count of 600 last week may not be correct. I stopped adding the liquid calcium daily for about 1 week she just got a reading of 560.. Thats pretty damn high so maybe that is the problem. My acanthastreas and others are growing like crazy but some zoo's and all my gloves are acting like they don't wanna open up.

Jeff

 

[Brenden]

You will find that the majority of successful reef keepers here dose nothing. With levels that far off it could easily be your problem. I would stop dosing everything and do a series of 10% water changes every few days for a while. What kind of CA test? May want to have the LFS check to verify your test results.

 

[melosu58]

That`s alot of bubble algea in there. How often are you feeding and what? Do you have a skimmer

 

[seaham358]

Unless things are dying I would just let the cal work its way out of the tank over time. Making a fast change may hurt the tank more then dealing with the high cal.
Never dose anything unless your sure the tank needs it first. What is your alkalinity? I would imagine its low with a high cal. Keep doing your regular water changes and test once a week and when it gets where it should be either dose or do a WC to replenish the elements.
Keeping things balanced consistently is more important the jumping it up and down to match the magic number.