Water Parameters and Basic Reef Chemistry

[FragOutpost]

Originally Posted by D12monkey

But where are the pros and cons for magnesium, strontium, and iodine?

LOL.
Added pros and cons to different iodine sources.

[salazar]

Hello everybody, As you all know i have had a string of bad luck with new purchases,fortunately i didn,t loss to much. All my coral and fish looks really healthy(i did a 20% anyway).The Kenyan Tree Coral started to wilt so i inspected and it looks like something damaged it so I did all water tests Nitrates were sky high at 60-80 i think that much would causes serious situations in the tank.I did another 25% change and retested you guessed it .... the nitrates were still 60-80.The test is faultly is my guess( that was one of the firsts things i bought with the tank 2Yrs ago) i think it is expired.The calcium test is about 520 before and after both water changes.

[FragOutpost]

I'm pretty sure that most tests have about a 1 year or less shelf life after being opened, I could be wrong though. Does your nitrate test have an expiration date? Most LFS's will test nitrates for you for free. Maybe you could compare the results from the LFS to see if they are similar to the results from your test.

Since your calcium is at 520, what is your alkalinity? How old is the calcium test kit? If your alkalinity is in check then it should be very difficult to get your calcium above 450 or so. I'm going to attempt to explain what is called "The Marble Analogy" as described on on page 183 of Calfo's Book of Coral Propagation.

It is only possible to dissolve so many solids into a give volume of water. Imagine that you have a bowl filled with 100 colored marbles representing the dissolved solids in seawater in a given system. Imagine that the red marbles in the bowl represent calcium and the blue marbles represent alkalinity. The bowl can only hold 100 marbles total regardless of color. The only way to increase the marbles of one color is to displace marbles of another color. Using the example in the book - If 70 marbles represent 400ppm calcium then the remaing 30 marbles represent alkalinity. In order to increase the calcium some of the blue marbles (alkalinity) must be displaced as the bowl can only hold 100 marbles total.

If your tank has a calcium level of 520 (assuming that your test is accurate) then your alkalinity level must be low, according to Calfo's marble analogy. Try testing your alkalinity to see if it is low. What form of calcium are you adding to your tank?

[salazar]

Kent Marine liquid calcium, Kent Marine Pro-Buffer dKH and Kent Marine Tech-M all dosed a little less than bottle instuctions.I also dosed Lugos once a week (2 drops) per 50 gallons what do you think.

[Peterock]

I dose 1500ml of kent kalk every week actually start on mon and empty on wend.
-Kent iodine i dose that 5 ml a day.
- 25 ml of coral vite on sunday
-15ml of coral accell daily
2 tsp of espon salt monthly
300ml of black diamond carbon(crystal clear water& no smell) monthly
7 gallon water change weekly

[FragOutpost]

Originally Posted by salazar

Kent Marine liquid calcium, Kent Marine Pro-Buffer dKH and Kent Marine Tech-M all dosed a little less than bottle instuctions.I also dosed Lugos once a week (2 drops) per 50 gallons what do you think.

If you are going to dose calcium and alkalinity separately then I would recommend using a test kit for both. Since you keep mostly softies your calcium demand is not very high.