Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board - Who tests their water-change mix?

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- - Who tests their water-change mix? (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=58110)

Oh so you calculate what batches from that bucket require. You add to the tank and let it settle. Then you make sure the TANK is good to go and if not dose directly to it?

I test salinity, PH and temp for my water change water. the others are kinda mute point unless you are doing a masive waterchange like ovewr 50%. you can adjust Mg, Alk, and Ca once in the tank.

my reasoning for this is if you do a 10% water change like most do weekly, then if you tank is 400Ca, 11 Alk, and 1400mg

and you add 10% new water that is 300 Ca, 10 Alk and 1200mg

then you are going to end up with a tank level of
aprox 390Ca, 10.9 Alk and 1370-1380Mg

nothing that realy scares me and minor to corect in the tank.

but if your PH and salinity are out while they will only afect the tank a little they are ones that your live stock are more supseptible to changes in.

Steve

Quote:

Originally Posted by lastlight (Post 466029)

Oh so you calculate what batches from that bucket require. You add to the tank and let it settle. Then you make sure the TANK is good to go and if not dose directly to it?

yep thats pretty much it. I dose Kalk with my ato and have it pretty much dialed in. After i have done my WC then I just use Randys 2 part to tweek my levels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lastlight (Post 466029)

Oh so you calculate what batches from that bucket require. You add to the tank and let it settle. Then you make sure the TANK is good to go and if not dose directly to it?

That is pretty much how I do it too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus (Post 465904)

I test for Ca, Alk and Mg for every new BATCH of salt (new bucket or new bag). After that the first water is made, I don't bother with it again (ie. don't test for every water change).

I have been burned far too often by being caught unawares that a salt is not living up to its credo for params. The irony is the more expensive salts have always been the worst offenders too. Just because you pay more doesn't give you an assured QA process, apparently (and I love how it always gets turned around on you so that it's the "users" fault that a salt has no Mg or Alk because they didn't "mix the salt before mixing the water". I think that's totally absurd, but yeah, I guess you have to do it since you can't rely on the salt makers to adequately prepare their product before they send it to market). Although I would go so far to suggest that the times I noticed that Alk was woefully low, or dangerously high, or Mg was half the advertised claim, that pre-use mixing the salt didn't help - the problem was the salt itself.

So, I don't bother with premium salts anymore. If I have to dose Ca, Alk and/or Mg into a salt I figure I might as well save a few bucks because the price of chems is far less than the increased premium price on the salt itself. So I use IO, I accept that I'll have subpar Ca, Alk and Mg, so I dose accordingly for each new batch of salt. (The surprising thing is these numbers are usually not as bad as you'd think, to boot.) The nice thing is that once I know how much a batch needs for one makeup bucket, I know how much to add for the next water change.

But it does mean I *have* to test each new bag or bucket.

We should all go back to IO !

Quote:

Originally Posted by StirCrazy (Post 466038)

you can adjust Mg, Alk, and Ca once in the tank.

Why wait till it's in the tank? I know my parameters are dead on at Ca 420, Alk 7.5, Mg 1300, so I adjust the WC water before it goes in - why have swings, even if they are small when you can avoid them by doing the same thing in the bucket first.

SG I forget stupidly to check surprisingly often though....like today for example. I just remembered 12 hours after the fact that I forgot to check ONLY the sg. Stupid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shrimpchips (Post 466137)

Cuz I usaly don't have to adjust Ca, Mg, or Alk as the Ca reactor and Kalk reactor take care of them. and I know IO is real close to what I want so I only need to adjust Mg once and a blue moon.

Ah, makes sense. But if you have larger changes to make, I'd certainly do it in the mixing vessel first. My salt required me to adjust the Ca (separate additive), so it has to be done out of the tank first.

I just realized I haven't tested pH in a VERY long time... I think my testing schedule needs an overhaul.

Usually don't but I found the calcium in my tank to be low (320ppm) so I tested my water change mix and turns out my current bucket of instant ocean is responsible for the drop because it also read 320ppm.