Water chemistry

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Trigger

I am new to the salt hobby and I have a 150g reef aquarium, my current chemistry is:
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1170
Salinity 1.024
pH 7.98
Alkalinity 15.4

I was told by a lfs I had to raise my ph, so they told me to add seachem buffer. Which I did with water top offs and tank changes, and my ph stayed between 8.1 -8.3. But a friend said I should check my other levels and everything had dropped, cal 400, mag 1155 and my alk was through the roof 16 +. So I've stopped adding buffer and just add some calcium and mag, but my alk isn't coming down. Is this a problem? How do you get alk down? Should I be worried? Thanks for your help/advice.

alk is a little high, I used to run mine about 13. I would increase your Mg to about 1350. this will rais your Ca which in theory should depress your alk a bit. if your ph is constant I wouldn't worry to much about it. as for salinity, don't play with that till alk and ca are in control, I prefer a 1.025 or 1.026 for salinity but there is nothing wrong with yours.

Steve