my second loss

[medic_eva]

kay here are the parameters

salinity 1.025
calcium 660 (holy freaking high)
phsopahte 0.5
nitrate 5
carbonate (alkalinity) 100 (so it's about 5 points low)
ammonia 0.2-0.3 (i assume because of two dead animals in less then 2 days)
nitrite 0.1


any ideas? going to do a water change tomorrow, about 2.5g on my 25g tank. nothing else seems to be having problems in these parameters. no corals are closing up or anything. i dunno. i am at a complete loss of idea of what happend.

[danny zubot]

Wow Eva, those levels are a bit off. You must be experiencing some kind of cycle, thats how I'd explain the high ammonia etc. When was you last water change? I'm not sure if these levels would contribute to a fish death but they would add some stress to their living conditions.

As for the calcium (660) and carbonates (100) thats way off. You need to bring your carbonates up to at least 150, (ALK 3 or 10.5 DKh) Leave your calcium alone and it will eventually decrease. For best results on reef Chemistry PM Beverly in Edmonton for the links.

A think a large water change would help to to put all of your levels in check. Good luck!

[medic_eva]

i did two water changes, one 20% on monday and one 10% one on tuesday after i found my shrimp dead. i dug up the old posts on reef chemistry, but i cam a little worried about adding any baking soda to my tank, first because i can't tell what my pH is due to a crappy tester, and because i would have no idea how much vineger to add to make sure the pH doesn't get higher. has anyone ever actually put baking soda in their tanks? i've read that for every 50g you use 2 teaspoons of baking soda. but i'm worried about doing that without knowing my pH level. i'm using a hegan kit and it comes up as a grey blue color and doesn't even come close to matching any color on the list.

any ideas?
eva

[danny zubot]

You could stand to add a bit of two part buffer. Washing soda and baking soda combined. This will raise your Carbonates while maintaining the same PH, provided you know what your PH is at. Washing soda is just baking soda that has been baked at 250 to 300 degrees for a couple of hours. This burns off a carbon atom resulting in an adverse effect on PH than that of baking soda. It raises PH, only it is 6 times stronger so a ratio of 6 baking to 1 part washing soda is required to maintian neutral ph.

I'd stick with water changes for now because so many other levels are off.

[medic_eva]

thanks danny!