Should I wait ... or should I play with chemistry?

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by subman

Sorry I read this at a red light...

LMAO I do the same thing...

[jon in alberta]

Originally Posted by Seriak

Your Alk is fine. What is your Mg at?

good call. I was wondering if I needed to by that test kit. I have good salt (with sufficient Mg) and do water changes about every 3 weeks. further, i have Mg dosing solution but don't plan to tie it to an automatic doser like the Ca and Alk.

[subman]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

LMAO I do the same thing...

[Seriak]

Originally Posted by jon in alberta

good call. I was wondering if I needed to by that test kit. I have good salt (with sufficient Mg) and do water changes about every 3 weeks. further, i have Mg dosing solution but don't plan to tie it to an automatic doser like the Ca and Alk.

I recently started having some RTN and STN on some of my SPS and my readings for Mg were in the 1100 range, but I also had a low Alk (5.5dkh). As soon as I corrected these my corals recovered and really started to take off. I did weekly water changes (Reef crystals), but it was not enough to get the extra Mg boost I needed. I am switching to H20 salt to hopefully alleviate my Mg problem without having to dose.

This is why I asked about your Mg.

[jon in alberta]

Originally Posted by kien

If you don't already have one, which you did suggest that you didn't, I would get a phosphate test kit and figure out your P04. Phosphates can be an inhibitor of growth. At least it would be nice to rule it out even if it's in check.

Thanks all, so I guess I will be buying a PO4 and a Mg kit.

As for corals - I will try to list them all (and will forget some I am sure)
- green star polyp x 2
- 4 types of zoas (these were growing rapidly until 2 months ago - now they are sort of sitting there)
- bubble tip anemone (recently split into two)
- 'regular' anemone (really small)
- green/red favia - growing at 1mm / month (isn't that slow?)
- 'pink' millipora which is all dark green now
- pink/green trachy
- hammer coral
- green torch
- unknown mushrooms

... that's about all I can see now

[jon in alberta]

Originally Posted by Seriak

I recently started having some RTN and STN on some ...

I'm still kinda new: what is RTN and STN?

[Seriak]

Originally Posted by jon in alberta

I'm still kinda new: what is RTN and STN?

Slow or fast tissue necrosis. Its when the flesh of the coral starts to recede. Sometimes it happens overnight and your entire coral is gone or sometimes it's a slow process over many days / weeks.

[jon in alberta]

while the iron is hot ... anyone out there know why ORP would sit around 350mV with my ozone generator sitting unplugged?

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by jon in alberta

while the iron is hot ... anyone out there know why ORP would sit around 350mV with my ozone generator sitting unplugged?

Clean water? Dirty probe?

[jon in alberta]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Clean water? Dirty probe?

Clean water: if by that you mean "is your water clean?" to that I say "as far as I can tell"

Dirty probe: that was my first thought too - so I checked the probe as well as possible - it responded to changing water conditions.