Manic's Rimless Shallow Reef

to reduce calcium and mag, you need to stop adding any supplements & reactors that contain them until the levels drop where you want them and use low calcium & mag salt mix to do water changes. It will take some time to reduce mag in a reef tank since it is used so slowly by our organisms.
 
those values are high, seachem reef salt?
 
but now with the sps the Ca should get used up, give it a few days and test say fri/sat and see if any change
 
dallasg said:
but now with the sps the Ca should get used up, give it a few days and test say fri/sat and see if any change
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Problem is the chemical unbalance makes the alk drop quickly. The only supplement I have is a combined one (alk, calcium and mag in one). So I can't not dose for a few days. I think I need to go buy a stand alone alk supplement.
 
i got some Alkalin8.3-P from brightwell, can make you a few litres
 
nope, but i made a drip kit for it from some emergency ward spares :)
give you a shout when i get home
 
dallasg said:
to reduce calcium and mag, you need to stop adding any supplements & reactors that contain them until the levels drop where you want them and use low calcium & mag salt mix to do water changes. It will take some time to reduce mag in a reef tank since it is used so slowly by our organisms.
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Hopefully if I just dose alk then both the calcium and magnesium will fall at the same ratio, think it is 3 parts mag to 1 part calcium. Then when the calcium is at about 450 the mag should be at around 1350.
 
in theory, they say 9:1 to 7:1 in a carx, but Mag is used alot slower, once Ca is at 450, a water change to being down Mag might be needed
 
Strange I only use Seachem, and I'm happy with it. The only quick way to zero your ratios is to do high water changes, like 60% two days in a row use a salt whose alk, ca and mg test within normal ranges. I suspect though your ionic balance is out of whack some how, cause higher than normal values. Unfortuanlty your system will only correct itself if you replace it with water (large amounts) that's has the right ratios. Think as you system that has a 100 marbles, it can only take 100 marbles. In that lot you have 50 that is calcium, 30 that is alk and 20 that is magnesium. If you try and add say another 10 marbles of calcium, it will just precipitate out of the water as the system only has place for a 100
marbles. If your alk should be at 40, you would need to reduce either the calcium or mg by 10. Thats going to be the difficult part...as you can't do that, other than waiting it out. Water changes would help it bring it back in check. Hope I'm making sense?
 
Thanks Adee. That makes a lot of sense. I think the only solution would be large water changes. The only thing I am worried about is a rapid parameter shift and the effects on sps corals.
 
Adee said:
It's one of those things that could play either way, if u decide to wait it out, watch for STN at the bases. Though if u keep alk stable, then should be fine.
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I just stumbled on an interesting article that had a really interesting comment about seachem salt. Don't know what it means though.
 
Will read it now, there is a thread on RC about borat etc
 
dallasg said:
Will read it now, there is a thread on RC about borat etc
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I went through most of them. They say that if you are using seachem your alk level should be 10-20% more than recommended. So if you want a kH reading of 10 on your test kit, you should actually aim for 12. This is because the test kit is acting with the excess borate in the seachem salt.
 
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