One of my test kits for alk was bad, and I overcompensated raising my alk to dangerous levels. Before making any dangerous adjustments, I would have your water tested by your LFS or another member. Also, I can’t see any harm in doing a water change for now. Try measuring your salinity in your mix tank to 1.026-27 and doing a normal water change, this should be a subtle way to slowly bring up your Sal levels over the next few water changes. When you get to your target Sal level, just continue on as normal. Just my :TWOCENTS
Rosti: Love the HP/Torque reference :
:
Rosti- I know the salt is not at fault and I understand how everything in there uses these resources to continue there growth and lively hood.
Johnson- I will take some water to DPA and have them test it and see what there results are and I will keep up with my water changes just as planned. 4gallon water change every 2 days till I get everything back to normal. I am also using saltwater for top off’s. I will also try bring my WC bucket up to 1.028-1.030 as Rosti mentioned on the phone and just add it in with a smaller tube so its not such a shock even though that is not much for a 75g tank.
Rosti is hopefully coming over this weekend to see the setup and give me his thoughts to. I know in a lot of cases its easier to figure things out in person when another can see the results and how everything looks in the tank.
I also bought a eshopps float valve for a top off setup I plan on setting up soon. but maybe it will be useless if I go with a kalkwasser unit.
don’t know if it’s been asked, but HOW are you measuring salinity? if it’s a float or swing arm hydrometer or a non-calibrated refractometer, you need to not make any changes until you have an accurate s/g reading
just another :TWOCENTS… that Mg sounds very low. I’d double check that. good advice from everyone, just make all the changes slow.
Moliken- I am using a refracto from Dpa calibrated that it reads 1.000 on plain water.
Saltcreep- that is low MG I made sure I did it exactly as the test says- bottom of the pluger goes to 1ml after color changes read by the top of the plunger part. because of the air that gets sucked in
If you are using a Salifert kit be careful. I personally had issues with a kit purchased a few months ago. Upon speaking to other club members and hobbyists, I found my experience wasn’t isolated.
[quote=“andrewk529, post:26, topic:4292”]
If you are using a Salifert kit be careful. I personally had issues with a kit purchased a few months ago. Upon speaking to other club members and hobbyists, I found my experience wasn’t isolated.[/quote]
What problem did you have with the kit? I’m using salifert as well and it was doing fine, I think, but now it really reading my MG really high and I haven’t add or change anything to the tank.
Saliferts suck just all around. In my opinion. Some people are ok with getting bad results from occasional bad batches, but really not sure why that is acceptable to them. One of the few hold outs I know, Mike at TFZ, found a recent Mg test kit that read 200-300ppm high and found posts online saying many others are as well. In the past they put out lots that were reading 500ppm low. This isn’t just an inaccurate hobby test kit being slightly off, but way above and below the range which is acceptable. Just my two cents.
I use Elos and will soon be picking up some HACH kits, but you’ll likely have to buy them online as none of the LFS locally carry them.
Did DPA calibrate it only using RO water or were you saying they calibrated it using a standard solution and you double checked it with RO? Checking with RO doesn’t really tell you anything. You could have an refractometer that reads RO at 1.000 and salt at 1.025 when the salt mix was actually up to 1.030 which can be dangerous for many animals.
Oh don’t mix your salt too high. You don’t want to change things too fast and you can also drop your Calcium levels by doing so.
[(Reason behind this if you are curious, is the same reason we add salt to water and not water to salt. If the salinity of the mixture is too high calcium will precipitate out of solution and will not simply go back into solution once the mixture is at the proper salinity. If you add salt too fast to the water you can cause this as well. One symptom could be low calcium in your salt and another solid white precipitate at the bottom of your salt mixing container. I’m no chemist, but that is what I understand of it at least)]
[quote=“JustSumGuy, post:25, topic:4292”]
Moliken- I am using a refracto from Dpa calibrated that it reads 1.000 on plain water.
Saltcreep- that is low MG I made sure I did it exactly as the test says- bottom of the pluger goes to 1ml after color changes read by the top of the plunger part. because of the air that gets sucked in[/quote]
I’ve had very consistent test results with my salifert kit, no complaints here!
But i’m confused about the “top of the plunger” part? unless i’ve got top and bottom mixed up, that could throw off the test. Can you do it without air bubbles?
That just seems really low, and i’m just wondering how that could’ve happened. I’m not trying to bust your nuggets, i just don’t want to see you od on Mg…lmao
If i’m ever not sure (like in the past using the old redsea kit… very inconsistent/hard to read IME) i’ll test a fresh batch of salt water and see if its in the 1200 ball park before making any big changes to the dt.
hope you get it straightened out soon!
about the refracto: yes it certainly canread perfect at 1.000 and be off at sea water. link
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-06/rhf/index.php
I just noticed on the instruction for calibrating it says to use distilled water. So maybe that is where I did it wrong ???
I pulled out the old swing arm hydrometer and right now I tested at 1.023 and the refractometer also is reading 1.023.
As for the MG test I am using the salifert and I have not had readings ever that low.
[quote=“reefman66, post:27, topic:4292”]
[quote=“andrewk529, post:26, topic:4292”]
If you are using a Salifert kit be careful. I personally had issues with a kit purchased a few months ago. Upon speaking to other club members and hobbyists, I found my experience wasn’t isolated.[/quote]
What problem did you have with the kit? I’m using salifert as well and it was doing fine, I think, but now it really reading my MG really high and I haven’t add or change anything to the tank.[/quote]
Inconsistent and erroneous readings; I had tests where it would indicate my levels are 900 then the next test would be 1300+. Sometimes the color change never occurred.
[quote=“andrewk529, post:33, topic:4292”]
[quote=“reefman66, post:27, topic:4292”]
[quote=“andrewk529, post:26, topic:4292”]
If you are using a Salifert kit be careful. I personally had issues with a kit purchased a few months ago. Upon speaking to other club members and hobbyists, I found my experience wasn’t isolated.[/quote]
What problem did you have with the kit? I’m using salifert as well and it was doing fine, I think, but now it really reading my MG really high and I haven’t add or change anything to the tank.[/quote]
Inconsistent and erroneous readings; I had tests where it would indicate my levels are 900 then the next test would be 1300+. Sometimes the color change never occurred.[/quote]
Thanks Andrew. And that’s where I’m at, 1500+ and color change never occurred. On to the next test kit, I guess.
No problem; I would hate to see any other fellow hobbyist compromise their tank due to Salifert’s quality issues.