SkiCurtis March 24, 2011 Share March 24, 2011 Caclium 500+ PPM Mag off salifert chart also. alk 10 DKH do I stop my kalk reactor and just use RO DI water or just do water changes until it goes dowm? The coral's seem to be ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 24, 2011 Share March 24, 2011 Have you tested your salinity? What is it? Are you getting any precipitation? What kind of Kalk are you dosing with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkiCurtis March 24, 2011 Author Share March 24, 2011 Have you tested your salinity? What is it? Are you getting any precipitation? What kind of Kalk are you dosing with? Salinity 1.30 so it is high I like 1.25 I use bulk reef supply kalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkiCurtis March 24, 2011 Author Share March 24, 2011 How do I find out if i'm getting precipitation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 24, 2011 Share March 24, 2011 Forget the precipitation angle. I think your water's concentrated. Crazy question, but you are topping off with fresh water and not saltwater, aren't you? Your salinity is likely to be 1.030 vs 1.025. It wouldn't be 1.30. So you're running 20% high. This alone would take all your other measurements up by 20% because it seems that you're salinity has concentrated. For example, a calcium level of 500 in this situation would return to 417 ppm (500 divided by 1.2) after it was diluted back to 1.025. If you've been topping off with saltwater, you need to bring your salinity back down. You can do this by diluting with RO/DI, but you have to do this in stages. You probably don't want to bring it down any more than about .0005 per day. How many gallons do you have in your system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkiCurtis March 24, 2011 Author Share March 24, 2011 I'm runnning my top off with a litre metre doser and running a geo kalk reactor. This is on my grow out system 2 X 75 gallon tanks hooked to one sump so total gallons around 160. Sorry the salinity is 1.030. Tom Thanks for the expert advise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 24, 2011 Share March 24, 2011 Curtis, still, you're feeding the kalk reactor with RO/DI source water, is this correct? If so, something's going on to concentrate your water. I'm not sure what it might be but I can do a few calculations and give you a plan to return your salinity to where it needs to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 24, 2011 Share March 24, 2011 Provided whatever is causing your concentration problems is corrected, I would: 1) Replace 3 gallons of salt water with 3 gallons of RO/DI each day for 9 days. 2) On the 10th day, replace 2 gallons of salt water with 2 gallons of RO/DI. Monitor your salinity during the process. Using this calculator, I obtained the following: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkiCurtis March 24, 2011 Author Share March 24, 2011 Wow!! Tom Thanks again, your the man. Are you a chemist or biologist,if not maybe you should be LOL. The people @ Wamas are so very helpful. This club rocks and most people in it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 24, 2011 Share March 24, 2011 LOL. I'm an engineering manager nowadays. Besides my two engineering degrees, I do have a biology degree and once had a declared chemistry major, too. (Maybe I was a tad indecisive or overly exuberant back in college.) The whole chemistry thing started when I took 2 years of HS chemistry (back in the day) and was ranked #2 in San Diego County by the ACS (American Chemical Society). Again, ancient history (it was 1978 and everybody had Disco Fever while I had my nose in my chemistry book). The calculator I referenced up above is handy but I confirmed the numbers with my a spreadsheet of my own design,too. So I feel the numbers are fairly accurate so long as you have 160 gallons in your system. Just monitor your salinity as you make adjustments over the several days. This still doesn't tell me why your salinity creeped up the way it did. You need to figure that out and get it corrected. The most common reason for this is the aquarist using salt water to top off their tank. When water evaporates off of our tanks, it leaves the salt behind, thereby concentrating the salinity. That's why we replace evaporated water with fresh - because that's what's evaporated off. On the other hand, if you replace it with salt water, you're only adding more salt to the tank, thus increasing salinity. Another possibility that can cause salinity creep is the long term use of two-part dosing. It's a little complicated to explain fully, but, in a nutshell, most two-part formulas add extra sodium and chloride ions as they replace consumed bicarbonate and calcium ions. The result is that your salinity creeps upward over the long haul. And finally, another possibility is that your change water has been mis-mixed to a higher salinity and that you've slowly been raising your salinity that way. This might happen if you're not checking the salinty of your change water before water changes. By the way, when checking the salinity of your change water, make sure it's well stirred first as water standing in large vats can stratify so that the salinity on the top of the vat is different than that at the bottom. WAMAS is a great resource. There are lots of very experienced and knowledgeable people here that give whatever help they can to just about any situation we can come up with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluce March 24, 2011 Share March 24, 2011 Great chart and response Tom - WAMAS definitely has some great resources. "(it was 1978 and everybody had Disco Fever while I had my nose in my chemistry book)" See being a nerd back in the day has paid off again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sachabballi reef March 24, 2011 Share March 24, 2011 ORIGAMI said: "Another possibility that can cause salinity creep is the long term use of two-part dosing. It's a little complicated to explain fully, but, in a nutshell, most two-part formulas add extra sodium and chloride ions as they replace consumed bicarbonate and calcium ions. The result is that your salinity creeps upward over the long haul." HMMMMMMMM me thinks Tom has just solved my issue....my salinity has been creeping up for the past few months and it had me utterly stumped....but I use two part from BRS and this must be my explanation.... fantastic!!! Thank you thank you thank you....you are slowly setting my mind free to enjoy the tank again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkiCurtis March 24, 2011 Author Share March 24, 2011 Yes, I also dose 2 part from BRS. Tom hit it dead on as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FearTheTerps March 25, 2011 Share March 25, 2011 it was 1978 and everybody had Disco Fever while I had my nose in my chemistry book Im sure Im not the only one that when they read this pictured Tom wearing the white suit from Saturday Night Fever, or maybe Tom was more the bell bottoms and groovy long hair type. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad March 25, 2011 Share March 25, 2011 haha, Tom, I have 25$ for you if you come to the next meeting wearing the Saturday Night Fever white suit with bell bottoms!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rioreef March 25, 2011 Share March 25, 2011 That would be the Picture of the Year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 25, 2011 Share March 25, 2011 haha, Tom, I have 25$ for you if you come to the next meeting wearing the Saturday Night Fever white suit with bell bottoms!!! You mean the one with wide lapels? It doesn't fit anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad March 25, 2011 Share March 25, 2011 A trip through amazon will fix that I bet we could generate some school improving grant money with a fundraiser like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Lazar March 25, 2011 Share March 25, 2011 A trip through amazon will fix that I bet we could generate some school improving grant money with a fundraiser like this Buyer beware: the ad states "Gold chains and shoes not included." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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