Water Parmeters

[GregAW]

Well, I set up my 30 gal coral frag tank last night and did a water test today. My ammonia kit MUST be bad as it was showing ammonia off the charts in both the tank and from the faucet. So I'm going after a new kit. As for the other tests, here are the results.

Nitrite - .02 mg/l
Nitrate - 5 mg/l
Calcium - 470+ mg/l
Carbonate - 214.8 ppm KH
Phosphate - 0 ppm mg/l

Now there is no life in this tank at this time. Just newly mixed Instant Ocean Sea Salt. Any comments?

[Amphiprion]

Wow, your calcium and alkalinity are both pretty elevated, which is entirely uncharacteristic of Instant Ocean (the calcium is normally low in IO). What test kits are you using? So are you going to be using faucet/tap water and not RO/DI?

[GregAW]

Amph, this was such a quick set up that I had to use tap water. The RO/DI system hasn't shown up yet. This is a coral frag tank and coral showed up 2 weeks earlier than I had expected. I just got back from the LFS and he has new testing equipment and said everything looked pretty good for what I have going on. The ammonia ket, which I bought last month, had expired in Aug. 2008.

[Amphiprion]

Something that just dawned on me is that the extra calcium may be residual from your tap water.

[GregAW]

Amph, We have a local water district and it does come from a well. I thought corals needs extra calcium. By the way, my LFS guy gave me small frag of favia, not quite as colorful as I would like to put into my tank but, FREE is quite nice.

[Amphiprion]

Nothing wrong with it. I was just trying to figure out how the calcium in IO managed to get that high and I ended up answering my own question. Sorry for any confusion.

As far as the Favia goes, that's great! Heck, I built the vast majority of my previous tank out of freebies and throwaways.

[GregAW]

Well, this is the only freeby so far. I do need to get some of the frag plugs to mount on. Some came unmounted and they don't want to stay upright on the egg create. I think I found that book on Amazon. I need to know what needs what in lighting, how much water flow they like by type, and I think I've got the feeding covered for the time being. Now to get them to grow faster. LOL Thanks!

[snappyguy]

Boston Aqua Farms makes pre-cured frag plugs. They recommend a continual curing. I do this by placing them in a mesh bag and putting it in the toilet tank. Won't grow algae and the water changes all the time.

[GregAW]

Toilet tank???? Your wife must be a lot more forgiving than mine. :D I'm going to see if I can find some locally first. LFS close too early! :)