Parameters won't go down

[Allanira]

Ok I have been getting my water some where else now for a little over a week now. I have been doing water changes 2x aweek to get the water parameters down. I have been changing out 14 gals at a time. I check the water before I mix in my salt and they are good. I put the water in and check parameters in there a day later and they are still all the same. The parameters are:
S.G. 1.024
pH 8.5
Ammonia .25 ppm
Nitrite .15 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm
Alk 2.6 dKh
Calcium 630

Its the Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite that havent changed. Also Do I have enough or too much calcium? I have also been adding Alpha for reefs. It removes chlorine, chloramines, ammonia and detoxes nitrites and nitrates. I dont have a phosphate test yet. Please help. Thank you in advance for advice.

[seapug]

Your calcium is high because your Alkalinity is so low. Bring the Alk up to 7-10 dkh and the calcium will go down. Baking soda works well for that.

Sounds like your tank is still cycling. If there is die-off happening on the rock that creates ammonia, water changes will not solve it, only temporarily reduce it.

[alextheromanian]

Originally posted by Allanira
Ok I have been getting my water some where else now for a little over a week now. I have been doing water changes 2x aweek to get the water parameters down. I have been changing out 14 gals at a time. I check the water before I mix in my salt and they are good. I put the water in and check parameters in there a day later and they are still all the same. The parameters are:
S.G. 1.024
pH 8.5
Ammonia .25 ppm
Nitrite .15 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm
Alk 2.6 dKh
Calcium 630

Its the Ammonia, Nitrate and Nitrite that havent changed. Also Do I have enough or too much calcium? I have also been adding Alpha for reefs. It removes chlorine, chloramines, ammonia and detoxes nitrites and nitrates. I dont have a phosphate test yet. Please help. Thank you in advance for advice.

the more you do water changes the longer it will take i remember when i switched to a 75 gal from a 29 i had this NEVERENDING cycle.

if you have no fish or crustaceans in there let it be it will go down if you are tired of these water changed see if your LFS has BIOSPIRA they usually keep it in a frige since it has to stay cold.


this will HELP but not fix the problem


you just have to wait for enough beneficial bacteria to grow so that it will consume all the trash thats in there.


what kind of filtering do you use?

[sassafrass]

Slow down on the water changes,instead of 25% twice a week try 10% The idea is to create stability. Seapug is right about your Alk make small adjustments to correct it go SLOWLY you are dealing with living organisms ,large or fast changes will cause die-off of bacteria which will cause params to go farther out. Nothing good happens fast in reefing!
Regards , Lee

[MalHavoc]

patience. it can take a few weeks to cycle a tank. when I set up my nano last summer, I let it sit with just my liverock and sand for almost two months without even testing for anything. I finally started doing some water changes at that point, but basically, just relax and proceed nice and slow. nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.

[Allanira]

I have 2 maroon clowns, a green chromis, a corys wrasse?, 2 redlegged hermits, 2 cleaner shrimp, and 5 turbo snails. I have checked everything over and none of the LR has any die off on it. I kept it in a seperate container with powerheads for a month before I put it in the tank. I have live sand about 2-3 inch thick and then medium aragonite over it so that it doesnt get stirred around a lot. I havent added anything to it for a month now. I not going to add anything until I can get some corals. All the parameters were stable for 2 months then they took a dump and started this. The old parameters were:
S.G. 1.022
pH 8.3
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Alk 1.7 dKh

Then a month ago now it started doing this. I havent added anything lately to it either. I stopped using Purple Up, and any other addetives. I just started the Alpha stuff yesterday. Maybe that just needs a couple days to get going. I dont know. I am getting a pump for my protein skimmer tomorrow so hopefully that helps. Everyone told me to do water changes 2x a week to get my cyano under control. The cyano went away and then came back this week lol. I am just started to get a headache from all of this. I wanna scream lol. Thank you again. Any more advise would be awesome.

[Allanira]

Oh yeah how to ask. How and with what do I mix the baking soda so that I can bring up the Alk? Thank you again.

[sassafrass]

Don't worry to much about cyano you have many other problems to take care of . Feed sparingly many small water changes are better than few large ones ,don't add any thing to your tank that you can't measure (this is very important) don't do any thing else except raise dkh slowly .Just wait it will be OK it is not something to stress over.
Lee

[Allanira]

I feed the fish once a day. In the morning after they have all come out of hiding for the day. I feed a fourth of the little cube I buy of their food. Not much at all. My wrasse is starting to look a little slim. He was skinnier than this when I got him. He had been in the LFS for a couple months before I bought him. All 4 of them are very vigorous eaters. I barely have time to put to food in the tank before they are coming up and nibbling at my fingers for it. They dont bite me precisly. No food makes it too the bottom of the aquarium though. They eat it all in a minute or less. Then they are still wanting more. Also 2 x a week on water changes also. I know I messed up in the beginning cause I did a water change a week after I set it up. I wanted to change the filter in the HOB I had. I do it the same way in my freshwater. I do a water change and change the filter at the same time. I really didnt know better. Now I do. I think all the junk in there is starting to affect the cheato I have also. Its not lookin too good right now. I think I need to get some more lol. Hopefully this Alpha stuff I got will help me along with the baking soda trick if I can figure out how to mix it. Thank you again. Any more advise would be welcome. Trust me I am a complete noob at some of this stuff.

[Sk8r]

Filter. filters can produce this kind of situation...gunk in filter = nitrate, leading to ammonia. If you have any filter, filter sock, etc, clean it every 4-5 days. And get rid of it entirely by stages, if you possibly can. rely only on live rock and sand.

[sassafrass]

The exact formula to raise alk with baking soda is in the chemistry forum, Please stop adding the alpha "stuff" If You Can't Measure It (with a test kit) Don't Add It!!!
Lee

[seapug]

Here's a link to the reef chemistry calculator:
http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

If you are registering ammonia, there is something fouling the tank and the nitrifying bacteria can't keep up with it. A cycled tank will never have measurable ammonia or nitrite. I'm actually an advocate of water changes during a cycle. The bacteria growth occurs on substrates, not in the water column, so water changes during a cycle will manage toxic byproducts in the water column that hitchiker corals and microfauna wouldn't otherwise be able to tolerate.

Whether or not your tank was fine before doesn't really matter, because something isn't fine now, so you need to consider our self "starting over." Take some steps to improve the overall conditions of the tank and ride it out.

[Allanira]

Thank you. I just learned a lot of stuff off of that. I am going to be getting more water today so that I can do another water change. I just hope no one dies while I am working on getting everything figured out. You know. I have found all 5 of my snails still alive and wandering around aimlessly, my 2 hermits are still out and about all the fish and the 2 shrimp are all still alive. I dont know whats going on. Well I will be getting my protein skimmer up and runing today so hopefully that will make a difference in all this crazy stuff. I hope this works lol. Have a great one and thank you again.