Alkalinity

L

luvmytang2

I am in the process of cycling my tank. I have purchased all the necessary test kits....I think. One of the tests I purchased was Alkalinity. When should I start testing for this? I did a test on it this morning just to see what it was and it was too high for me to measure. I am using the Salifert test kits. Was I doing something wrong? Too early to test?
 
nitrates and ph are what i would be testing right now. alkalinity and calcium later once you start growing corals


good article on parameters once you are done cycling

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php
 
during the cycle i try to get my numbers right so at the end we should be somewhat stable...sometimes the ammonia will decrease your KH / alkalinity and it may drop low enough to lower PH...
 
Did you add live rock or just the base rock you got from me? If there is no live rock die off and no fish in the tank (you wouldn't want fish during the cycle) the ammonia will not go up and the tank will not cycle without a kick start such as adding a cocktail shrimp. If you did add live rock was it mail order, from a fish store, or from another person's tank. Have you tested for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates? Seems like a lot of people have been having issues with alk being out the roof with Salifert test kits. What salt are you using?

Angela
 
Yes, a couple days after we got back from your house we went into town and bought 50 lbs of live rock. It appeared to be pretty good....lots of purple coraline on it. We also bought some of that jump start stuff from Petco. I also bought some cheato from an online auction site and they also included some of their live sand and live rock rubble for my fuge.
I have not checked the Alkalinity since my post on this. I have been checking PH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. The Nitrate was the last to spike but all are back down to zero. My ph is around 8.2.
 
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