Weird water parameters in reef

C

Celestial_star03

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I am okay with most of my parameters, they do not match charts and I don't want to lose anything so any thoughts either way are appreciated. Here goes, ammonia and nitrite 0, nitrate is constantly 80 ppm or more I just added a new skimmer for this, calcium is 560, ph 7.8-8 varying with the time of day, magnesium is 1500 and dkh is 12 or above, temp is 80 salinity is between 1.026 and 1.028. I have alot of evap so theres that flux. i do test 0 phosphates but ihave a lil hair algae so i know there must be a tiny bit. I have sps and softies everywhere, 2 clowns, a wrasse, sand goby, several snails, hermits, peppermint shrimp, pistol shrimp,2rose tip nems and a breeding pair of neon dottys. It's a 55 gal octopus bh 1000 hob, a modded aqua clear 30 with 2 150w halides. Theres about 70 lbs of live rock. All the corals are open and I just had to frag out, so can I maintain my weird parameters and have nothing die? It's been this way since Christmas and I can't seem to get it any other way. Anybody else have this problem? Also I have no way to sump or fuge right now and I do have chaeto and halimeda in the display.
 
You need to do some major water changes and get on a better cycle. Nitrates that high are kinda crazy. Having hair algae is giving you a false reading on phosphates. Are you dosing alk in your top off water? If so you may want to change the amount you dose. Looks like you are dosing too much.


Sent from pay phone in the airport.
 
Thanks for the thoughts, I haven't dosed that tank at all, water changes are 10% every other day right now just to keep everything swimming. I had to move it and after that nothing but issues, now I am trying to get my skimmer to work after this water change it doesn't want to foam right. I promise I am trying just very frustrated right now.
 
you might lower your salinity a tad, and have it checked by a second instrument (member, fish store, etc). one indicator i found (the hard way) is that when calcium, and alk are showing silly high, and ph is good with certain test kits (and you haven't been dosing), it may just be because your salinity is silly high - 1.024-1.026 is good, 1.028 is a tad high, and that's assuming your instrument is accurate. if its actually at 1.03 or higher because of miscalibration, it would explain everything - so worth checking.
 
Yea I know the salinity is up I was controlling my apraxia problem they don't spread under high salinity so my peppermint a have time to get it to a manageable number. I finally figured out this new protein skimmer and my nitrates are at 10 now so that's much better but everything else I don't know. I had lfs in Arlington do a tropic Marin test on it to compare results and he was telling me my mag was too low at 1500 that he thought it should be 1800 (really???) and that once I got that sorted out it would fix everything else. He thought calcium was high because it wasn't precipitating some of that may be true but my sps seem to be having no issues (high salinity maybe). I brought my salt Down to 1.025 and at that my cal was 430 but the stinking aptasia went up 400 fold so I am running high again for this moment after an aptasia x dose. Careful with that stuff it killed my yellow birds nest and didn't help anything so any thoughts on the aptasia that won't kill corals, inverts, or my mandarin as I was told he has a weird very sensitive slime coat. I would love any help I am not necessarily new to this hobby but I am not up to date at all, I have not strayed from what I know and it is obvious there are way too many new things for me to keep up. Thank you.
 
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