Scupra
New Member
About 10 years ago I had a 90g reef tank, life happened and we got rid of the tank to travel etc. Had a kid, stopped moving around so much and decided it was time for another tank - in came the waterbox infinia 190.5 The tank started 08/2023 with live sand, life rock, turbo start and clown fish while the lights stayed off for 3 months.
I would really like to start adding coral and have been watching levels and waiting for things to become a bit more "normal". FWIW tank has never seen anything other than Red Sea Coral pro salt and gets a 35 gal water change every 2 weeks. Only RODI is used for salt water and top off water as well. Tank has nothing but fish currently and a 1" piece of gsp. Tank has cycled and most of the water parameters make sense to me, other than alkalinity, which seems to stay low and drop.
Alkalinity has always hovered around 6.0-7.0, is this just because its a new tank getting established? Magnesium and Calcium always seem to be the same, hovering around 1300 and 400 but alkalinity has tested as low as 5.9 once. Using Hannah testers and tests confirmed from third party as well.. pH is usually about 8, 1.026 salinity, nitrite 0, nitrate 5, phosphate .02 and ammonia 0.
Plan is to add a dosing system, I just didn't think I was going to need it before adding corals. Is this normal for a new tank? 10 years ago I never had water parameter issues, and this time I feel like I am more educated and using much nicer equipment. Please help me get to a point where I can start adding some beauty to this tank
TIA!
I would really like to start adding coral and have been watching levels and waiting for things to become a bit more "normal". FWIW tank has never seen anything other than Red Sea Coral pro salt and gets a 35 gal water change every 2 weeks. Only RODI is used for salt water and top off water as well. Tank has nothing but fish currently and a 1" piece of gsp. Tank has cycled and most of the water parameters make sense to me, other than alkalinity, which seems to stay low and drop.
Alkalinity has always hovered around 6.0-7.0, is this just because its a new tank getting established? Magnesium and Calcium always seem to be the same, hovering around 1300 and 400 but alkalinity has tested as low as 5.9 once. Using Hannah testers and tests confirmed from third party as well.. pH is usually about 8, 1.026 salinity, nitrite 0, nitrate 5, phosphate .02 and ammonia 0.
Plan is to add a dosing system, I just didn't think I was going to need it before adding corals. Is this normal for a new tank? 10 years ago I never had water parameter issues, and this time I feel like I am more educated and using much nicer equipment. Please help me get to a point where I can start adding some beauty to this tank
TIA!
