- I'm a terrible dancer,
but I was just doing a little dance
because I can't believe we have finally made it,
episode 41 had four parts
and you have finally arrived at part four.
(upbeat music)
Good day to all of my fellow and future hobbyists out there.
My name is Matthew, I am your BRS beginner guru.
Okay, just in case you've forgotten where we've been,
we started with nitrogen cycle
that was looking at ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.
Then we moved on to the complicated relationship
between nitrate and phosphate.
And we finally started talking about last episode,
the very extremely insanely complicated relationship
between calcium, dKH, pH, and magnesium.
So if you miss that, check out our last episode,
but we're going to jump right in
to our first scenario today.
Scenario number one, low calcium and low dKH.
Normal calcium ranges are really anywhere
between 380 on the low side
and 450 on the higher end.
And normal alkalinity ranges in an aquarium
can really range from 7 to 12.
I personally shoot for about 425 calcium
and somewhere around 8 to 9 dKH.
If you have a low calcium and low alkalinity levels,
the most likely corporate is stony coral growth.
Simple solution here
either perform some larger water changes
to bring those levels back up,
or if your stony corals are consuming too much,
you may have to consider dosing.
It's as simple as that really.
Scenario number two,
high calcium and high dKH.
Dosing gone awry is the usual culprit here.
But if that's not the case,
then there's some other reason
that your corals have slowed their growth
and you're going to need to do some investigations
to figure out why that is.
For example, maybe your magnesium levels are way too low,
or maybe your pH levels are way too low,
which is causing a reduction in the growth rate
for your coral skeletons,
which means your normal dosing amount is now too much.
Honestly having high calcium and alkalinity levels
usually aren't too bad.
The most deleterious effects I've seen
from high calcium and high alkalinity
is just an increase in calcium precipitation.
That is that white substance that often cakes
onto your pumps or your heaters.
Either just cut back on your dosing
or just perform a large water change or two
and your numbers will even out.
But a big caveat here,
if your corals look happy and healthy
and seem to be growing just fine,
then don't worry about it.
Just stop your dosing until those numbers come back down
and then pick up your dosing at a level
that they're up taking at.
The worst thing you can do is to do something drastic
if your corals look healthy.
Because coral health is by far the most important part here.
I know I've probably said this before,
but the goal of all this isn't to get the perfect numbers,
it is to get the perfect coral growth and coloration.
So if your numbers are slightly different
than what we recommend,
then just stick with your own numbers
because you know when your corals are doing well
and when they're not doing well.
Scenario number three, either your calcium
or your dKH is out of whack.
This most commonly has occurred to me in the past
as high calcium levels and low alkalinity levels.
For whatever misguided reason I had,
I wanted to bring my dKH levels up.
And usually this meant for me, dosing soda ash.
And yes, while soda ash did increase my pH,
for some reason, it did nothing for my dKH
and all of a sudden my calcium levels
would just go through the roof.
Biggest moral of the story here is don't chase your dKH.
What I like to do in this situation
is just perform a couple large water changes.
That basically equalizes out
my calcium and alkalinity levels
and gets me back to a baseline.
Then I can start testing daily
to see what the consumption rate is
and adjust dosing as necessary.
Maybe your tank just will never be able to reach 9 dKH
for whatever reason.
In Seattle, I could never reach 9 dKH
but here in beautiful sunny Palm Springs,
that's not a problem for me.
All you might end up doing is adding more and more soda ash,
which is going to cause different problems in your tank.
So just be okay with wherever your tank lands.
And if it's around 7 to 8,
it's probably going to be just fine.
Scenario number four, is your pH is too low.
If your pH is too low,
the most likely culprit is you
and your family and your pets,
and any other living animal in your household.
When you breathe,
you deplete the oxygen in your room
and you exhale carbon dioxide.
As your carbon dioxide levels go up,
the pH level in your water goes down.
CO2 and H2O, water, combine to form carbonic acid
in your aquarium,
which in turn lowers your pH.
My biggest advice to you here, don't stress about it.
I used to stress out so much when I lived in Seattle
and my pH in the wintertime seemed to always be below 8.
But the reality was we lived in a dank basement apartment,
four of us.
It was small.
We were breathing a ton,
and we had the windows closed because it was cold outside.
So there really wasn't much I could do
to bring it above 7.9.
As long as your corals are fine.
who cares, honestly?
Yes, your corals will likely grow a little bit slower
with low pH.
But as a beginner,
as long as you're getting good coral growth
and good coloration, albeit a little bit slower,
I wouldn't mess around with anything else.
Just open up your windows whenever you can,
to let in some fresh air,
and that will help stabilize your pH a little bit higher.
One way to raise your pH is to keep your dKH levels higher
somewhere between 9 and 12.
But in my own personal experience,
I have found that when I struggle with pH levels,
I usually also struggle with keeping my dKH levels up.
Remember that dKH measures the buffering capacity of water,
which means how much acid it can absorb
without raising the pH.
So a higher dKH in your seawater
means it has a much greater buffering capacity for hydrogen.
And that means you're going to have a higher pH,
which means you're going to have more carbonate
and bicarbonate in the water,
which means your corals are going to be able to grow
their calcium carbonate skeletons faster.
Oh my goodness.
I hate myself for writing that last sentence.
It is so confusing and who cares as a beginner?
Who cares? It doesn't matter.
So forget that last sentence.
And remember these three things.
Number one, raising your dKH
to somewhere between 9 and 12
will likely also raise your pH.
Number two, higher pH means your corals can grow faster.
And number three,
if you can't seem to raise your pH,
don't stress about it.
Be satisfied at the level your tank is at
and leave that task for another day.
And the final scenario,
when it comes to the relationship between magnesium, pH,
degrees of carbon hardness, and calcium,
you can't seem to raise your dKH levels.
I had this problem with my first tank,
the Red Sea Reefer 170.
It was in that dank Seattle apartment
I've already mentioned.
And for some reason,
I thought I needed to get my dKH levels to at least 9.
Why?
I don't know, it was misguided.
I was using calcium, alkalinity, soda ash,
and the magnesium supplements
from Bulk Reef Supply at the time,
and I was using their calculators
and adding the exact amounts I was supposed to.
But if it said to add something like
10 milliliters of soda ash, I would,
I would test, nothing would happen.
So I ended up adding in copious, I mean,
crazy insane amounts of soda ash to no avail.
No matter what I did,
I couldn't get my dKH to rise.
I've since come to realize that
A, a dKH age of 7 to 8 is completely fine.
And B, it was probably all lost to precipitation.
To this day, I haven't quite figured out
why I couldn't raise my dKH
because here in the Coachella Valley,
I don't have that problem.
And in fact, I've had the opposite problem
when my lagoon tank, right there off camera,
got to 14 dKH recently.
Calcium precipitation happens at a faster rate,
the higher your pH and dKH go.
So as long as your dKH is in the 7 to 8 zone,
I wouldn't even worry about it to be honest.
The only recommendation I would do
to raise your dKH open the windows
and do a lot of water changes just to even things out.
If you wanted to take it a step further,
you could get a dosing pump,
put that dosing pump right in front of a wave maker
and dose a very small amount of soda ash,
every hour on the hour
and that will temporarily raise your pH levels.
But honestly, that's kind of advanced.
And as long as your corals look fine,
I wouldn't even worry about it.
Moving on to our testing tips.
Our first two testing tips are be sure to pick up these two.
The first is of course,
the HANA checker for dKH.
Really easy, one reagent,
you get instant results.
And for calcium,
I actually like to use this one from Salifert.
I think I own like five of these right now
because I go through them so quick.
It's quite inexpensive
and the results are pretty easy to read as well.
How about magnesium and pH test kits?
To be honest there, I rarely ever test for them.
When you're starting out in the hobby,
I would definitely test for them
at least a couple of times a month
to see what's going on in your tank.
But honestly, nowadays I probably test for them
in each tank, maybe twice a year.
But that's just because I know that my dosing methods
always keep my magnesium levels up
and I don't have a worry about pH anymore
because my corals look healthy.
If you follow our recommendations
and do your weekly water change,
you will probably never have to worry about low magnesium
because you'll be replacing it at a pretty high rate.
But if you have a heavily stocked tank
with a lot of stony corals,
you may need to eventually dose magnesium from time to time.
But way less than you'll have to dose
for calcium and alkalinity.
We're talking like dosing calcium alkalinity every day
and dosing magnesium once every six months,
like a lot less.
In any sort of reef tank,
I would definitely recommend testing for calcium and dKH
at least once a week,
because you will need to either
adjust your water change schedule
or adjust how much you dose per day.
But if you have a Fowlr system,
fish only with live rock system,
you probably don't need to test for them as much,
unless you have a ton of inverts
that are pulling calcium carbonate out of the water column.
Anytime you add new corals to your tank
or something is pulled out of your tank,
I would recommend testing for calcium and alkalinity
at least once a week,
because your going to have to adjust
either how much you water change
or how much you dose on a daily basis.
The trick for testing calcium and alkalinity
is you have to do it at the same time every day,
because there are various factors
that can change those results.
So what I like to do,
let's say I test at 8:00 AM in the morning.
I record those numbers down.
I test the next day at 8:00 AM in the morning,
and then I can see how much calcium and alkalinity
are being consumed by my corals
and adjust my dosing to suit them.
In my current reef tank, right back there,
I am using Tropic Marin All-For-Reef.
And I'm using a Kamoer X1 Dosing Pump.
I test them every week and I make small adjustments
to how much I dose Tropic Marin
and that seems to keep everybody happy and healthy
and the levels just where I want them.
If you need to know how much calcium and alkalinity to dose
check out the BRS calculators.
You can put in your water volume,
your current alkalinity and calcium levels,
what you want them to be,
and the calculator will tell you
how much you need to dose every day.
Oh, I can't believe it,
I just looked down at the script and it said, conclusion.
That is fantastic because I don't know about you,
but I'm a little sick and tired
of talking about water parameters.
Well that's it, we're done.
We have a handy-dandy one page sheet
that has all of the recommended parameters on it.
We will link that down below.
So if you want to print it out and stick it on your wall,
you'll never have to wonder
what levels your tank should be at again.
Links to our recommended test kits are below
as well as links to some other videos,
just in case you didn't get enough water chemistry today.
Coming up in episode 42,
what makes a beginner coral, a beginner coral?
And as always everybody,
thanks for watching.
Happy reefing, be well.
We'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)