Balanced Chemistry

[Tropical Kit]

Hi all, i did try the search but did not work, i was just not sure as all this chemestry gumff blows my mind.
what i think is correct but prolly is not....
dkh should be min 8
mag should be around 1350
ca should be around 400-450
please correct me if wrong and or explain why and how one effects the other.

my readings are
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5
po4 0
ph 8.3
dkh 7.4
mg 1440
ca 420

do these seem balanced, and how do i correct if not, i am slightly concirned about dkh being too low and mag too high, i do not add anything either from a bottle or via stirrer or reactor as i only at present have shrooms,1 large leather and 1 small frogspawn and only intend to keep softies with 1 or 2 lps.
i test every week mainly to make sure the tank is staying stable and so far seems to be apart from mag and dkh have changed very slightly over the last week.
Cheers in advance Nigel.

[Glenn@home]

Nigel

Have a lookt in the FAQs there are some links to chemistry papers that will help with explanations of reef chemistry and solutions to problems.

WRT your readings the first thing to make sure is that your SG is around 1.026 or salinity 35ppt. Most of the variables you are concerned with are impacted upon to a greater or lesser extent by the concentration of salt.

Mg is most affected of the common variables by the salinity, since yours is high I doubt that the salinity of your system is a factor unless your running it especially rich.

Dont forget that apart from SPS anything in your tank which requires some Ca will impact on the chemistry and tend to lower Ca. So hermits, snails, calcereous algea, etc.

Assuming that you are doing water changes I would rely on water changes to alter the levels of your system to a balanced condition. Personally I would not go putting loads of additives in your system.


I would not get paranoid about the Mg and DKH levels at this moment, i would see what happens after a couple of water changes.

By the way you dont say how long the tank has been set up.


JMHO

GLenn

[elliot]

All you need is here...


http://www.andy-hipkiss.co.uk/

FOllow physical environemnt, chemistry, alkalinity :)

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