Saltwater tank parameter?

[mrjoseloza88]

Had a 20 gallon tank cycling about 3 months with 30 lbs of live rock and 10 lbs of live sand, just bought 3 blue yellow tail damsels 4 snails and one red fire shrimp, my parameters are
ammonia nh3/nh4 - 0 ppm
nitrite no2 - 0 pppm
high range ph - 8.8 ppm
ph - 8.0
are these normal? Planing to get a skimmer soon, but in the mean time how can I prevent brown algae from sprouting even more and I have purple corraline algae growing how can I help spread the growth of it any help will be usefull

[johnnymisty]

Brown algae is normal it always comes in the begining or during cycles itll go away soon enough just vacum it off the rocks and stuff when doing water changes and get a good clean up crew

[BiGPiNK]

Re: Saltwater tank parameter?

You need to work out what is causing ph swings, ph is also related to alkalinity but could also be caused by temp swings. All three should ideally be as stable as possible. The brown already (assuming it is diatoms as is common in new tanks) should eventually die back with the crabs cleaning it, maybe reduce how long your lights are on for a while since you have no coral.
As for coraline, wait till you see it appearing on your glass then razor blade it, it will seed the rest of your tank and rock

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[mrjoseloza88]

As for the temp swing its been at a constant 76 degrees, with the corraline algae it covered on all the seashell I brought over from Galveston,cleaned them up before they went in, 90% of the seashell are covered in it but the live rock just started growing some

[rage]

The op did not say he had pH swing.
He got different measurement with diff test kits. ie. the low range API pH kit only measures up to 7.6 so it will max out for any pH above it. Since he has high pH, the only kit that he needs to worry about is the high pH kit. That kit measured pH of 8.8 which is high but it depends on the light cycle and other things. I would keep an eye on it and measure again in a week or 2 but I would not worry so much about it.

[BiGPiNK]

Re: Saltwater tank parameter?

Youre quite right, I must have misread the op. Hope I didn't cause any panic, if the pH is stable at 8.8 then it shouldn't be too much of an issue and your usual water changes will gradually and eventually balance that out assuming your salt mix isn't a naturally high ph salt.

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