Water Cycle and chemical tests

[Haskellf]

It's been 3 weeks now since I put together my 30gal tank. I've been testing the water composition and so far everything is reading fine except for the Water Hardness (KH) and Phosphates. I haven't hit any ammonia or Nitrite spikes that I have read about in books during a cycle... perhaps that will soon arrive. In the meantime, is it recommended to add a limewater compostion to eleviate the Water Hardness and the use of Phosphate absorbing pads to bring these levels down? I haven't had any algae burst as yet, but I do notice an area of turquise green starting to appear.

30gal Acrylic Aquarium
BakBak2R Protein Skimmer
Eheim Professional 2 Series Filtration
Live Rock
Live Sand
3 RedLegged Hermit Crabs
3 Nasser Snails
No Lights Turned on, only bounce/reflected light sources from room.

Chemical readings and assumptions based on last readings:

Last Water Change: 2 days ago using sat water from LPS, 5gal
PH: 8.6 and rising
LR Ammonia: 0.0 and stable
Nitrite: 0.0 and stable
NitrAte: <5.0 and falling
Calcium: 400 and stable
Hardness(KH): 180mg and no change
Phosphate: 5.0 and no change
Gravity: 1.024
Temperature: 77.2 F and slightly rising
Iron: 0.0

---------------------------------------------------------

 

[Anonymous]

Use the Phosphate pads to get rid of the Phosphates in the tank, also test your water that you are using for the tank for Phosphates.

You should only use water with 0 phosphates for your tank, if your source water has phosphates in it I would recommend a water filter such as an RO/Di

Bryan

 

[Len]

PO4 sponges can bring down phosphate levels, but as Bryan suggested, a RO/DI is the best thing to ensure good input water and I highly endorse getting one.

I would retest your water with another test kit in respect to alkanity. Get a test kit that reads in either meq/L or dKH since these are the standard values we see when people discuss saltwater alkanity. Kits that test strictly for hardness are prone to interference problems IIRC. An alkanity test designed for saltwater will be more useful and accurate.

Hope that helps.