Help!! Help with biocube.

Nitrate, ammonia and nitrite always tests 0
Phosphate is still at .2 (I haven't added anything to lower them recently...that test is also very hard to determine what level it's at because the color shades on the Api test are very close to each other.

 

Nitrate always tests 0. Same with Amonia and nitrite
Phosphate is still at .2 (I haven't added anything to lower them recently)

 

Well with that kit you could be at 0.0 or 0.2. Hard to say. I think you should just see how it goes with what you are doing now. That way we know what worked.

 

Should I try to go with a different branded test?

 

You can try a different one. Wish you were closer. I would test for you. I like the Hana low range phosphate checker. It's what I use. Look for other opinions but I am guessing most will use this test also.
Hanna Checker Phosphate PO4 Colorimeter - Bulk Reef Supply
You can search phosphate test kits or any test kits on YouTube for helpful videos.

 

Ph is 8.2
Calcium was 380-400 (I dosed 1 teaspoon of liquid calcium)
Alkalinity is 9
Magnesium is 1320
Salinity is 1.025

 

Hard to discern between .25 and 1.0 by color. Luckily someone is gonna come by with a Hanna tester so I can know if this test with api is "off" or not.

 

Good deal. Everything thing else looking good. How's your corals doing?

 

poppin

 

Awesome

 

Everything looks good, but I'm still battling phosphates. When the refer from Jesup swung by with a Hanna tester, it read .52 but it doesn't appear to effect the corals much...the DI attachment for the RO buddy I purchased a month ago gets here tomorrow, so I'm gonna do 10% water changes twice a week to try and get them lowered.

 

What do you use to test your magnesium?

 

Not sure what turbo uses but I use Red Sea magnesium test kit.

 

All of my other rocks seem to have been slowly returning to their original color as I've been improving the water quality...except one rock that used to be covered in green star polyps until they died off. That rock has been having all sorts of stuff growing on it, including algae of different colors and even a little cyno was growing on it for a bit.

Should I remove this rock?

 

--- Auto-Merged, Apr 13, 2016 ---

this one?

 

Is there a reliable test that gives a digital readout like a Hanna tester for magnesium?

 

I would leave it. Looks like just a bit of hair algae. When you phosphate gets low it will go away. You can try to manually remove it to get rid of it. Pick it off with tweezers.

 

I don't know about a digital mag kit but the Sali fort is good test kit. Use that.