Question about test results...

[mhazel]

New member here...

I moved from a 25 gallon to a 30 gallon tank a week ago Sunday. I siphoned all the water from the old tank to the new and moved all my rock, corals and live sand, and added a little over 5 gallons of newly mixed salt water.

I just tested my water and have a couple concerns. First, should my Specific Gravity be higher than 1.022?

Also noted that my ammonia is up to 0.25. Here are the rest of my results:
PH: 8.2
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Stronium: 0.95/10
Calcium: .84/344 - a little low, right?
KH: 7
Water temp: 79

I'm running a CPR Bak-pak 2, and Power Compact/Moon-Lite (one 10,000K daylight lamp and one Ultra-Actinic lamp). Also have a Corolife 10,000K super daylight lamp (Guess I should ask if I really need this?) on a separate fixture.

I'm also getting a little "dusting" of that brown algae....yuck. Do I add to my cleanup crew? I have 3 hermits, 1 emerald green crab, 1 marble shrimp and 1 common dancing shrimp. Only one fish...a six-line wrasse.

My corals (frogspawn, trumpet, leathers, Acropora, Organ-pipe, button polyps and mushrooms) are all opening up fully.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Telco Guy]

:welcome: to Coral Forum.

I would expect a small cycle in the new tank just from the stirring up of detritus and debris. Keep an eye on the levels and if they look like they are going to get too high then do a 10-20% water change.

Yes, add a few Cerith Snails (Cerithium strercusmuscarum) to your clean-up crew. This will help to "clean up" some of the diatom algae. And reduce your light time a bit. This will help to curb the diatom algae outbreak. Then, after things settle down, you can slowly bring the light cycle back to normal.

The calcium should be around 400, so yes, you are a bit low there. And the Specific Gravity should be a bit higher. I keep mine around 1.024-1.025. You can bring this up slowly with water changes.

[mhazel]

Thanks! I checked everything yesterday and the ammonia has dropped. Also working on bringing up the salinity and the calcium....slowly! :-D

Since you helped me, I'll even forgive you for being a Lakers fan! GO KINGS!

My attempt at humor... :-D Don't be mad, 'k?