What's Up With My Alkalinity ? ! !

[jhale]

tank specs:
temp - 80.0 stable , SG - 1.025 stable, PH - 8.4 stable
NH3- 0, NH4 - 0, NO2 - 0, NO3- 0, Copper - 0, PO4 - .03 - .1
CA - 400, KH - 6.7, FE - 0, silicates - 0, Iodine - .06,
O2- 100% saturation.

that's every test kit I have.

my alk keeps droping like crazy. I keep up with it using sea chems reef builder. I have to buffer the water every two or three days. The Ca never needs much help so far. It stays stable with the water changes I do, about 15 gallons a week. sometimes I skip a week, so it's anywhere from 30-80 gallons a month.

I see good growth on almost all of the coral.
I'm now adding the reef builder to my top off water to try and stabilize the alk.
Where is it all going, and why is the Ca always stable and the alk not?

 

[marrone]

Check out Randy website he has alot on Alk and Cal and why they go out of balance.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm


I also have had problems with my Alk going lower and my cal at the 400+ range. I have to use additives to get the alk back up. All my other reading are find including Mag.

It's possible that either the salt mixture that your using is causing the problems with your low alk or your corals are using it up faster than the cal.

 

[ShaunW]

Originally posted by marrone:

It's possible that either the salt mixture that your using is causing the problems with your low alk or your corals are using it up faster than the cal.

That would be my guess also!

What salt mix do you use?

 

[jhale]

I've read the articles on advanced aquarist. After a couple of months of trying to balance the tank using the advice I found there the alk still drops at a fast rate.

If you raise the alk how soon is your tank depleted? mine seems to take a few days to drop from 8-9 to 6-7.
I'm hoping by placing the buffer in the top off water this trend will stop. I had no idea the alk would be used by the coral so quickly. I always thought I would have a problem with the Ca.

 

[scotty]

i have had the same problem for a long time. so definatly tell me when u get your figured out.do u always test the same time of day?

 

[jhale]

well I'm glad I'm not alone.

hey scotty how are you?
I test in the morning or late afternoon.
how much fluctuation would you see during the day?

so far the only way to correct my problem is adding the buffer to my top off water. after many water changes and the same problem, I can not figure out any other solution.

 

[marrone]

I had a problem keep my alk up, and still do, that lps and sps, specially sps, using up alot of alk as well as cal. The thing is most people always talk about corals needing and using cal, so you have to make sure you consistly replemish it in your tank, but you don't hear people talking about alk and that corals use it also.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was alot of people who had low alk levels and didn't know it because they don't check as much as they do with the cal levels.

 

[jhale]

your right Michael, no one talks that much about alk levels.
maybe that's because companies have not figured out how to make an alk reactor to sell us

what do you like as far as alk levels go?
I'd be happy is I could keep mine at 8.0 all the time.
do you think higher levels are needed?

 

[jhale]

sorry Shaun I missed your post somehow ?

I'm using Kent.
I've liked it so far.

what are you using?

 

[House of Laughter]

JH,

I have the same problem - all levels perfect and ALK dips to 5 at times and corals RTN because of that -

I also find the stress of the up-and-down giets them to STN

That being said, try using magnesium - it won't stop the depletion, but will slow it down (at least this is what I have found).

And to my understanding, this goes away with a CA reactor - we'll see.

Otherwise B-Ionis to death, that's what I do.

House

 

[marrone]

Right now my level is 8 I would like to get it to 10 but I have had it as low as 4, I'm actally happy it's at 8. I'm using Reef Builder right now but I was using baking soda before to raise the level. It seems Reef Builder works alot better in raising the level than baking soda does, I didn't have to use as much and the level actaully went up, with baking soda it took alot and I couldn't get the levels to stay up.

I think if your going with sps you need higher levels, 8-11 range, but if you read on RC alot of people in Europe are going with level alk levels.

 

[jhale]

I've heard that about ca reactors.
I wonder why, is it the media?
I'll be building one soon. sometime this summer.

reef builder is good in that it will not mess with the PH at all.

 

[scotty]

im good. if i was a better keeper at home then i would test more than once a day when levels are low but at this point i start adding the alk buffer and test a couple days to a week later. i a going to have to try the Mg. i thought maybe it would flacuate during 24 hrs like ph but i was just guessing.

 

[pecan2phat]

Actually a CA reactor is really an Alk reactor. You really test for alk on a CA reactor rather than calcium.

I also had the same problem with low alk readings when I was using C-Balance (2-part). In the begining months, CA and Alk were fine and then I noticed that I could not keep up with the Alk. I had to buffer with Reef Builder every other day. I also would alternate a Kalk drip and a buffer drip but nothing worked until I started using an CA reactor.
It took a month or two to get the right settings but now the Alk is stable at 10

 

[MrAnderson]

I'm only about a year into reefing, but this is one thing that I have monitored and experimented with extensively, along with Ca consumption. Because I keep a nano and my water volume is small compared to the SPS load I have, I found that my average daily alk consumption rate is about 2-3dKH. After nailing this down, and calculating (as well as empirically testing) my dosage, I kept it about 9-10 dKH for a while. This was hard, and I found myself babying my tank more than my actual baby. I entered test data into spreadsheets, graphed consumption, basically went nuts about this because I'm a mad scientist to begin with and I was annoyed I couldn't ace this.

Then I just gave up. Yes I got fried and stopped dosing for months. But here's the interesting thing: my dKH never dropped below 6, and it takes tons of dosing to keep the same tank above 8. My Ca stays about 360ppm. Saltwater chemistry is really intricate and puzzling, even to a biochemist.

So, this may sound low, but I've noticed that now that everything is more stable, my tank seems happier. The SPS I have are still growing normally. Also, I've noticed a trend (with Zeo-users, mostly) for keeping dKH closer to "normal seawater" levels (6-7dKH).

I don't recommend that anyone try this, but I thought some of you might find it interesting.

 

[ShaunW]

Mr.Anderson, hi it's been awhile!

I hope all is well with you.

Very interesting observation! What were you dosing with to increase alk?

I think the need (believed necessity!) to keep Ca in the 400 range and Alk above 9-10 is unnecessary. As long as it never goes to zero, corals will take what they need from the water. Having more than what they need won't increase their utilization/calcium carbonate production (grow rate) to a greater degree.

 

[MrAnderson]

I was thinking the same thing.

I was originally topping off with kalk @ 3tsp/gal and 15mL vinegar, and adding a tsp of baking powder every other day (6 gal nano). Also kept Mg a bit elevated, about 1400-1500ppm. I haven't measured that for a while. I suppose my particular tank reached an equilibrium around 6 and anything above that wasn't stable. I keep thinking that while dosing I may have developed a reservior of extra hardness somewhere that is steadily being depleted to maintain equilibrium. Hasn't bottomed out yet though! (maybe I should check, it's been a while)

[ July 08, 2005, 03:26 PM: Message edited by: MrAnderson ]

 

[jhale]

I'd be okay with my alk at 7, but it was going lower than that.

I'm eventually going to install a ca reactor, till then I'll keep testing and dosing to keep the alk at 7.

 

[pecan2phat]

J.,

FWIW, I had my alk close to NSW at about 8 DKH but it slowly drifted down to about 7.4 and I started to notice that I had browning tips on several SPS frags and small colonies. I didn't associate this with the lower alk until I decided to boost my bpm on the C02 and also increased the effluent drip rate on the Ca reactor. Within about two weeks, new tissue started to grow over the browning tips. I now have the alk between 9.4 and 9.9 DKH.