ALK High From Bad Reagent

[Todd31]

Hello all...

As a result of a bad Hanna ALK reagent my ALK is 11. I dose 2 part to maintain calc/alk/mag. Would the best thing be to cut my dose say in half to slowly bring the ALK back down to the 9 level?

What happened was the reagent i had was faulty. Contacted Hanna and explained to them how Salifert Kit seemed to be about 2 dKH higher than my Hanna and when i used the Salifert check solution the Salifert was right on and the Hanna was still 2 dKH below. They did say that it wouldnt be surprising to them to find Salifert 20-30 ppm higher than the Hanna but they sent me a new reagent anyway. Thanks to the Hanna people for quick service. Got the new reagent today and tested twice with it and came up with 11.1 and 11.25 dKH. tested one last time with the old reagent and got 7.7. SCARY. So in addition to being faulty i think the reagent was getting worse over time. If this went on any further might have nuked my SPS. I'm guessing that my 60ML daily dose of CAL and ALK needs to be more like 50 or 45.

So, again, just curious what the experienced guys would do here. Not dose until i get back down to 9 dKH or maybe cut my dosage in half until i get there....

Thanks for any input...

--todd

 

[BAD FISH]

I would let it drop down on its own slowly and continue to dose too keep it stable at 9 dkh or what ever your shooting for. The high alk is not terrible the most important thing is to keep it consistant. Good luck

 

[lrasser]

I agree with Bad Fish. Your correct on your thinking. Cut the dose in half and adjust once it balances out. This will bring it down slowly over a few days. 11 dkh is high but not crazy. Bringing it down too fast would have a worse effect.

 

[Todd31]

That's what I was thinking. Just another lesson to be careful with these test kits!!!!

 

[Todd31]

Can you approxmate how much ALK you would need to dose if you know the daily consumption of the tank and the tank volume?

 

[lrasser]

Yes there are online calculators and there should also be instruction on the bottle of what your using. Do it SLOW. No more then 1 dkh per day.

 

[Aquadicted]

11 isnt bad like most said... slowly bring it down by adding less alk

 

[Todd31]

All is good. New reagent solved things. Attempting to slowly bring down from 11 to 9. Id like to be in the middle of good to have a buffer in case something bad happens.

Tested tonight. Salifert 10dKH, Hanna 9.97 DKH.

Thanks to Hanna for sending me the good reagent.

Moral of the story, dont blindly accept a new kit is accurate until its multi tested. Had a bad batch of reagent that almost ended up with me raising ALK to dangerous levels.

Thanks for all the input!

--todd