B-Ionic / Kalk / WAY high pH / confused

[SCIronMike]

Hey fellas..... my 29 gallon reef has been up and running about 16 months now. Since the beginning I'd dripped kalk nightly. I drip about one liter of kalk nightly which contains half a teaspoon of kalk. My pH has always been high, 8.6 or higher, but the calcium was always 400 - 450. I was using the Red Sea alk test kit before and it read alk as "normal". Well, recently my calcium and alk were low even with kalk dosing. After reading the archives, I kinda thought the reason was that I had overdosed the tank on kalk and the high pH was keeping the Ca and alk low. So......

Last weekend I started dosing B-ionic. I also bought a LaMotte Ca test kit and a Salifert Alk test kit. Currently my Ca is 370 or so....... my alk is 10.2. pH with the Salifert kit is still 8.6 or higher.

My question is...... how can I drop this pH? I just did another 5 gallon water change today. I did two 5 gallon water changes last week. I change 5 gallons per week religiously. Also, after each water change, what can I do to bring up the Ca level? The instructions on B-Ionic say not to dose more than 1 ml per gallon of volume in the tank. That's just not enough to bring the Ca level up to where I want it to be. I don't want to dose kalk to bring up the Ca because the pH is so high. Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[mhurley]

Let me get this straight...You topping off with kalk nightly. AND adding B-Ionic daily? On a 29 gallon tank?
That's a good amount of chemistry for a small tank. I'd say pull the kalk. Get yourself some Turbo Calcium, use it to bump up your Ca levels to where you want. Then, start up with the B-Ionic again.

Trying to raise Ca levels with either Kalk or B-Ionic is a difficult process. B-Ionic is a balanced additive, that's what makes is hard to do. So you need to independantly move your Ca, then go back to your balanced additive.
You're pH is high probably because of the kalk additions. You can add vinegar to your mixed kalk to bring it's pH down if you really want to continue that. But on a tank the size of yours, you don't need to do both additions.


Mike

 

[SCIronMike]

Let me get this straight...You topping off with kalk nightly. AND adding B-Ionic daily? On a 29 gallon tank?
That's a good amount of chemistry for a small tank. I'd say pull the kalk. Get yourself some Turbo Calcium, use it to bump up your Ca levels to where you want. Then, start up with the B-Ionic again.

Trying to raise Ca levels with either Kalk or B-Ionic is a difficult process. B-Ionic is a balanced additive, that's what makes is hard to do. So you need to independantly move your Ca, then go back to your balanced additive.
You're pH is high probably because of the kalk additions. You can add vinegar to your mixed kalk to bring it's pH down if you really want to continue that. But on a tank the size of yours, you don't need to do both additions.


Mike

thanks for the advice. I actually discontinued using kalk when I started with the B-Ionic. I actually tried using kalk one time after I did a water change, but it shot my pH up from 8.2 to at least 8.6. I'll look into the Turbo Calcium. I'm assuming that it is just calcium chloride? Does the buildup up chloride hurt the tank? Thanks again.

Mike

 

[mhurley]

Yes, it's just calcium chloride and no, it doesn't hurt your tank. I know people that use it exclusively to maintain their Ca levels.
I dumped a full pound of the stuff into my 330 when I was getting it going.

 

[hsosa]

question. Does Kalk raise your calcium levels? or just PH? Right now Im dosing kalk and adding reef builder as a balance.

 

[mhurley]

Depends...Kalk is good at maintaing calcium levels as they are absorbed by corals. It is not the most efficient method to raise calcium (i.e. my Ca is at 350 and I want to raise it to 450). You would have to add a lot and therefore have a troubling impact to pH. Something like Turbo Calcium is better to pop your Ca up, then use Kalk to maintain it.

Mike