A little background…
I went on a long vacation with my neighbor watching my tank. Just for feeding and adding DI to the ATO.
Power outage and my main Munk never turned back on. He didn’t know so for at least a week the tank was just circulated by the Gyre. All my hard corals were dead or dying, low water lever some exposed to air.
Anyways, super bummed, got everything running properly, but I really neglected the tank for at least a month and developed a bad case of turf. Did the best to my ability to clear it, but it continued to come back, made the move from GFO to Biopellets hoping that would help. Got to the point where I went to my LFS and pretty much told them I would be starting over and what they might want from my tank.
Guy suggested since I was at the point of no return to at least try Vibrant. And it ended up working like a charm, no lights for couple weeks, all my remaining corals not really effected. All my BTAs also very happy.
Fast forward a couple months and many water changes later. The remaining Sps that I had bleached. Figured they were just already knocking on deaths door, but then noticed my large elegance was unhappy. In a matter of a month my Alk had dropped from a steady 10ish to 5. I gave my Hanna some side eye and tested at the LFS just to be sure. All confirmed, all other parameters ok, Cal and Mag were a little high, nothing crazy. So I start dosing only Alk. Red Sea to be exact.
I would dump a quarter bottle, give it a few, retest the tank and it would be around 7-8 after dosing, then drop back down to 6ish the next day. I kept Dosing, but the same numbers would rise and then drop within a day.
I’ve dumped a bottle and a half in my reefer 350 (50G) and that is just an astronomical amount I think. The last dose the water legit didn’t want it, it stayed cloudy for quite some time and now my tank looks like it was dusted with snow. Still at same pattern, tested at 7.3, dropped to 6 again next day…
I know water change is the name of the game and my next move is a 50% but was hoping someone might hint as to what is consuming Alk that fast….
TLDR; 50G tank, had some issues, issues seemed resolved, all parameters balance but Alk low, dosed a ton of Alk, but remained low. Don’t understand the cause…
I went on a long vacation with my neighbor watching my tank. Just for feeding and adding DI to the ATO.
Power outage and my main Munk never turned back on. He didn’t know so for at least a week the tank was just circulated by the Gyre. All my hard corals were dead or dying, low water lever some exposed to air.
Anyways, super bummed, got everything running properly, but I really neglected the tank for at least a month and developed a bad case of turf. Did the best to my ability to clear it, but it continued to come back, made the move from GFO to Biopellets hoping that would help. Got to the point where I went to my LFS and pretty much told them I would be starting over and what they might want from my tank.
Guy suggested since I was at the point of no return to at least try Vibrant. And it ended up working like a charm, no lights for couple weeks, all my remaining corals not really effected. All my BTAs also very happy.
Fast forward a couple months and many water changes later. The remaining Sps that I had bleached. Figured they were just already knocking on deaths door, but then noticed my large elegance was unhappy. In a matter of a month my Alk had dropped from a steady 10ish to 5. I gave my Hanna some side eye and tested at the LFS just to be sure. All confirmed, all other parameters ok, Cal and Mag were a little high, nothing crazy. So I start dosing only Alk. Red Sea to be exact.
I would dump a quarter bottle, give it a few, retest the tank and it would be around 7-8 after dosing, then drop back down to 6ish the next day. I kept Dosing, but the same numbers would rise and then drop within a day.
I’ve dumped a bottle and a half in my reefer 350 (50G) and that is just an astronomical amount I think. The last dose the water legit didn’t want it, it stayed cloudy for quite some time and now my tank looks like it was dusted with snow. Still at same pattern, tested at 7.3, dropped to 6 again next day…
I know water change is the name of the game and my next move is a 50% but was hoping someone might hint as to what is consuming Alk that fast….
TLDR; 50G tank, had some issues, issues seemed resolved, all parameters balance but Alk low, dosed a ton of Alk, but remained low. Don’t understand the cause…
