Chasing Ph and AFR

[WAfrican]

Ph nightly peak up to 8.34 now. My TSA Fruity Pebbles has so much polyp extension that it looks unnatural haha.

Alk was at 6.9 last night at lights out and 7.0 this morning before I had to leave. Did a full 10ml AFR dose as I wouldn’t be home to split doses like normal.

 

[WAfrican]

Okay, so I just got back home and there appears to be some sort of an algae outbreak now. Cannot see clearly with blues on and my po4 has bottomed, was .03 yesterday. Will see if I can id tomorrow with a microscope. Alk has continued to dip and is now at 5.9dkh. At this point I am now not comfortable letting it continue to drop and will need to step in and do a water change to bring back up. What could be possibly cause this large of a "consumption" of Alk? I would assume its precipitation but see nothing out of the ordinary in the water column or on the glass bare bottom. All sps are still doing well but my acan is now looking a bit upset.

 

[WAfrican]

Ok so I followed Randy’s suggestions to stop abiotic precipitation. Removed CO2 scrubber, stopped all dosing of Kalk/AFR and simply monitored. Ph dropped to 7.53 with just skimmer running(ambient Co2 levels range 5-800). I have now added the co2 s rubber again but removed the recirculating hose and am just pulling room air through co2 scrubber. I did a 50% water change prior to all of this to bring alk back up and am now seeing a .2dkh drop daily which is much more in line. I expect this to rise a bit as I also have been fighting off osteoporosis and reduced lighting to 10% blues only and h2o2 dosing so my corals have not been too happy. Hope to ramp back to normal lighting over the next 3 days and will water change to bring Alk back to 8.5 and test daily to find use and restart kalk at night at a much lower rate to adjust for consumption.

 

[WAfrican]

I have dialed in my AFR dosage now to 4ml/daily to maintain my current Alk at 8.4. Going to do a 10% water change every 2-3 days to slowly bring up to my final end goal of 10dkh as I would like to do a mix of Red Sea Blue/Black buckets to use what I currently have.

Since hooking up my CO2 scrubber again I am seeing a Ph low of 7.83 and high of 8.1 at lights out. I would've expected this to be higher after significantly reducing my ambient CO2 levels. Would adding additional rock/substrate help in raising PH? Currently bare bottom but have been interested in trying a medium sized calcium reactor media.

 

[MiZuboov]

Best way to increase alk with AFR is to not use AFR to raise alk, the instructions actually say not to do that, if you see your alk dropping, use something like baking soda to bring it back to the correct lvl, then slightly increase your dose of AFR to keep it there.

And then what parameter should I focus on when dose AFR?

 

[areefer01]

And then what parameter should I focus on when dose AFR?

What do you mean by focus on what parameter?

The instructions are below. Tropic Marin recommends getting the water parameters for Alk, Ca, and Mg to your desired levels. Manually correct, adjust, using whatever product you prefer. I switched from ESV 2 part so that is what I used to set and adjust.

Test to get your baseline which the hobbyist probably already did. Calculate your dose, apply dose (I started at 1/2 the calculated so I could see how my display reacted), test 24 hours later. Preferably test at the same time and draw the sample from the same location. Anyway you calculate the dose, apply, test 24 hours later.

Note: Alkalinity will not show up immediately. There is a delay and it will vary by display. Some see it within a couple hours others 12 to 24. I usually see the change between 24 and 30 hours. Calcium is more immediate.

TL: DR - instructions below. Not sure what you mean by focus.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

And then what parameter should I focus on when dose AFR?

I recommend dosing based on alk demand.

 

[WAfrican]

Once I was able to get abiotic precipitation to stop I was able to dial in and maintain alk and ca using AFR. After multiple water changes over a week to get alk up to 10 I have been able to keep it within .2 on daily tests right before I dose 4ml at lights on. My CA is elevated at 500 but nothing seems to be bothered by it and it has been stable as well.

 

[Reef.]

And then what parameter should I focus on when dose AFR?

Tropic marin suggest calcium but I find alkalinity is a better test to use, its just easier to get an accurate test result with alk than calcium.

 

[MiZuboov]

I recommend dosing based on alk demand.

How do you think what justifies the value of Alk 11-12 for a mixed reef according to the Red sea system? Because soft corals like the carbonate higher? And why do soft corals need higher Alk?

 

[MiZuboov]

Tropic marin suggest calcium but I find alkalinity is a better test to use, its just easier to get an accurate test result with alk than calcium.

I did so too