Hanna alk reagent expired

[LandLockedJones]

Hey all,

So I’ve recently begun adding tropic Marin all for reef to my 40gal reef. I have the Hanna alk checker, have had it for some time.

Stupidly, I &did not check my reagents expiration date. I have been dosing about a week, and measuring roughly 9.1-9.3 dkh with a daily dose of 10mL of AFR(all for reef)

So I just used up the last bit of reagent and the reading was higher than expected at 9.5dkh. However, I noticed the expiration was05/2023 as I was disposing of the bottle.

So I grabbed my new bottle of reagent, and tested.

My alk reading was at 8.4dkh, so I retested and got 8.5. Close enough to be consistent. But much lower than the last week of measuring with the old reagent. I prefer this problem over having been overdosing of course.

My question though, is should I scrap my old measurements? And start upping my dosing volume of AFR?

Or should I keep dosing 10 mL of AFR and ensure that these readings remain consistent before increasing the dose?

 

[OctaviusBrine]

I have noticed even when it gets close to expiring the measurements are way off. My guess is it has been off for a while.

 

[Troylee]

Hey all,

So I’ve recently begun adding tropic Marin all for reef to my 40gal reef. I have the Hanna alk checker, have had it for some time.

Stupidly, I &did not check my reagents expiration date. I have been dosing about a week, and measuring roughly 9.1-9.3 dkh with a daily dose of 10mL of AFR(all for reef)

So I just used up the last bit of reagent and the reading was higher than expected at 9.5dkh. However, I noticed the expiration was05/2023 as I was disposing of the bottle.

So I grabbed my new bottle of reagent, and tested.

My alk reading was at 8.4dkh, so I retested and got 8.5. Close enough to be consistent. But much lower than the last week of measuring with the old reagent. I prefer this problem over having been overdosing of course.

My question though, is should I scrap my old measurements? And start upping my dosing volume of AFR?

Or should I keep dosing 10 mL of AFR and ensure that these readings remain consistent before increasing the dose?

What size is your tank? Is it heavily stocked with coral? Do you dose anything else?

 

[LandLockedJones]

It’s a 40 gal system. Not very heavily stocked at all. I have only 6 corals but 2 were just added yesterday and seem to be doing pretty well.

I currently do not dose anything but all for reef. And reached 10mL/ day on my 3rd day of adding and have kept that dose the same and only started adding it 9 days ago.

The corals I had stocked before adding the new ones were starting to grow. Mostly the little zoa started getting new heads. But my leptoseris which has come back from the brink of death in this system, was also beginning to encrust pretty well. I also noticed my candy cane beginning to squeeze itself. My Duncan is not as happy looking as everything else.

I was beginning to wonder if I should have added more corals first before adding all for reef. Which I am guessing is why you are asking haha

But, my icp test showed that I was low on calcium, magnesium and iodine. All of which were in all for reef. So I started adding it.

At this point it seems to have not been much of a dose actually. It honestly explains why the calcium reading was about 550ppm, up from 420ppm. I was expecting it to be a bit higher at the alk readings I was seeing.

I prefer a failure that causes me to underdose rather than drastically overdose. So, I suppose I’m lucky it was reading higher alk and not lower.

Quick addition: I use the Tropic Marin pro reef salt and was dosing the premixed all for reef solution.

 

[Dburr1014]

Hey all,

So I’ve recently begun adding tropic Marin all for reef to my 40gal reef. I have the Hanna alk checker, have had it for some time.

Stupidly, I &did not check my reagents expiration date. I have been dosing about a week, and measuring roughly 9.1-9.3 dkh with a daily dose of 10mL of AFR(all for reef)

So I just used up the last bit of reagent and the reading was higher than expected at 9.5dkh. However, I noticed the expiration was05/2023 as I was disposing of the bottle.

So I grabbed my new bottle of reagent, and tested.

My alk reading was at 8.4dkh, so I retested and got 8.5. Close enough to be consistent. But much lower than the last week of measuring with the old reagent. I prefer this problem over having been overdosing of course.

My question though, is should I scrap my old measurements? And start upping my dosing volume of AFR?

Or should I keep dosing 10 mL of AFR and ensure that these readings remain consistent before increasing the dose?

Steer the ship, no sudden movements.

1) refrigerating the alk regent will make it last longer.

2) of your a little of than expected, adjust your dose a little bit. Just a little to turn the trend in the direction you want. No need for anything drastic.