Low alkalinity

[jimmak85]

hey, just wanted to say im not really new to the forum but i never post. I'm having a low ALK problem in my reef, and i was looking for suggestions on a two part additive. When i first started with my 10 gallon reef i started out dosing nothing which is what everyone told me to do on the forum and i see why now it teaches you to only dose what you need. recently i was using coral accel and that's when my tanks been going south. i have a mild cyano out break and low PH and low ALK. calcium is pretty good at 480 since i use reef crystals it tends to run on the high side anyway. tank setup is a 46 bow with a 20 high sump built in fuge with cheato and a couple mangroves only media i use is chem-pure elite. I run a marine-land skimmer pulls out some dark green stuff. thanks for any advice.

 

[chipcount]

Are you using a buffer in your RO top off water? If your RO is too low in PH, that could affect the overall PH of your tank and cause it to be low.

 

[nixer]

by no means am i a whiz at this, but adding baking soda will raise your ALK
whats your ALK, and ph at

 

[jimmak85]

no buffer with RO so that explains PH but ALK was at 40 PPM few minutes ago and PH was around 7.5 both on a test strip i dipped in real quick cause im taking a sample to aquarium center in black wood to get more realistic numbers and more RO water. I was looking at ESV's two part additive but will probably only have to use the ALK side since i do bi-weekly water changes my calcium should stay pretty high cause i only have soft corals and polyps its not really gonna get used too quick. any ideas on the cyano or could it be from the PH and ALK outta whack?

 

[Emoney]

add a Kalk reactor...and for get it!

best upgrade i ever did!

was having alk swwings from doseing, lost alot of high end chalices because of it. Added a Kalk reactor and stopped doseing and Everthing is doing so much better..

cant wait to hook up Cal reactor next!

 

[m and m]

If you go to AC i live right there, I live in Deptford and Pine hill both five minutes away.

My suggestion would be get to part, and get into a daily or in your case a weekly swing.

I bet if you did a 5GG water change once a week and dosed once a week you would see a big difference. Do a WC on monday and Dose CAL/Alk and Mag on thursday. Once you figure out what you need to dose your set, just know those days you have to dose. I run ZEO and Two part and dose everyday, once i gotten to gear and got all my measurements down every day i wake up dose half my chems and when lights go out or when ever i get home i dose the rest. Yea i might even go out all night doing something and forget to dose one night and the GF might not be able to do it for me so the next day i just dose in thirds and add yesterdays dosing and make three doses. Its very easy and you will see such a difference in your tank.

 

[twinspots_goby]

I recommend the two parts dosing. I have been using the product from Bulkreefsupply. I'm very happy with their product. The key is to figure out what's your dosage daily and having a accurate dosing pump. I'm not a big fan of Kalk or calc reactor since I have hard a hard time to dail them right. Plus the reactors get clugged over time and can screw things up.

 

[jimmak85]

test results are in:

calcium: 490
ALK: 6 degrees
Mag: 1260

so they recommended sea chems reef builder cause i haven't done a water change for 2 weeks and thats what the levels are so i only need ALK. They said that it will bring up PH also. From now on i will use buffer in my RO water and then i shouldn't have a problem anymore.

 

[m and m]

I would raise your mag a little bit, regardless of what they said i would raise the Alk 1DKH at a time and go to the two part and dose. What people dont under stand when a system isnt stable in your case it stresses the corals and throws other things out of whack.

 

[shapermike]

test results are in:

calcium: 490
ALK: 6 degrees
Mag: 1260


what did you mean buy ALK: 6 degrees? is it dkh or meq/L?


6 dkh is low
6 meg/L is way too high and things will die

 

[jimmak85]

test results are in:

calcium: 490
ALK: 6 degrees
Mag: 1260


what did you mean buy ALK: 6 degrees? is it dkh or meq/L?


6 dkh is low
6 meg/L is way too high and things will die

degrees its low

 

[Bio-nut]

Alk swings will kill corals in you tank. Raise the alk SLOW. If you flip the light cycle on you refugium to opposite of the tank light schedule will help with the pH dropping. When the refugium goes into respiration mode a byproduct is a drop in pH.

If you want to look at things in the mind set. Inorder to keep and alkalinity around 9-10 you need to keep a higher level of anionic species in the tank, adding Magnesium at this time, will result in higher levels of positive species. So hold off on adding Magnesium at this point until you get the pH and alk. under hand. Adding (kalk) calcium carbonate will only increase the both the calcium and carbponate levels in the tank this might help slightly but an end result is the potential for precipitating out calcium carbonate. Adding (baking soda) sodium bicarbonate with have a greater chance of increasing the anionic species. As sodium Bicarbonate disolves it becomes a mixture of Sodium ions and bicarbonate. sodium is very reactive and will easily remain in solution leaving bicarbonate to react with the H+ ions that are lowering your pH. Once you have reached you target pH of ~8.2 adding more Sodium Bicarbonate will alow you to buffer the pH reduction that occur from resporation and acidification from CO2 mixing in you skimmer.

I hope that this helped and did not make you more confussed. Feel free to PM me and I can try to help more.

 

[KLR]

I manually dose reef buffer,its a powder, I think its 1 tbsp to raise 1.0 ph and 0.5 alk. Ive never had alk that was to low with this

 

[Bio-nut]

KLR can you do me a favor and post the ingredients of your (reef buffer) here? Just want to see what they are! thank you

 

[m and m]

I thought you had that large long Alk problem yourself KRL?

 

[shapermike]

ok I dont know what

ALK: 6 degrees

I am sorry all the reading I have ever taken was in DKH or meq/L

So with my Farm I keep the levels @

mag between 1350 to 1450 pp
Cal 410 to 420
alk 9 and 10.2 DKH or 3.20 to 3.66 meq/l
pho4 .003
ph 8.2.to 8.4

this works for my frag farm. hope this helps

 

[Bio-nut]

If you can get the system to the levels of your frag farm you shuld be perfectly fine. If you start to have problems with cloudy water from high alk, calcium, or other ionic species percipitating, increase you salinity it will aid in keeping particles in suspension.

 

[ImageX]

kalk drip will somewhat fix this.. i usually use kalk to maintain.. baking soda to rise the alk.. also your magnesium is low which will have your alk drop faster... correct your alk first cause it'll kill your corals if it hasnt done so already.. then correct your magnesium to maintain the alk and calcium..

and alk is not measured in degrees..

 

[nixer]

its also important to adjust slowly.

 

[Captain Nemo]

Just wondering about this, you can use baking soda ( Na+ bicarb) to raise your alk? you just add this to your RO/DI water prior to topping off? Also can someone explain to me how to keep my ALK up? I am also using the Reef builder to keep it up. I cannot test for mag right now as no one I know has a test kit and the LFS does not either. Anyway I am dosing the ALK one day and a couple later dosing the Calcium. Then I change the water on Friday or saturday. 10% of volume. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks guys!