Running a rather challenging reef due to size, 15 gallon mixed reef. The reef itself is 3 months old, although the live rock used from other setup is 5+ years. I made a pretty bad dosing mistake, but instead of affecting the parameters i was expecting ( Alk/PH ) I screwed up the calcium!?
- I decided to start dosing seachems kalk as some of the SPS/LPS began to grow and soak up Alk/Ca and wanted to try it. problem was, It wasn't having much affect on either PH or Alk, so i began increasing dosage accordingly.
- The kalk label instructed 1tsp per 1 gal, mix to dissolve in RODI water, then increase dosage until stable PH 8.1-8.3 is achieved. So in my mind, I'm going to monitor Alk and PH and increase dosage accordingly, but didn't think much of the CA. I increased incrementally over a couple weeks. I started with 5ml, and saw zero change in Alk or PH, so around week 2, i jumped it two 10ml. Still now change, so jumped it to 20ml. Saw Ph change from 7.8 at night, to 8.0, but again, no change in Alk.
Parameters before anything was dosed to tank:
Alk 8.3
Ca 421
MG 1351
PH 7.8 - 8.1
- After I changed the dosage to 20ml, there was a bad alk swing about two days ago. ( -2.0 dkh ) and obviously coral and myself flipped out. Params then were as follows :
Alk 6.5
CA 832
MG - 1351
PH 7.8 - 8.1
Salinity - 1.025 ( IO Reef Crystals )
Temp 79
- Did two several 60% WC until this evening, to raise the dkh by 1.0 each day back to where it has been, also assuming the CA would return to normal as well. However, the CA is still off the charts for both test kits I'm using ( over 500 on Salifert, and over the 875 on the Trident that has been hooked up to it ).
- I'm reading different information on the CA precipitating, but it seems this was likely the cause of the Alk swing. I feel like I should have noticed the increase in CA much much much sooner? I was testing Alk twice a day, and the CA maybe once a week, which was my fault. I noticed the rise in CA from the usual 421, to 465 right before the alk swing, but I didn't think that was enough to cause any alarm.
A couple of questions to anyone still reading, any input is appreciated. Am I correct to assume bad batch of kalk? Does anyone know the chemistry going on behind this? I just want to know the details of the chemistry behind what went wrong, and what if anything is holding the CA so high. Is there a reason why two 60% WC a day apart are still having CA read off the charts? the corals appear slightly agitated, but so serious deaths...yet ( frogspawn, monti, birdsnest, gsp, zoas to name a few ), and fish seem fine too. Should I take further action besides the large water changes? ( I checked my source water also, its reading 1 TDS...)
- I decided to start dosing seachems kalk as some of the SPS/LPS began to grow and soak up Alk/Ca and wanted to try it. problem was, It wasn't having much affect on either PH or Alk, so i began increasing dosage accordingly.
- The kalk label instructed 1tsp per 1 gal, mix to dissolve in RODI water, then increase dosage until stable PH 8.1-8.3 is achieved. So in my mind, I'm going to monitor Alk and PH and increase dosage accordingly, but didn't think much of the CA. I increased incrementally over a couple weeks. I started with 5ml, and saw zero change in Alk or PH, so around week 2, i jumped it two 10ml. Still now change, so jumped it to 20ml. Saw Ph change from 7.8 at night, to 8.0, but again, no change in Alk.
Parameters before anything was dosed to tank:
Alk 8.3
Ca 421
MG 1351
PH 7.8 - 8.1
- After I changed the dosage to 20ml, there was a bad alk swing about two days ago. ( -2.0 dkh ) and obviously coral and myself flipped out. Params then were as follows :
Alk 6.5
CA 832
MG - 1351
PH 7.8 - 8.1
Salinity - 1.025 ( IO Reef Crystals )
Temp 79
- Did two several 60% WC until this evening, to raise the dkh by 1.0 each day back to where it has been, also assuming the CA would return to normal as well. However, the CA is still off the charts for both test kits I'm using ( over 500 on Salifert, and over the 875 on the Trident that has been hooked up to it ).
- I'm reading different information on the CA precipitating, but it seems this was likely the cause of the Alk swing. I feel like I should have noticed the increase in CA much much much sooner? I was testing Alk twice a day, and the CA maybe once a week, which was my fault. I noticed the rise in CA from the usual 421, to 465 right before the alk swing, but I didn't think that was enough to cause any alarm.
A couple of questions to anyone still reading, any input is appreciated. Am I correct to assume bad batch of kalk? Does anyone know the chemistry going on behind this? I just want to know the details of the chemistry behind what went wrong, and what if anything is holding the CA so high. Is there a reason why two 60% WC a day apart are still having CA read off the charts? the corals appear slightly agitated, but so serious deaths...yet ( frogspawn, monti, birdsnest, gsp, zoas to name a few ), and fish seem fine too. Should I take further action besides the large water changes? ( I checked my source water also, its reading 1 TDS...)
