Super hot salt mix spiked alk from 9.0 to 11.8 over two WCs.

[dtruitt]

Hi all,

I recently switched to Fritz RPM since the parameters seemed balanced and a little more conservative than where I was running the tank.

I've been a little WC-happy lately, doing 30% changes basically whenever I have the chance.

I foolishly did not check the alk on the new water, assuming that if Fritz says itll mix to ~9dKH, it would mix to 9dKH.

I changed out 25% of our water today, and did not dose any alk or calcium. Generally, I skip dosing on WC days.

I tested tank alk today and saw a reading of 11.8 dKH. I checked twice with my existing salifert test, and then ran out and bought another salifert kit. Old water from todays WC read 10.5 dKH. I had ramped down to 9dKH before doing the first WC with Fritz.

By my (crude) estimation, in order for a 25% WC to pull alk up 1.3 dKH, it should be 5.2dKH higher than the tank. Crudely, the numbers seem to suggest the water I made up was around 15 or 16 dKH. I will make up a small batch to test shortly.

I know that borate could be inflating the alk reading substantially.

What's my best course of action? I'm thinking my best way to proceed is to embrace this new normal and dose to maintain 11.8dKH for a couple of weeks to allow things to settle before gradually bringing it down. I'm concerned about ceasing alk dosing and letting the number fall down to 9dKH if borate is influencing the reading, as this is not unheard of with Fritz.

 

[greg 45]

What is the dkh on the new salt that you mixed up .
Please check that , this might answer you question

 

[Flippers4pups]

I had a bad experience with Fritz blue box. Didn't test newly made water and after several water changes had a mass die off event. I finally tested newly made saltwater and it was 15 dkh! I stopped using it and went back to IO.

If you decide to continue to use it, test each new box for alkalinity. If it's higher than you want to keep, consider lowering it's alkalinity with muriatic acid to the desired alkalinity.

11.8 dkh isn't bad, but it's up there.

 

[K7BMG]

Wow. That seems way out of whack.

What DKH do you normally run at.

In your post you give several numbers ramping up and down but what is the stable norm?

I have undsrstood that a full point rise or decline can be very harmfull.
More than that should be causing a catastrophic event.

I have not used Fritz but from this scenario and what the others just said I will never use it. No way !

Well I would do daily WC to get back to your normal DKH over the next week using your old salt mix.

I would not let it sit that high for a few weeks then adjust down.

 

[dtruitt]

Had a few mL at the bottom of the brute can. 13.7dKH.

I'm going to rip someone a new one on Tuesday.

 

[dtruitt]

Wow. That seems way out of whack.

What DKH do you normally run at.

In your post you give several numbers ramping up and down but what is the stable norm?

I have undsrstood that a full point rise or decline can be very harmfull.
More than that should be causing a catastrophic event.

I have not used Fritz but from this scenario and what the others just said I will never use it. No way !

Well I would do daily WC to get back to your normal DKH over the next week using your old salt mix.

I would not let it sit that high for a few weeks then adjust down.

Old salt mix was one of the red sea coral pro buckets at 10dKH. Great mix, but no longer in production. That's where alk sat most of the time. I only recently started bringing it down because I understood Fritz to be a lower alk mix.

 

[Keiki]

@dtruitt I'm confused. What was super hot?? Your water?

 

[dtruitt]

@dtruitt I'm confused. What was super hot?? Your water?

Alk on wc water water at slightly less than 1.025sg measured 13.7dKH. The bag was *supposed* to mix to less than 9dKH at that sg. That's at least 1.5x as much alk as the bags rated parameters. When I say "super hot," I'm referring to hot spots in their mixing process.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Make sure you have lots of nutrients with your alk that high.

 

[dtruitt]

Make sure you have lots of nutrients with your alk that high.

Tons of nutrients in this tank.
Alk dropped 0.7dkh overnight. Stony corals visibly grew in the past couple of days. I'm pretty annoyed about Fritz shipping a bag that is this far out of spec, but the high alk results are pretty sweet...