Let me start off with - I’m not sure I have a problem. But in my experience, this tank is behaving oddly when it comes time to ALK and pH.
Little history:
Innovative EXT75, the tank is a little over 18 months old. Dry Rock / Dry Sand start. Went through a lot with this tank. A lot of firsts for this 20+ year reefer. The tank was near perfect for 8 months or so then it all went to crap. Massive cyano outbreak that I couldn’t get under control after months of trying. It was relentless - against my better judgment I broke down and chemi-cleaned the tank which made way for an unknown type dino outbreak which I ended up conquering. Then days later a massive coolia dino outbreak came which I battled for ~3 months and finally got under control. While the dinos were going crazy, I lost about 50% of the coral in the tank. Not sure if it was the dino toxicity or what, but for no reason that I could tell - corals started to die and the entire CUC died sans a random snail or two. All fish made it just fine. Overall, it was an expensive and tragic loss. I wanted to quit but instead I pushed harder. As I was increasing the nutrients and I got the coolia under control, I ended up with GHA like I’ve never seen. It was almost comical but the good news was the dinos were under control.
The nitrates in the tank were well over 30 by this time. PO4 was around .15-.18. Once I was comfortable that the dinos were at bay, I started to harvest the GHA and began reducing the nutrients in the tank. I didn’t have a specific number in mind - I just wanted NO3 to be 5 and 10 and PO4 between .05 and .1.
On to the ALK and pH… Apex with Trident for testing. I have cross checked with a Hana.
The pH in this tank has been chronically low. It has dipped as low as 7.6 at times - which panics me a little. For the past year or so, I’ve been adding Kalk via Avast kalk stirrer connected to the ATO. I add 1/2 cup of kalk every two weeks. Even with the kalk drip I still have pretty low pH. My highs until recently were 7.8 during the day.
To get nutrients under control, I implemented an external 20g refugium. I was figuring this was a great solution as it could help with both pH and nutrients. While the nutrients were high, my pH was looking nice. I was getting highs around 8.1. I clearly had some excess CO2 in the water. Of course there is only so much nitrate in the system and as it depleted, chaeto growth slowed and the pH started to fall. Within 3 weeks, NO3 was down to 2.5 or so and I’ve since been dosing Neonitro to keep me from bottoming out and allowing the chaeto to grow and give me the pH boost. This is not a sustainable solution for me. I have an avast marine plank which feeds 4 times per day (handsomely), I feed nori daily AND they get their daily feeding of frozen mysis. Still not enough to maintain NO3 w/o dosing.
Given the CO2 issue, I also have an airline hooked to the skimmer which is pulling outside air. Oddly, I didn’t notice much of a benefit from this.
At the start, when there was need, I dosed Soda Ash and Calcium Chloride. My sand bed was turning into concrete even though I didn’t notice any other obvious precipitation. The soda ash helped with the pH, but it was so temporary. It would rise by .1 or .15 and in an hour it would be back where it was prior to the dose.
I now dose AFR. 15ml (which is minimal) but was keeping the tank at 9DKH with very little variation for months. Then all of a sudden the ALK would begin rising on the same dose. From weeks and weeks of 9.5 steady to almost 11 over a period of 2 days. Then I’d just turn the dose off for a few days until it came back down and then re-enabled it. Kalk was always left on. If I remove it, I will see a 7.6 pH.
Once back to dosing the AFR would kick in in a few days and it would seemingly stay steady again. Most recently over a 2 day period the alk has gone from 9.14 to 7.7. No new additions. Coral seem happy. I upped the dose to 20ml to see if that would help. Still not enough. These past few days I’ve been adding soda ash (30ml) to get the dkh to 8. So to maintain 8 dkh I need 20ml of AFR and 30ml of soda ash + whatever the kalk is doing. A few weeks ago 15ml of AFR + Kalk was fine. What is going on here? I’ve been fighting this cycle for quite some time and need to understand if I doing something really dumb here??? I feel like I am way overdosing the tank for the amount of stony coral I have. I can’t say for sure whether or not the sand bed is still hardening. I’d lean no, but it’s possible.
So when I say I may not have a problem - is it possible that the tank is in balance finally, the corals are happy and alk consumption is just increasing? Sorry for the long read and thanks for any help!
Little history:
Innovative EXT75, the tank is a little over 18 months old. Dry Rock / Dry Sand start. Went through a lot with this tank. A lot of firsts for this 20+ year reefer. The tank was near perfect for 8 months or so then it all went to crap. Massive cyano outbreak that I couldn’t get under control after months of trying. It was relentless - against my better judgment I broke down and chemi-cleaned the tank which made way for an unknown type dino outbreak which I ended up conquering. Then days later a massive coolia dino outbreak came which I battled for ~3 months and finally got under control. While the dinos were going crazy, I lost about 50% of the coral in the tank. Not sure if it was the dino toxicity or what, but for no reason that I could tell - corals started to die and the entire CUC died sans a random snail or two. All fish made it just fine. Overall, it was an expensive and tragic loss. I wanted to quit but instead I pushed harder. As I was increasing the nutrients and I got the coolia under control, I ended up with GHA like I’ve never seen. It was almost comical but the good news was the dinos were under control.
The nitrates in the tank were well over 30 by this time. PO4 was around .15-.18. Once I was comfortable that the dinos were at bay, I started to harvest the GHA and began reducing the nutrients in the tank. I didn’t have a specific number in mind - I just wanted NO3 to be 5 and 10 and PO4 between .05 and .1.
On to the ALK and pH… Apex with Trident for testing. I have cross checked with a Hana.
The pH in this tank has been chronically low. It has dipped as low as 7.6 at times - which panics me a little. For the past year or so, I’ve been adding Kalk via Avast kalk stirrer connected to the ATO. I add 1/2 cup of kalk every two weeks. Even with the kalk drip I still have pretty low pH. My highs until recently were 7.8 during the day.
To get nutrients under control, I implemented an external 20g refugium. I was figuring this was a great solution as it could help with both pH and nutrients. While the nutrients were high, my pH was looking nice. I was getting highs around 8.1. I clearly had some excess CO2 in the water. Of course there is only so much nitrate in the system and as it depleted, chaeto growth slowed and the pH started to fall. Within 3 weeks, NO3 was down to 2.5 or so and I’ve since been dosing Neonitro to keep me from bottoming out and allowing the chaeto to grow and give me the pH boost. This is not a sustainable solution for me. I have an avast marine plank which feeds 4 times per day (handsomely), I feed nori daily AND they get their daily feeding of frozen mysis. Still not enough to maintain NO3 w/o dosing.
Given the CO2 issue, I also have an airline hooked to the skimmer which is pulling outside air. Oddly, I didn’t notice much of a benefit from this.
At the start, when there was need, I dosed Soda Ash and Calcium Chloride. My sand bed was turning into concrete even though I didn’t notice any other obvious precipitation. The soda ash helped with the pH, but it was so temporary. It would rise by .1 or .15 and in an hour it would be back where it was prior to the dose.
I now dose AFR. 15ml (which is minimal) but was keeping the tank at 9DKH with very little variation for months. Then all of a sudden the ALK would begin rising on the same dose. From weeks and weeks of 9.5 steady to almost 11 over a period of 2 days. Then I’d just turn the dose off for a few days until it came back down and then re-enabled it. Kalk was always left on. If I remove it, I will see a 7.6 pH.
Once back to dosing the AFR would kick in in a few days and it would seemingly stay steady again. Most recently over a 2 day period the alk has gone from 9.14 to 7.7. No new additions. Coral seem happy. I upped the dose to 20ml to see if that would help. Still not enough. These past few days I’ve been adding soda ash (30ml) to get the dkh to 8. So to maintain 8 dkh I need 20ml of AFR and 30ml of soda ash + whatever the kalk is doing. A few weeks ago 15ml of AFR + Kalk was fine. What is going on here? I’ve been fighting this cycle for quite some time and need to understand if I doing something really dumb here??? I feel like I am way overdosing the tank for the amount of stony coral I have. I can’t say for sure whether or not the sand bed is still hardening. I’d lean no, but it’s possible.
So when I say I may not have a problem - is it possible that the tank is in balance finally, the corals are happy and alk consumption is just increasing? Sorry for the long read and thanks for any help!
