alk issues

oneradtek202

oneradtek202

Pitcher Hill Reef Society
here are the params

alk- 5.6
ca-440
mag 1300

i dont know what gave me the drop in the alk, but its got me all stressed out. i looked at my lines from teh drews dosers and i see some air bubbles in the line. but the line was submerged in the alk container so i dont know how the air got in there. i dont know if this was my cause of the drop but this isnt good. i upped my time dosing the alk, and took a few minutes off of dosing the Ca. i know blurry says there is something that happens when u dose the same levels of ca and alk that make them work more efficiently. idk. got a big water change on tuesday too. 32 gallons out of 100
 
I don't know what happened to drop your alk. Could be a dosing malfunction or consumption.
I assume from your narrative that you are using a two part for alk and calcium. Calcium will be depleted more slowly than alk as calcium carbonate uses 50ppm ( 2.8dkh) alk for each 20 ppm calcium. So a drop of 20ppm calcium which might not show up in a given test could be accompanied by a drop in dkh from 8.4 to 5.6 dkh. Two part balanced levels are calculated to provide this amount.. Kalk and calcium reactor media provide them in these proportions as well. So it is good to dose them in these proportions regulary. However, with calcium at 440ppm and alk only 5.6 dkh(not meq/l ), I would just add some baking soda and raise the alk to > 7 and then resume balanced dosing.
 
so take some baking soda and just spoon the correct measurement into some salt water and dump into my sump? and i need to dose the same levels of calc and alk once stable?
 
What Tom said ;)

Run the pump manually and make sure what you expect comes out. I just did this with my dosing pumps over the weekend.

If you have mixed two part use that. I've read you should let it sit for an hour before using, though in your case I personally would wait 5 minutes.

When is the last time you tested before noticing this?

TOM- have fast would you up the Kh in this situation? I'm thinking straight shot to 7 which is 1.4 - the sps will likely be upset, but make it.
 
Could be the tubes in the dosing pump. One of my brs dozers doesn't dose anymore, the tube is shot. Unfortunately brs is out of them.

As a precaution I just ordered two replacement heads for my bubble magus from brs before I loose my two part!
 
Brandon.Pascal

Yes dose it in a high flow area and take it up to 7 dkh or higher( FWIW I run mine at 9.6) and then go back to balanced dosing.
I'd probably use some baked baking soda and some baking soda : proportions depending on your ph.
It would probably be ok to dose it up to 7dkh in one shot. I
think low alk is more harmful than boosted alk. Erring on the side of caution, I'd personally break it up into .5 dkh increases 12 hours apart.
 
now i checked today and my alk is up to 8.4 , maybe i misread the test, it was after a 16hr day of work, which could have been possible lol. ill recheck tonight and have the ca and alk dose the same amount and see where it goes from there.
 
a corona when a got home, and yes mark....i c-armed my head for 16hours, i was hoping for a mutation to make me a stronger biker. (cough , cough...21.1mph avg for 20 miles last saturday)
 
Well it's a good thing you didn't dump a bunch of baking soda in there. I have the same problems when vodka dosing via personal ingestion Good luck.
 
oneradtek202 said:
a corona when a got home, and yes mark....i c-armed my head for 16hours, i was hoping for a mutation to make me a stronger biker. (cough , cough...21.1mph avg for 20 miles last saturday)
Click to expand...


Haha, even with a tail wind, after an hour, you'd be 6 miles ahead of my fat-a$$. 2 kids has put a cramp on my ride time.
 
so when i go to balance my dosing out to equal ca and alk....


currently im dosing double the amt of time that i am dosing alk than i am calcium, so should i up my ca or decrease my alk timing? or both give a little bit and meet halfway?

current params 5-10-11
alk-8.0
ca-440
mag-1500
 
Last edited:
You need to follow the manufacturer' recommendations for balanced dosing which might vary by product .
You want to achieve a dose of 20ppm calcium and 50ppm carbonate alkalinity consistently as they will be used in these proportions
 
I think the mag dose will vary based on salt mix and waterchange schedule.
 
yea it seems if i dose the same on each, id be really messed up. so im gonna dose more alk than calc.

currently at

alk- 8.8
ca-430
 
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