Alkalinity

R

rockyreefer1

New member
Hello all, I'm new to the reef scene (about 3 months now)... I have a 120gallon tank with a 29gal sump, 100lbs live rock, RO skimmer, 2X250MH and 4X54 T-5 lamps. Everything is going GREAT. I cycled my tank and have good parameters all around except that it seems like my tank is using a lot of alkalinity. I have a very lightly stocked tank (2 tomato clowns, one lawnmower blenny, about 5 snails, 5 crabs, etc). I also have a LOT of coralline algae that is spreading everywhere. My rocks are pretty thick and the tank sides (only clean the front) look different every day with the purple coralline creeping by the day. I am running Kalk (1.5tsp/gal) in my ATO as well as using Randy's 2 part (recipe 2 for alkalinity) to the tune of about 250ml/day to keep up with the alkalinity. That's about 1-1.5 gal of saturated kalk and 250 ml/day (dosing pump spread 20 times per day) of RECIPE 2 alk supp. According to the reef calculator it seems I might be using about 2 to a little more than 2 dkh a day in this lightly stocked tank. Ooh.. I do have a few good sized (baseball total size) of GSP that is doing great. So far so good, just wondering if this is normal. I do have some abiotic precip on the heater and a few of my Koralias have become jammed up with caco3 precip... I have not checked my mag level... but have a test kit on the way soon. Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments. Can coralline really use this much alk in a day? Calcium is about 290-400 according to my crappy API test kits. Alk at 7, ph at 8.3, salinity 1.26, phos, nitrate,nitrite,ammonia at 0. Temp varies from 79-81 daily. I have been reading a TON on this site (wife is getting concerned) and you guys are incredible with the amount of knowledge you have on reefing.

Thanks in advance,
Eric
 
Do you all get some precipitation on your heaters/pumps. My heater has a thin coating and my koralia powerheads will get caked (just on the inside) about once every month and a half and seize up. I clean it off and everything is fine. Just wondering if I have an abnormal amount of abiotic precipitation. I have very few clumps in my aragonite sand and maybe occasionally a little hard white streak on the back glass, but... no other precip anywhere else. Is this normal?
 
I will get a Mag test kit and get it in-line. I do water changes with reef crystals every 2 weeks at 20 gallons a shot. I've read on here from some that testing Mg isn't as important if you do good water changes. I bet that is the case. Going to order off of BRS right now.

Thanks,
Eric
 
This was about 3 yrs ago, but when, at that time, was using RC salt, the Mg reading was around 1100 ppm. Hence bringing down my Mg of my system. I switched to regular IO salt, and have not needed to add any Mg. I do test Mg about every 3 months to make sure. I have found that the ELOS test kit is pretty accurate for Mg. Salifert seemed to show false low numbers after 6 months or so. My LFS had the same results and now uses the ELOS kit.

Just get a good kit and really find out what your number is, then adjust. If you need to adjust, remember you will need a lot of Mg, so don't get surprised. Hope this helps.

For fun test your salt mix also, and see if that is the cause. Maybe I had a bad batch.

Alex
 
Here is a picture of my tank (sorry shot with my phone) First pic is the whole tank, and second is the coralline algae that is growing all over. Is this enough coralline (all over rocks but you can't see it) to cause a 2dkh loss in alk a day?

reef coralline.jpg

View attachment 230890
 
Wait till those rocks are full of acropora. Lol. Alk at 7 isn't bad 8 would be better. I use baked baking soda for alk ( 5-6 tbs per day just to hold 8 DKH). Just gotta play with it and find the balance.
 
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Yeah.. I hear ya... Been taking it slow and making sure I have a good handle on things before I purchase any corals (besides the freebie GSP that came with the live rock). I just got a 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tank from work for free so now I have plans of a basement fuge/sump setup in the not so distant future. All I need is a better return pump that can deal with 8-11 feet of head. Do you guys recommend submersible or external? My basement is empty so it's soon time to frame off a small room (or not so small) for my water change station and all the other associated crap. I'm a commercial facilities manager so I really like monkeying around with stuff and REALLY like electrical and plumbing work. This hobby is too much fun... ooh yeah... and too expensive as well.
 
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