Baking soda to up alk

[FragIt Dan]

Thanks not a bad idea. it just seems like my alk absorption rate isnt consistent. I have been checking it everyday with a salifert kit and one day ill be down 1.5,1,&even .3 from one day to the next. my mag is a little high at 1450.

I would establish a consistent daily dose and measure dKh once/week. Adjust your daily dose accordingly. If you are messing with daily dose changes and testing, your testing accuracy and timing/daily dose effect can introduce a lot of artificial variability. If you are testing daily you really need to dose at the same time and test at the same time every day with several hours between the two. Even then, the test kit accuracy can overwhelm any real changes in dKh your tank is actually going through.

 

[Holyreefer]

great thread as ive struggled from the same thing in the past and it can and will get fustrating at some point but KEEPMOVINGFORWARD LOL

 

[fishguy597]

I have been checking and dosing at 4pm on the nose every day. I'm making some ro water with half the dose I've been making for the 4pm dose. Tomorrow morn Ill start spreading the dose.

I cant wait for my ca to come down so I can start the reactor back up. I had my alk nailed at 8.5 for 6 months. What can happen with ca to high? It can just screw up your pumps right?

 

[FragIt Dan]

I have been checking and dosing at 4pm on the nose every day. I'm making some ro water with half the dose I've been making for the 4pm dose. Tomorrow morn Ill start spreading the dose.

I cant wait for my ca to come down so I can start the reactor back up. I had my alk nailed at 8.5 for 6 months. What can happen with ca to high? It can just screw up your pumps right?

Yes, it can precipitate out on pumps and heaters, but it might also burn your corals. I have noticed my corals getting pretty unhappy in the past only to test Ca and see it at about 580ppm. Things returned to normal after a few days of skipping my Ca doses. You should be well out of the woods on that by now though.

 

[fishguy597]

I wish its been almost 10 days I beleive since I shut it off. I checked the ca yesterday and its still pegged. How do you know your at 580? I use the salifert test and I was lead to believe that once you get to the 500 mark after that its not acurate.

forgive my ignorance but high ca ca burn your corals? I thought that alk would only do that. Could make some sense that my forest fire didgi is struggling if thats true.

 

[FragIt Dan]

I wish its been almost 10 days I beleive since I shut it off. I checked the ca yesterday and its still pegged. How do you know your at 580? I use the salifert test and I was lead to believe that once you get to the 500 mark after that its not acurate.

forgive my ignorance but high ca ca burn your corals? I thought that alk would only do that. Could make some sense that my forest fire didgi is struggling if thats true.

I can only assume high Ca will burn your corals based on a couple of experiences I have had. Both times the same coral was showing some early signs of melting. I tested for a bunch of stuff and both times my Ca had drifted up to the 570-580 ppm level. I stopped dosing Ca for several days (this tank consumes about 20ppm Ca/day) and the coral stopped melting. It took a couple of weeks to recover after that, but it was enough of a smoking gun for me to believe it was the Ca. Nothing to 'prove' it, but good enough for me to be comfortable that it was the Ca. As for the Salifert Ca test kit being inaccurate above 500ppm... I have not heard this and can see no mechanism that would explain this. The kit is based on a simple titration, which conceptually should work up to whatever level your Ca is at. It is possible parts A and B need to be increased slightly to fully react with the increased Ca, but I am under the impression Salifert has you 'overdo' it enough with these to give accurate results up to the point where I was testing. I can see rumors starting about inaccuracies because the guide sheet only goes up to 500ppm, but you just need to start another syringe and manually add the two values to each other. There would be a loss of a bit of accuracy there, but I have a feeling the 'innaccuracy' is more rumor than anything (but this is just a hunch, I don't know this for sure). I am comfortable enough with my test results above 500ppm to not question the accuracy, but that is just me .

 

[fishguy597]

You know what that was my initial thought with filling up the syringe again and go from there. to be honest I forgot what I had but I know it took most of the second dose. I measured on Monday and I was at 510 with the second syringe. Ill trust your experience cuz most of this hobby is trial and error.
thanks for your help Dan and everyone.
BTW I did a half dose this morning to help spread it out. I didn't have time to test but I will when I get home and add accordingly .