High alk....argg

[bubblewood]

Ok...looking for some good advice from you on my 240 full SPS system coming up on 1 year of running.
Here's some of the facts
Calcium reactor MRC twin chamber.
Typ -Cal, Alk, Mag.
Normal readings have been alk 7.8-8.2
Mag 1350 , calcium 420.
PH 8.10
Media in my reactor was just restock cause it was about 1/4 full.
Effluent is reading 6.7
Fairly quick drip (not a steady flow)
So I have noticed some of my SPS have lost a little color and a few has RTN.
My Alk test (Hanna) was reading 13.3!
Calcium (Red Sea) was at 320
Mag (Salifert) 1270
Not good...
So what I have done so far is did a 25% water change.
Slowed down the co2 and the effluent. This evening my alk is down to 11.98. I have been slowly manually dosing cal & mag.
The problem is I'm unable to get the alk to come down.
At this point I simply want to get back within normal ranges and maybe look into the GHL doser.
Any advice would be extremely helpful before I start having bigger issues that we all fear of.
Then any advice going from a reactor to a doser. Pros and cons.
Thanks !!!
Joe

 

[Uncle Luke]

It would turn off the reactor until your params stabalize to where you want them.

 

[xtlosx]

I just had an alk spike (downward) and lost a bunch of stuff, but was able to keep things alive that I fragged.. I noticed once the RTN sets in, it's a long road ahead..

Good luck and I hope you don't go through what I did! My alk dropped from 8.6 to 6.4 and once I stabilized the parameters back, it took weeks to see the effects.. but once things started to recede, there was no stopping it.

 

[bubblewood]

U have a reactor?

 

[bubblewood]

What cause ur alk to drop? Of u have a reactor what caused the issue?
Thanks

 

[xtlosx]

What cause ur alk to drop? Of u have a reactor what caused the issue?
Thanks

So my buddy was breaking down his tasnk, and brought over all of his mini colonies, and a bunch of frags. I figured it would drop, so I tested alk daily. For two weeks it did NOT drop, so I figured things were balanced? Well silly me I should've just used mty common sense, and sometime in week three+ it dropped, and hard...

I dose two part everyday and have kept my parameters stable enough for good growth, until this happened.. I still can't explain why it took almost three weeks for my alk to drop so much, would've figured it would happen within days.

 

[Blitzie]

It would turn off the reactor until your params stabalize to where you want them.

+1

Your normal readings look good and inline
But your latest numbers are very strange to say the least Your Alk is sky high (for me at least), calcium very low and mag good.

A reactor is a Balanced addition of calcium and alk so with your numbers the way they are I don't think it's a reactor problem. Do you have another set of test kits your could try before doing anything.
Why do you manually dose calcium and Mag while running a reactor. I keep my 150 stable with all 3 parameters using a single chamber reactor. I use the reborn media and I add zeomag to the reactor as well for the mag supplementation.

If the numbers are accurate shut the CO2 for the reactor off and just supplement calcium for now and let the alk drop slowly on its own. If the rtn moves to more corals then I might take a bigger swing with a massive water change.
Don't restart the reactor until the calcium and alkalinity are inline.

Good luck

 

[bubblewood]

I have used the Red Sea pro test kits (Cal) and use the Hanna (alk) and Salifert for mag. I was starting to manually dose for calcium but since the mag is off don't think it has been working. I have raised the cal up to 360. I also did a 25% water change last night and tested the alk this morning and it went back up. 12.6. It was at 11.7. I'm using Kent salt. I have some left over which I'm going to test that and see what it's at.

 

[bubblewood]

One other thing I want to mention is that my reactor comes on (co2) and goes off every 25-30 mins. Through out the entire day. Controlled by my apex the graph looks like a saw tooth chart. Is this typical for a (on - off) time period? If it's not typical what is yours guys period run at. I understand supply and demand will set this but it cycles a lot. . Maybe this reactor is not able to keep up?

Thoughts on this also would be helpful also.

 

[Blitzie]

Like This

yes that's normal as far as I am concerned.

 

[bubblewood]

What is the time frame between co2 on and off 20 mins, 40mins etc?
Thanks!!

 

[Blitzie]

15-18 minutes

 

[bubblewood]

So here's my update on this fiasco.

Alk is at 11.9

Cal = 400

Mag = 1400

I shut my co2 down as recommended. I'm going to recheck my alk in 7 hours.

I will continue manual dose my Calicum for a bit.

I also tested the alk on some fresh saltwater I had from last night. 10.7. Kent

I also plan on cleaning the entire reactor since it's off for a bit.