Need Alk help,please

[kissman]

I know there are tons of Alk threads. I have read through them. Every 3-4 days my alk drops down to 129ppm. I bring it back up to 150ish and within 3-4 days its back down to the 120's. Alk has been stable for a year at 8. I was only adding 1/2 tsp per gallon of kalk to RO/DI for top off. I added a CO2 Scrubber to get my ph from 7.8 during the day to 8.4 during the day. Since then my alk will not balance. Thursday I brought my alk up to 151ppm added 2 tsp per gallon of kalk and tonight I get home run a test and my alk is down to 129ppm. I auto dose during the day and night. Its a 55g tank. I have 3 SPS coral. My Calcium stays at 430 and Mag stays at 1440. I reagent is new for my Hanna Alk checker. I have double checked it with a Red Sea Coral Pro test kit and got the same reading. Any suggestions.? Like I said sorry for yet another ALK thread. Thanks a head of time for replys

 

[kissman]

i am thinking of adding a auto doser from BRS for Alk and dose alk on top of using kalk.

 

[Darthv247]

maybe the increased ph has increases the alk intake or it is precipitating out somewhere.

 

[kissman]

I haven't seen any new build up anywhere. I have always had a little on my heater in my sump but that's it


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[Dr. Reef]

honestly thats a drop of 1.2dkh every 3-4 days. i know tanks that consume 3-4 dkh per day. looks like the consumption of your tank has gone up and kalk is not keeping it up. you may have to start dosing on daily basis or get a cal reactor.

 

[kissman]

Need Alk help,please

I dose kalk everyday day in ATO, full strength.


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[kissman]

Need Alk help,please

So after doing some reading maybe I need to switch from Kalk to BRS 2 part with Sodium Bicarbonate that lowers my Ph instead of raising my Ph like Kalk does. My Ph runs at 8.4-8.5 before lights off. This is when this all happened when I raised my Ph from 7.8-8.0 to 8.4 in evening testing. I've been reading about Alk precipitation and sounds like that could be my issue with Kalk having such a high alkalinity


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[hkgar]

Are you testing at the same time you test? There is some relation between Alk and ph, probably not to the amount you are seeing, but worth a read.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2633292

Here is a link to a calculator to determine you Alk usage.

http://reef.diesyst.com/reactor/reactor.html

Use part 3. Adjusting the Ca Reactor While Using Additional Supplementation and flow from the reactor as 0 and the dKH of the reactor effluent 0

What is your evaporation rate? or, how many gallons of fully saturated Kalk are you adding per day?

 

[kissman]

I haven't looked at the links yet, will check those out this evening. I check my ph & alk in the evings every few days. My evaporation rate is 1 gallon a day. It's a 55g. So I add 1g of fully saturated kalk a day over a 24 hour period


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[kissman]

Need Alk help,please

I talked to Jason at BRS a few minutes ago and he stated that every tank they installed a CO2 Scrubber on the alk uptake doubled and had to switch to 2 part dosing to keep up.


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[bertoni]

That makes sense. Increasing the pH will encourage coral growth. I suspect that the tank just needs more supplement. Many tanks require Kalkwasser and some 2-part to keep up with growth. Kalk is a very dilute supplement.