Very low Alk need advice

C

Crackem

New member
I have been lazy and stopped testing my parameters. It's been a few months. I recently noticed a bleached coral and others had rtn. I tested my alk a few min ago and it's at 4.7dkh. How fast should I try to get to 7dkh? I'm using Drews dosers for alk,ca, mag, and kalk.
My Kalk runs every 30 min 24/7
Alk runs 4min per hour at 1.6ml and its 24/7
Calcium is at 3:50 sec every hour but it runs on the half hour 24/7

I'm about to do the math to figure out how much to increase my dosage but need to know if I should bump from 4.7 to about 6dkh or go to 7dkh in 24 hours?
 
Just tested calcium and it was too high for salifert to register.
Mag is at 1425

For now I doubled my dosing time on Alk and stopped calcium until I can get a measurement.
I was dosing 153 ml of Alk and now I'm doing 306ml
Total water volume on my 72 bowfront is around 55 gallons
I will retest parameters in approximately 24 hours.

Usually my Alk is between 8-9.5 so not sure what went wrong.
 
Just found out why my Alk is low. I refilled the jug October 4th and for some reason it hasn't been dosing. My container is under a sink and it's hard to see the levels without a flash light. Now I need to figure out why it's not dripping.
 
I had this problem once before with my kalk container so the first thing I did was make the hole in the cap bigger I guess to let some air in and it worked. Unfortunately my Alk was not dripping for over a month so some of my corals have bleached at the base. I have a lot of overgrowth and warfare going on in my tank so I didn't notice till now.
 
Tested Alk and calcium
Alk is at 5.71
Calcium is still to high to get a reading on salifert.

Should I raise Alk to 7.0 over 12 hours or 24? Or should I try to bring it up faster?
So far in 24 hours it's only gone up from 4.7 to 5.7
Only thing I'm dosing is Alk
 
Ok I'm confused. I used the Brs calculator last night and somehow I got 153ml to raise my Alk from 4.70 to around 6dkh. I estimated my total volume to be 55 gallons. I'm not sure how I got 153ml cause now it is showing only 54ml.
What's strange is my Alk only went up to 5.71dkh and I dosed 153ml.

What am I doing wrong? Also before any of this happened I was actually dosing 153/ml per day and maintaining between 8-10 dkh
 
You must have a lot of SPS? Your dosing seems to be getting on the high side. Your not seeing any precipitation on pumps or anything?

Also are you using Kalk for your top off?

I've never had problems raising my Alk by 1dkh per day.

Generally i like to use Baked baking soda. When i dose it i pour it into the overflow and let it go through my sump before going to the main tank.
 
I get 78 ml of the high-pH (sodium carbonate) recipe to raise 55g by 2 dKH. How long did you wait after dosing to measure?
 
I'm using brs 2 part premixed soda ash. I waited over 24 hours. Im on my way home to retest. I've been dripping about 200ml of soda ash for about 24 hours again. Maybe it's all precipitating out.
 




Unfortunately Some colonies have bleaching now near the base but these pics are from before this mistake
Hopefully they survive
 
Looks like its pretty full.

Have you tested your SG lately? The more 2 part you dose the more and faster your SG will climb.
 
I didn't know that chris and actually everytime i do a water change which is 4-6 weeks now i test sg and it's actually been high 1.027. I replace about 25 gallons with 1.024-1.025.
I noticed this a few months ago cause before that I was pretty steady at 1.026.
I also topoff with kalk.
 
Just tested Alk and it went down from 5.71 to 5.37dkh I was dosing 215ml of soda ash.
Is it safe to try to bring it up to 7dkh in 12 hours?
 
I think that a 12-hour schedule for raising the alkalinity should be fine. I'd watch for signs of precipitation, but that tank does have a lot of stony coral in it.
 
Looks like I raised it up too much to fast but hopefully I won't have more bleaching. Went from 5.37 to 8.17dkh in 12 hours. Now I need to figure out my consumption. My tanks overdue for a water change as well.
 
Alk is at 9.52 and I'm going to decrease dosage now and try to figure out consumption.
Calcium has been to high to register with salifert so I refilled syringe and I think my calcium is 725ppm.

I'm doing a water change on Sunday of about 25 gallons. I plan on letting calcium drop on its own till then.

I'm curious as to the effects of calcium in the 725 range?
Does anyone have experience with high calcium effects?
 
I haven't heard of any bad effects from a high calcium level other than precipitation. I wouldn't worry much over the short term, at least.
 
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