Alk down to 5.4 dkh

Reefs and Geeks · Jan 17, 2020

My alk has been Rock solid at 9.9 for months, but missed checking it recently. It's been 10 days since I last checked it when it was still at the usual 9.9 and now it's down to just 5.4 dkh. pH is at 7.9 currently after the lights have been off a couple hours.

Found the issue was my alk doser was switched off, seemingly for the last 4 or 5 days based off how much it has dropped. Not sure if it was me or my toddler that bumped the switch, but I will be finding a good way to make sure it doesn't happen again.

In the meantime, how quickly should I be raising my alk back up? Somehow all of my coral are doing very well. I noticed a torch looked like it's tenticles were a bit less puffed up, but otherwise all other coral are looking pretty normal. I'm trying to be careful and keep them happy and carefully raise it back up, but also don't want to subject them to such a low alk for long. I just manually dosed to raise it by about .7, so should be about 6.1 or so now. I'll bump up my doser to more gradually bring it up over the course of the day for a while untill it eventually gets back to normal. Wish me luck.

Any other advice for things go be careful of when bringing all back up?

Sierra_Bravo · Jan 17, 2020

I've done this. I raised mine .5 dKH per day with no ill effects.

Tamberav · Jan 17, 2020

Reefs and Geeks said:
My alk has been Rock solid at 9.9 for months, but missed checking it recently. It's been 10 days since I last checked it when it was still at the usual 9.9 and now it's down to just 5.4 dkh. pH is at 7.9 currently after the lights have been off a couple hours.

Found the issue was my alk doser was switched off, seemingly for the last 4 or 5 days based off how much it has dropped. Not sure if it was me or my toddler that bumped the switch, but I will be finding a good way to make sure it doesn't happen again.

In the meantime, how quickly should I be raising my alk back up? Somehow all of my coral are doing very well. I noticed a torch looked like it's tenticles were a bit less puffed up, but otherwise all other coral are looking pretty normal. I'm trying to be careful and keep them happy and carefully raise it back up, but also don't want to subject them to such a low alk for long. I just manually dosed to raise it by about .7, so should be about 6.1 or so now. I'll bump up my doser to more gradually bring it up over the course of the day for a while untill it eventually gets back to normal. Wish me luck.

Any other advice for things go be careful of when bringing all back up?

Raise it gradually. Don't freak about low alk. I let mine sit at 5.0 with no I'll effects then found a very nice SPS tank on another forum that runs his 4.8-5.4. His reactor is wide open and he doesn't want to dose 2 part so it remains low and looks beautiful

I

Reefs and Geeks · Jan 17, 2020

Thanks guys, I just set my doser to dose .3 dkh more than usual daily and will be testing daily until it gets back up to normal.

TheGulag · Jan 17, 2020

Don't know how many times a day you are dosing but there is a good chance that it swings more then 1dkh a day so raising by that amount shouldn't be an issue. Something others have mentioned on this forum many times. No harm in taking it slow though.

Reefs and Geeks · Jan 17, 2020

I am dosing 12 times a day, each dose is about .1dkh, give or take. used to do manual doses once a day of 1.1dkh, but stopped that a few months ago when I got my doser.

Reefer40b · Jan 17, 2020

Tamberav said:
Raise it gradually. Don't freak about low alk. I let mine sit at 5.0 with no I'll effects then found a very nice SPS tank on another forum that runs his 4.8-5.4. His reactor is wide open and he doesn't want to dose 2 part so it remains low and looks beautiful

Exactly, you will see far more damage if increased fast, slow, real slow back up. A lot of people just react and then next thing they know is the whole tank is RTN'ing.