ALK drop in 18 hours....

[Rskiba]

Oh - yes, I am using Red Sea blue bucket salt.

 

[ReefHunter006]

In my experience, I believe your going to find that alk rapidly depletes in new systems.


My parameters are confirmed back to salifert and Hanna weekly so I know they are as accurate as I can get them.

I too use blue bucket.

My frag tank is 100 gallons and uses 6000mls of kalk roughly.

My 6 month old display of 240 gallons uses ~ 7000mls of kalk and still falling. You can ignore the spike, reagent ran out. I have a decent amount of coraline but I had to run kalk day 1. No coral in this display at the time frame I’m quoting the kalk numbers from. Tester sps when in last week.

It has been my experience that the only tanks that don’t have this percipitation problem are those that have sub 8ph systems. The shift between low ph and moderate ph causes a huge change.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Both production of nitrate and precipitation of calcium carbonate onto the sand will lower alkalinity.

New bare sand that has not yet been coated with organics/magnesium/phosphate is especially prone to this happening.

 

[Rskiba]

Both production of nitrate and precipitation of calcium carbonate onto the sand will lower alkalinity.

New bare sand that has not yet been coated with organics/magnesium/phosphate is especially prone to this happening.

Maybe this is my entire "problem" right here! I had thought that it was something related to a young tank, but this would explain what is going on. I was trying to tie it to usage of the elements by the small coral frags, but my implementation of bare rock and bare sand explains a lot!

Thank you.

 

[Rskiba]

If this is truly is what is going on (no reason to doubt it), how long will this usage persist because of the new tank (system)? Should I keep dosing at this point to maintain the levels or just rely on water changes?

 

[StatelineReefer]

I know you're asking Randy at this point, but I'm going to chime in again and say the small amounts of alkalinity and calcium you're losing would best be served with water changes until your biome establishes and organism uptake of calcium and alkalinity commence.

 

[Rskiba]

I am just afraid that my ALK is going to go too low and cause other issues if I wait for a weekly water change. With CAL at 428 and MG 1372 this is the ALK graph. The large peak is my Trident calibration. I did a 15% water change last night as well. The Trident numbers after the peak are midnight (7.55), 6AM (7.53)and noon (7.27) readings. MG and CAL are staying steady and just ALK is dropping.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If it drops below 7 dKH, I'd just keep it up with small amounts of baking soda dissolved in RO/DI.

Are you tracking nitrate?

 

[Rskiba]

Yes, Nitrate was at 10 -15 ppm prior to water change. So just add the baking soda then and not CAL or MG if they stay level?

 

[xCry0x]

Be sure to stir your sand.

I've had sand turn to concrete when I had huge alk consumption.

 

[HBtank]

I know you're asking Randy at this point, but I'm going to chime in again and say the small amounts of alkalinity and calcium you're losing would best be served with water changes until your biome establishes and organism uptake of calcium and alkalinity commence.

Salt isn’t cheap, why is this preferable?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yes, Nitrate was at 10 -15 ppm prior to water change. So just add the baking soda then and not CAL or MG if they stay level?

Yes, I’d start with that. You may find you need both, but calcium is slower to respond, and if the alk drop is from nitrate production, that consumes no calcium.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Salt isn’t cheap, why is this preferable?

it is never cheaper, unless you are doing the water changes already for other reasons.