Alk dropping during night?

[JCOLE]

Hello everyone! I have had the Trident up and running for over a month now and loving the results. I have noticed that my Alk will climb up from 12pm-9pm then it will drop around 11pm-6am. Seems like the corals are consuming the Alk at night. Is this normal?

 

[Reefer1978]

I am guessing you are dosing? Alk consumption changes with the light cycle. If you are dosing a steady amount through something like DOS through out the day, you should have a nice sin curve. I am also curious if o2/co2 content of the water changes Trident reading. Can you post Alk & Dosing charts?

 

[JCOLE]

I am guessing you are dosing? Alk consumption changes with the light cycle. If you are dosing a steady amount through something like DOS through out the day, you should have a nice sin curve. I am also curious if o2/co2 content of the water changes Trident reading. Can you post Alk & Dosing charts?

Yes. I am using kalk in my ATO and running a CaRX. Levels are pretty consistent. It just seems like it's being consumed the most at night and then going back up during the day. I will post the Trident results when I get to work in a little bit.

 

[eraser2001]

I have a trident too, my results are opposite than you, my alk increases in the night after lights go off and decreases with lights are on. I have Carx and kalkwasser too, but I turn off the Carx and kalk is mixed in a reactor to have more control.
Maybe your ato is not dosing water in the night, so that is reason your alk drops

 

[JCOLE]

I have a trident too, my results are opposite than you, my alk increases in the night after lights go off and decreases with lights are on. I have Carx and kalkwasser too, but I turn off the Carx and kalk is mixed in a reactor to have more control.
Maybe your ato is not dosing water in the night, so that is reason your alk drops

I thought the same thing. However, I log my ATO pump and it is consistent with daytime readings. It comes on almost every hour.

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

Things like this make me want to get an apex to see everything that my tank is doing!!! Fighting the urge to buy one is sometimes the hardest things.... I guess its similar to that of a drug addict in rehab....

to add to your post, I was testing mornings and evenings there for a while and I noticed Alk drops in my tank on morning tests and rises at evening tests, I would go with the coral consumption during photosynthesis.

ill be back in a bit, i'm going to look at Apex prices.....


Barnabie

 

[eraser2001]

I thought the same thing. However, I log my ATO pump and it is consistent with daytime readings. It comes on almost every hour.

How often you put kalk in your ato?
Normally my sps take alk when lights are on.
What kind of corals do you have?

 

[vetteguy53081]

very typical for it to drop. Dose alk at night (which is when you need it ! )

 

[JCOLE]

Things like this make me want to get an apex to see everything that my tank is doing!!! Fighting the urge to buy one is sometimes the hardest things.... I guess its similar to that of a drug addict in rehab....

to add to your post, I was testing mornings and evenings there for a while and I noticed Alk drops in my tank on morning tests and rises at evening tests, I would go with the coral consumption during photosynthesis.

ill be back in a bit, i'm going to look at Apex prices.....


Barnabie

I love my Apex. I am not a fanboy but my Apex is a game changer! I am more in tune with my tank than I ever have.

 

[JCOLE]

How often you put kalk in your ato?
Normally my sps take alk when lights are on.
What kind of corals do you have?

I dose Kalk in my ATO 24/7. I mix up 5 gallon buckets at a time. I have an SPS dominate reef.

 

[JCOLE]

very typical for it to drop. Dose alk at night (which is when you need it ! )

This is why my next purchase is going to be the DOS so I can control dosing better at night.

 

[JCOLE]

This is from last week and this week. The big spikes came from me manually dosing ALK into the tank. After looking through the data I noticed some days it goes down while lights are on and other when lights are off. I wonder what is causing this? I dose Aminos and Strontium every day but I stagger them every 3 days. 1st day is Reef Trace, 2nd day is Reef Fuel, and 3rd day is Strontium. I wonder if something I am dosing is causing them to not consume during normal hours? I am going to monitor this more closely to see.