ALK spike every morning

[SeeFu]

I've been trying to figure out what's going on w/ my tank's alk every morning. it seems like every day from 12am to 6am the tank gains a lot of alk but then by 12pm it looses all of those gains. What I don't get is, i turn off my alk dosing from 12am-6am and my kwalkwasser is being dosed at a constant rate from 12am-12pm. my lights don't turn on till around 12pm. what could be causing this spike and then drop? TOday jsut for fun i decided to have trident run a test at 8am and it seems like by 8am, all of those gains from 12am-6am were gone.

Trident is set to test every 6 hrs 12am, 6am, 12pm, 6pm. the only exception is the last test which was 8am.

This isn't a huge change, its like maybe .25 dkh change, just curious what could be causing this.

 

[T-J]

Kalk will raise your alk. I'm guessing that when the kalk is running during the night, your corals aren't consuming as much calc/alk, hence the spike.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

First guess is that there's little to no alk demand late at night, and the kalkwasser is overpowering it, raising alk.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Beat me to it. lol

 

[SeeFu]

but what woudl cause the drop from 6am-12pm when my lights dont turn on till 12pm? The tanks not sitting in a well lit area of the house.

 

[SeeFu]

actually what woudl cause the drop from 6am to 8am when there's basically no light in that area of the house other than some ceiling lights.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

but what woudl cause the drop from 6am-12pm when my lights dont turn on till 12pm? The tanks not sitting in a well lit area of the house.

Corals ramping up calcification during the day.

Could also be other things, such as the feeding schedule and fish excretion of ammonia some time later when they digest the food.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

actually what woudl cause the drop from 6am to 8am when there's basically no light in that area of the house other than some ceiling lights.

It's well understood what things add and deplete alk, but I would not try to over interpret small changes.

FWIW, I cannot see these fine time distinctions on your graph. Some of the wiggling may just be test error.