Alkalinity and Calcium Not Rising

revhtree · Mar 7, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Are you now dosing sodium bicarbonate solution, or still sodium carbonate?

I am mixing the BRS solution and dosing that.

GoVols · Mar 7, 2017

revhtree said:
Yes

I'm not RH-F but it seems your tank is still precipitating from over dosing.

gcarroll · Mar 7, 2017

New tank, few corals no coralline algae! No one else sees a problem with him dosing 900ml/day? If not, I'll just pipe down. It just seems like a simple issue to me. Big time overdose.

GoVols · Mar 7, 2017

gcarroll said:
No one else sees a problem with him dosing 900ml/day?

lol
Yes, We see it

revhtree · Mar 7, 2017

I have been mixing the 2 Cups per gallon of the BRS Soda Ash.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 7, 2017

What is the alk now?

I'd stop dosing for a bit, then restart using baking soda.

revhtree · Mar 7, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
What is the alk now?

I'd stop dosing for a bit, then restart using baking soda.

Just checked and I'm at 9DKH. Was 8 yesterday and barely 9 today.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 7, 2017

If you are finding you need excessive dosing, letting it drop to 7 dKH is fine.

revhtree · Mar 7, 2017

When I let off for a few days it dropped to 6 so I started it back.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 7, 2017

OK, so let's try that again using sodium bicarbonate and only targeting 7 dKH.

revhtree · Mar 7, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
OK, so let's try that again using sodium bicarbonate and only targeting 7 dKH.

I don't understand. What do I do different?

billwill · Mar 7, 2017

Sorry to derail, and I've much enjoyed the five pages leading up to this, but have you considered a calcium reactor? Precipitation on pumps and heaters was a large reason I stopped 2 part dosing. I don't have that problem at all with calcium reactor. But I learned reading this post the reason why; my ph while dosing was 8.2 or so, but 7.8 or so with reactor.

leptang · Mar 7, 2017

Could a couple large water changes help? Maybe a 225g water change help speed up the mag. Levels

leptang · Mar 7, 2017

I've had this problem in my 80g system. If I didn't do regular large water changes I ended up with your problem. I did 50% water changes once a week for a month. After that I was able to maintain a the correct levels of the alk. cal. mag.

Frop · Mar 8, 2017

Didn't expect that

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 8, 2017

revhtree said:
I don't understand. What do I do different?

Dose baking soda, instead of sodium carbonate from BRS.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 8, 2017

leptang said:
I've had this problem in my 80g system. If I didn't do regular large water changes I ended up with your problem. I did 50% water changes once a week for a month. After that I was able to maintain a the correct levels of the alk. cal. mag.

FWIW, I'm not a fan of using water changes to deal with calcium and alkalinity issues. I don't see any issues that it is likely to correct (that impact calcium and alkalinity) that could not be corrected more easily in other ways.