Alkalinity dropping fast

BradB · Jan 8, 2016

3 years ago, I had a perfectly tuned Calcium reactor, which worked well but was a pain. Unfortunately, a tripped circuit breaker when I was out of town wiped out almost everything, and my wife wanted me to move the tank. I slowly restarted from frags, planning on using kalkwasser temporarily, which turned into kalkwasser + 2 part for 3 years. I never wanted to go back to fiddling with the reactor again.

Last week, I noticed white on the bottoms of my Acropora, tested Alkanity, and was horrified to see it barely at 5 dKH. I shot it up to 8 dKH. I was worried raising it to slow would be worse than raising it to fast.

I decided to buy a doser, and use that instead, so I went a few days without dosing, and noticed I am losing over 0.3 dKH per day. I have a lot of Acro's, but am still recovering from a near take over by Xenia, so my coral is in horrible shape (dead, bleached, or no growth). Is it normal to use this much? Or do I have another problem?

Magnesium always runs high in my tank, I've never added non-balanced additives, and occasionally spot-check calcium (seems right), but not often.

gcrawford · Jan 8, 2016

If you like a cal rx, try a geo. I have two on two systems that work amazingly well and I rarely touch them. No dosing, corals grow and color like crazy.

gcrawford · Jan 8, 2016

Forgot to mention, ph is controlled by Apex controllers. It's a sweet combo.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 9, 2016

BradB said:
3 years ago, I had a perfectly tuned Calcium reactor, which worked well but was a pain. Unfortunately, a tripped circuit breaker when I was out of town wiped out almost everything, and my wife wanted me to move the tank. I slowly restarted from frags, planning on using kalkwasser temporarily, which turned into kalkwasser + 2 part for 3 years. I never wanted to go back to fiddling with the reactor again.

Last week, I noticed white on the bottoms of my Acropora, tested Alkanity, and was horrified to see it barely at 5 dKH. I shot it up to 8 dKH. I was worried raising it to slow would be worse than raising it to fast.

I decided to buy a doser, and use that instead, so I went a few days without dosing, and noticed I am losing over 0.3 dKH per day. I have a lot of Acro's, but am still recovering from a near take over by Xenia, so my coral is in horrible shape (dead, bleached, or no growth). Is it normal to use this much? Or do I have another problem?

Magnesium always runs high in my tank, I've never added non-balanced additives, and occasionally spot-check calcium (seems right), but not often.

0.3 dKH per day? That is very small, actually. My tank does not have SPS and I add about 2 dKH per day.

Most people use about 0.5 to 4 dKH per day.

cginter · Jan 9, 2016

I use roughly 160ml/day for cal and alk. I think that's around 2-3dkh/day. .3dkh a day isn't bad at all. Jus bump up your doses

BradB · Jan 9, 2016

I guess coral uses more than I thought, no wonder I couldn't keep up with kalkwasser. Definitely not going back to a reactor anytime soon.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 9, 2016

FWIW, one can often add 2 dKH per day with limewater as long as you replace all evaporated water with it. That is all I add for calcium and alkalinity. Adding 1.25% of the total water volume in saturated limewater adds 1.4 dKH per day.