Alkalinity help!

johnyboy · Dec 5, 2016

Hey reefers

So I just bought a Hanna checker because I ran out of my Red Sea test kit and I realized my alk dropped down to 6 dkh which is horrible. I ran out of esv and instead of buying it at my fish store I bought it online for cyber Monday, so my tank went a few days without dosing which is why it dropped so much I'm guessing. The good thing is that everything in my tank is doing great nothing is suffering. But I need to get it back up becfore something bad happens. I have a 75 gallon and I been dosing 15 ml of alk and calcium everyday instead of every other day to get it back up. Is this enough to brin it back up or should I increase the dosage? Will this take care of it or are there other things I can do with this to bring it back up? The only thing I noticed is that my SPS stopped growing. Will bringing the alk up help? Thanks !

twilliard · Dec 5, 2016

You are on the right track.
Test daily till you reach your target.
Are you testing calcium also since you are adding equal amounts?

reefwiser · Dec 5, 2016

You need to check your alk over the coarse of the day to see how much you are using across that time. You are not really dosing a lot of alk for 75 gallon tank. How many SPS do you have.? I have a 40 Gallon and dose 42 ml of alk and cal to keep up the the corals demands. How are you dosing by hand? Or dosing pump. It's best to dose over the coarse of a day other than all at one time.

johnyboy · Dec 5, 2016

twilliard said:
You are on the right track.
Test daily till you reach your target.
Are you testing calcium also since you are adding equal amounts?

Yes my calcium is fine. I it starts to go out of wack what do I do? Do I dose less calcium than alk if it's lower? I know they have a relationship and effect each other.

johnyboy · Dec 5, 2016

reefwiser said:
You need to check your alk over the coarse of the day to see how much you are using across that time. You are not really dosing a lot of alk for 75 gallon tank. How many SPS do you have.? I have a 40 Gallon and dose 42 ml of alk and cal to keep up the the corals demands. How are you dosing by hand? Or dosing pump. It's best to dose over the coarse of a day other than all at one time.

I don't have big colonies I have a lot of small frags growing. I dose by hand. I know it's not good to dose all and calcium together because you get he snow effect so I dose alk in the morning and then calcium later on in the day. What's the soonest I can dose calcium after he alk dose? And I think it's so low because I ran out and ordered online and didn't dose for a couple of days.

twilliard · Dec 5, 2016

You do not have to add equal amounts for adjustments.
If you want to raise alk add just that watching your cal

ReefNerd76 · Dec 5, 2016

I had the same issue, my DKH was 12 and over the course of 3 days it dropped to 7.7. I dose lime water or Kalkwasser, so I went on bulk reef supply dosing calculator and looked it up and it said to dose 18oz of kalkwasser. So I added this to my auto top off and it's still 7.7. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh and my calcium was 450 when my Alkalinity was 12dkh and it's still 450 with my Alkalinity at 7.7

johnyboy · Dec 5, 2016

ReefNerd76 said:
I had the same issue, my DKH was 12 and over the course of 3 days it dropped to 7.7. I dose lime water or Kalkwasser, so I went on bulk reef supply dosing calculator and looked it up and it said to dose 18oz of kalkwasser. So I added this to my auto top off and it's still 7.7. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh and my calcium was 450 when my Alkalinity was 12dkh and it's still 450 with my Alkalinity at 7.7

Kalkswasser is only effect at maintaining the calcium and alk and keeping it stable. It's not effective at raising levels. I'm dosing esv. My calcium is 440 and my mag is 1250 it's just my alk that's low. I got my esv shipment So hopefully it will go up again soon.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 6, 2016

johnyboy said:
Kalkswasser is only effect at maintaining the calcium and alk and keeping it stable. It's not effective at raising levels. I'm dosing esv. My calcium is 440 and my mag is 1250 it's just my alk that's low. I got my esv shipment So hopefully it will go up again soon.

It can be used to slowly raise alk levels, but not calcium since it will push alk too high to attain a calcium boost.