Alkalinity issues while out of town

[Oshanickreef]

Hello,

So I’m currently out of town. My trident is testing twice a day and I’m just watching my alk plummet. I have turned my doser to almost double (200ml per day). My system is full of sps colonies and the ph peak in the day is 8.45. Im also dosing saturated kalk (5000ml per day) but I’m gonna be honest I don’t really notice that the kalk does anything. Im sorta wondering if the alk is precipitating? Turning up my dose seems to make it drop faster.

Please help. My alk is down to 7.2 and that is lower than I like. I normally stay around 9 dkh.

Anyone have an idea of what’s happening? This happens every time I leave town.

 

[dwest]

Hello,

So I’m currently out of town. My trident is testing twice a day and I’m just watching my alk plummet. I have turned my doser to almost double (200ml per day). My system is full of sps colonies and the ph peak in the day is 8.45. Im also dosing saturated kalk (5000ml per day) but I’m gonna be honest I don’t really notice that the kalk does anything. Im sorta wondering if the alk is precipitating? Turning up my dose seems to make it drop faster.

Please help. My alk is down to 7.2 and that is lower than I like. I normally stay around 9 dkh.

Anyone have an idea of what’s happening? This happens every time I leave town.

When you leave there are fewer people in the house, so less CO2 and higher pH. Higher pH will cause alkalinity uptake to increase.

 

[Oshanickreef]

When you leave there are fewer people in the house, so less CO2 and higher pH. Higher pH will cause alkalinity uptake to increase.

I understand this. I just don’t understand why doubling my alk solution dosing to 200 ml per day from 100ml per day doesn’t change anything. It seems like it is making my alk drop faster?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I would not do anything while out of town if the alk is 7.2 dKH. That is perfectly fine and making mistakes while away can be very serious.

When you are back, you can assess whether there is problematic precipitation from the pH getting higher than normal, or if the testing is off, or whatever it may be.

 

[exnisstech]

I agree with Randy. Making major changes while out of town based on test results that may or may not be accurate seems pretty risky to me. The doser could even have a problem but there is no way to know anything for sure since your not present. JMO

 

[Naturalreef]

Whenever this happened to me, I had a clogged dosing line. I check them monthly now.

 

[Oshanickreef]

I would not do anything while out of town if the alk is 7.2 dKH. That is perfectly fine and making mistakes while away can be very serious.

When you are back, you can assess whether there is problematic precipitation from the pH getting higher than normal, or if the testing is off, or whatever it may be.

 

[Oshanickreef]

I would not do anything while out of town if the alk is 7.2 dKH. That is perfectly fine and making mistakes while away can be very serious.

When you are back, you can assess whether there is problematic precipitation from the pH getting higher than normal, or if the testing is off, or whatever it may be.

So I’m concerned as the alkalinity is now 6.3. I’m having a friend go over tomorrow to test with a hanna and check my dosing line. I am dosing kalk and 2 part and it is almost as if both stop working the second I walk out of my house. I see this happen every time I leave town. I’m not home for another week and I’m considering cancelling the trip early. Is there a way to decrease alk consumption? I don’t want to run a cal reactor but I feel like that would help. Maybe reduce my light schedule? Or better yet, sell everything and focus on kitesurfing?

 

[dwest]

So I’m concerned as the alkalinity is now 6.3. I’m having a friend go over tomorrow to test with a hanna and check my dosing line. I am dosing kalk and 2 part and it is almost as if both stop working the second I walk out of my house. I see this happen every time I leave town. I’m not home for another week and I’m considering cancelling the trip early. Is there a way to decrease alk consumption? I don’t want to run a cal reactor but I feel like that would help. Maybe reduce my light schedule? Or better yet, sell everything and focus on kitesurfing?

Because of the increased alkalinity consumption when I travel, I increase the 2 part addition pump by about 20%. My alkatronic then takes over as needed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So I’m concerned as the alkalinity is now 6.3. I’m having a friend go over tomorrow to test with a hanna and check my dosing line. I am dosing kalk and 2 part and it is almost as if both stop working the second I walk out of my house. I see this happen every time I leave town. I’m not home for another week and I’m considering cancelling the trip early. Is there a way to decrease alk consumption? I don’t want to run a cal reactor but I feel like that would help. Maybe reduce my light schedule? Or better yet, sell everything and focus on kitesurfing?

Alk consumption decreases as alk decreases, and as pH decreases. Using lower pH alk additives would reduce consumption.

 

[WallyTime7]

When I leave town it takes a good 36 hours to notice PH jumps with the lack of C02 in the household. Also, could be a delay if your windows are open then shut when you leave as well.
I'm in a well insulated house and tank in the basement and usually takes 24+ hours to notice a shift in when we leave. however when I open the windows when we're back I almost immediately notice the jump

Could also be two bad tests. I test against my trident weekly so I understand when a bad tests happens and not to overreact.

 

[JulesH]

I relied on an automatic tester when I was away from home. I made the mistake of increasing the dose of alkalinity from the results of the tester. That was a mistake as the test results were low, when I got home I found out the actually dKH was 15.0, luckily I did not nuke my tank. It turned out the problem was the viability of the test reagent which I had not factored in.

 

[Oshanickreef]

i ended up figuring out the issue... a few days before i went out of town i moved a powerhead from the sump section where my alk and kalk are dosing to my display for supplemental flow. that was a big mistake. I had a buddy go over and he said he saw a big white blob of alk/kalk solution in that section of my sump. so i asked him to put a pump in there and he told me which outlet for my apex and we tested that it worked. over the course of 24 hours i turned it on for a second and then off to mix the "blob" slowly. my ph initially spiked pretty significantly but it didnt seem to have an effect on my corals. my alk leveled out and returned back to normal and i was able to lower the dosage significantly. fast forward to today and my corals are all looking great.

thanks for all the help everyone!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

i ended up figuring out the issue... a few days before i went out of town i moved a powerhead from the sump section where my alk and kalk are dosing to my display for supplemental flow. that was a big mistake. I had a buddy go over and he said he saw a big white blob of alk/kalk solution in that section of my sump. so i asked him to put a pump in there and he told me which outlet for my apex and we tested that it worked. over the course of 24 hours i turned it on for a second and then off to mix the "blob" slowly. my ph initially spiked pretty significantly but it didnt seem to have an effect on my corals. my alk leveled out and returned back to normal and i was able to lower the dosage significantly. fast forward to today and my corals are all looking great.

thanks for all the help everyone!

Glad all is well!