alkalinity issues

[reef4beer]

Hello my alkinity is perfect but just wanted to see if we can start up a discussion on how to regulate alkalinity.

At my job we constantly have customers having issues with alkalinity raising by itself out of the roof and they just can't seem to lower it. Most of the customers have their calcium and ph in sync but can't seem to regulate the kh.

Anyone ever resolved issues like this?

I know I've heard of things like increasing flow, increasing surface movement, dosing vitamin c, or lowering PH.

Any feedback?

 

[JMSKI333]

Well I found that I am able to stabilize my Alk and PH by dosing my kalkwasser at night. Most people have their Kalk dose on a float valve which can trigger during the day and raise their Alk even more than it already does during the day. By dosing at night, my tank finds a controlled balence.

 

[mike007]

You have to balance alkalinty,calcium and magnesium. Thats why people use 2 part so they can dose equal parts and then test and if one is low they raise it. Magnesium plays a role in keeping alk. and ca. stable. To figure out how much of each to dose you have to get levels where you want them and the go a few days without adding and then retest to see how much of each you have lost . Then you can use one of the reef calculaters to determine how much you need to add daily to maintain levels. Alkalinty will not raise by itself you would have to be adding some sort of buffer and maybe these people are adding too much.

 

[reef4beer]

Customers aren't adding anything that would affect the alk level.

Only thing they are adding is balance by aqua vitro seachem due to ph dropping. Calcium is stable at 480 - 500

 

[ritter6788]

No possible way for alk to raise itself without dosing something to the tank.

 

[Reefing Madness]

No possible way for alk to raise itself without dosing something to the tank.

Agreed. Unless they are topping off with a high grade reef salt and not using RO water or such. That would raise everything though, not just the dKH

 

[ritter6788]

Agreed. Unless they are topping off with a high grade reef salt and not using RO water or such. That would raise everything though, not just the dKH

or dosing buffer for pH and shooting alk through the roof?

Most of the customers have their ... ph in sync but can't seem to regulate the kh.

 

[rworegon]

or dosing buffer for pH and shooting alk through the roof?

+1 This is my guess. I would suggest not chasing numbers when it comes to PH. Alk, CA and Mag are the ones to keep stable and PH will take care of itself. It will run a cycle day and night and may drop some in the winter when there is less fresh air in the house, but I have found that topping off with Kalkwasser has solved many of my stability issues with Alk, and CA, as well as my PH seems to have fallen into line.

 

[beaslbob]

No possible way for alk to raise itself without dosing something to the tank.

I thought it was possible to raise alk somewhat by consuming carbon dioxide. Like with macro algae.

but then that's probably and mainly just a pH thing.

my .02