Alkalinity Issues

ADLIGHT93 · Nov 10, 2018

Hey everyone I am having an alkalinity issue! I have recently (within the last 5 months) switched over to BRS 2 part from Kalkwasser. My calcium has been very stable around 480-460 ppm due to my salt mix and the alkalinity was initially around 7-6 and brought it up to around 9. I have kept everything pretty consistent with water chemistry and salinity. I am not chasing numbers by any means because all of my accopora and other sps (except for montipora) and coraline algae look great at both values.

My real issue is that even after I dose the alkalinity portion of the two part solution I can't see a change in dKH, No matter how much i dose it is stuck around 7. For around 4 months I was able to find the total uptake of the alk every day and replace it which came out to around .2 oz every day and was able to replace and keep the dKH around 9. Somewhere along the way it has dropped and won't get back up. I'm not sure what to make of it.......

When I did make the switch to the BRS 2 part I did noticed that all of my montipora started to fade in color every time i dosed the alk portion. I have since moved almost all of my montipora to a hospital tank and they are starting color back up. I have noticed its mostly the plating montipora takes the biggest hit in color loss, most of the encrusting was unaffected.

Has anyone else had this issue with raising alkalinity? Can a series of large water changes help with this issue?

PS- I am using the salifert test kits.

Mixed reef
Tank Size: 120 gal
Sump: Eshopps sump with refugium
Nitrate: ~1
Phosphate~1
Calcium: 460-480
Alk: 7 dKH
pH: 8.3
Temp: 79 F

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 10, 2018

Is suspect you just need to add more. The amount you are adding is not that much.

I presume you mean 2 oz and not 0.2 oz, but even 2 oz is only 0.7 dKH per day. Try twice as much if you want to see a higher daily average (but 7 dKH is also fine).

ADLIGHT93 · Nov 10, 2018

I just bumped up my doing pump and will see if I was just not dosing enough! Thanks for the help!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 10, 2018

You're welcome.

let us know what you find.

NU2REEFIN · Dec 30, 2018

I switched to the BRS two part a month ago from Seachem due to the cost difference. Nothing else was changed and my SPS have lost color and even started to STN. I switched back a week ago and have done two water changes as well and the STN has stopped. I know the color will take a while to regain but I don’t know what else to attribute it to other than that change.

NU2REEFIN · Dec 30, 2018

I switched to the BRS two part a few months ago from Seachem purely for the cost difference. My SPS have lost color and some had started to STN a few weeks ago. I switched back to Seachem a week ago and did a few small water changes and the STN has stopped. I know the color will take time to come back, but have nothing else to attribute the change to except the BRS two part.

ADLIGHT93 · Dec 30, 2018

I had to give it about a month and the SPS finally bounced back. The most important thing was to get the levels at the right point and maintain them. The corals will come back soon enough!

NU2REEFIN · Dec 30, 2018

Are you still using BRS?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 30, 2018

NU2REEFIN said:
I switched to the BRS two part a few months ago from Seachem purely for the cost difference. My SPS have lost color and some had started to STN a few weeks ago. I switched back to Seachem a week ago and did a few small water changes and the STN has stopped. I know the color will take time to come back, but have nothing else to attribute the change to except the BRS two part.

That cause seems unlikely, unless the change caused an increase or decrease in alkalinity due to potency differences.

NU2REEFIN · Dec 30, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
That cause seems unlikely, unless the change caused an increase or decrease in alkalinity due to potency differences.

The alkalinity level stayed well within my range (8.5-9). I also just found out a pretty prominent seller had the same problem when he switched to BRS.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 30, 2018

NU2REEFIN said:
The alkalinity level stayed well within my range (8.5-9). I also just found out a pretty prominent seller had the same problem when he switched to BRS.

People have problems all the time, and often do not know why. Since the sodium carbonate and calcium chloride sold by them are very popular, you can always find someone whose issue coincided with starting a popular product. If it was a problem, there would likely be many, many reported issues.

While I’m not saying it is impossible, it seems very unlikely that reef problems are being caused by bad batches of such simple and high quality graded bulk commercial materials as sodium carbonate and calcium chloride.