Alkalinity?

[SharkBite]

hello there I’m a newbie here and have a question that is driving me crazy,
I currently have a mixed reef 125 gal this is my 4th upgrade I actually started with a 26gal to test it out since I belonged to the dark side (fresh water fish) lol.

Now the situation is this, my calcium and alkalinity have always dropped proportionally together and always dosed kalkwasser, its been 4 months now since the upgrade to the 125gal but this time my alkalinity has stayed put between 11.2-12kh I normally kept it at 10kh so it’s kind of high for my liking, corals are happy and growing including the sps I understand stability is more important but the anomaly I see is the alkalinity is not going down at all, I have not dose any kalk in weeks, I have a daily consumption of calcium of 10ppm, but alkalinity isn’t moving I had to dose calcium chloride alone from BRS, because kalk would also rise the alkalinity... based on my experience that’s not normal I have asked in a couple of my LFS, search in the net, watch a bunch of videos no one gives me an answer... how come alkalinity isn’t being consumed?
thank you and hope one of you have some insight for me...

Last readings today.
Salinity 1.024
Nitrates- 3
Phosphates - 0.10
PH - 8.2
Calcium- 460
Magnesium - 1440
Alkalinity -11

 

[Crabs McJones]

Welcome to R2R!

#WelcometoR2R
What test kit are you using to determine your levels?

 

[HB AL]

Assuming tests are correct its possible corals are not happy and have stopped growing, keep a close eye on them, look for browning, stn, anything if they start looking not like normal, just a thought.

 

[SPR1968]

Firstly welcome to R2R @SharkBite !

What salt are you using and how often do you do water changes?

If for example your using Red Sea Coral Pro, it mixes to a high Alkalinity of around 12.5dKH so I was wondering if something like that might be the cause?

PS great looking tank by the way!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I have a daily consumption of calcium of 10ppm, but alkalinity isn’t moving I had to dose calcium chloride alone from BRS, because kalk would also rise the alkalinity... based on my experience that’s not normal I have asked in a couple of my LFS, search in the net, watch a bunch of videos no one gives me an answer... how come alkalinity isn’t being consumed?
]

While it is easy to suggest a solution, I would caution that the premise is not likely really true. There is no way for a tank to actually consume 10 ppm calcium per day and not alkalinity.

Perhaps you are adding alkalinity some other way and do not realize it, or water changes with a low calcium high alk mix (such as normal IO) is causing it.

 

[SharkBite]

Hello everyone, I do use Coral Pro I was doing 10gal water changes weekly, whe. Man i first caught the high alkalinity it was to almost 13KH that was three weeks ago and I decided then to stop the water changes within the first week alkalinity went Down to the 11’s Range but it’s being there for the last two weeks. I’m not doing anything different than i’ve Done in the last 6-years, Corals actually look happy and colorful no browning, i’ve Been using Red Sea test and at first thought it was a defective test so I also bought an API test and test both at the same time, numbers are matching.... I normally dose iodide, strontium, phytoplankton and Reef Chilli alternating days, and feed one cube of well rinsed frozen Kryll, and this week started dosing reef energy and trace colors from Red Sea and hand an excellent coral reaction..

 

[SharkBite]

Welcome to R2R!

#WelcometoR2R
What test kit are you using to determine your levels?

Originally use Red Sea test since I gave this a thought I’m also using API test as well numbers pretty much matching

 

[SharkBite]

Assuming tests are correct its possible corals are not happy and have stopped growing, keep a close eye on them, look for browning, stn, anything if they start looking not like normal, just a thought.

Believe or not Corals seem excellent, started dosing reef energy and trace-colors from Red Sea this week and had an even better color reaction

 

[SharkBite]

Firstly welcome to R2R @SharkBite !

What salt are you using and how often do you do water changes?

If for example your using Red Sea Coral Pro, it mixes to a high Alkalinity of around 12.5dKH so I was wondering if something like that might be the cause?

PS great looking tank by the way!

Hello there tanks, I do use Coral Pro and for the same reason I haven’t done water changes in three weeks now, but numbers are steady

 

[SharkBite]

Hello there tanks, I do use Coral Pro and for the same reason I haven’t done water changes in three weeks now, but numbers are steady

While it is easy to suggest a solution, I would caution that the premise is not likely really true. There is no way for a tank to actually consume 10 ppm calcium per day and not alkalinity.

Perhaps you are adding alkalinity some other way and do not realize it, or water changes with a low calcium high alk mix (such as normal IO) is causing it.

Hello thanks for the reply, I actually haven’t done any water changes since I noticed the situation, I did add GFO reactor but highly doubt that is causing the problem

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I do not think the calcium is continuing down when the alk is stable. There is no mechanism for that to happen. Don't be fooled by short term testing which is very prone to wrong conclusions since the results can be variable.

With that salt mix, if alk is normal to high, calcium will be fine.

I do not recommend that you dose calcium.

 

[SharkBite]

Hello everyone, thanks for all the help and comments , my friend brought his Salfire test, I use Red Sea and also have API we tested his tank water, and a new 10gal batch of water all pretty much match,when we tested my tank water readings were all different all over the place... i remember at the BRSTV hearing that when parameters are too high test might not read properly, at the end of the day I just waited out and see what happens, it seem like my calcium/alkalinity/magnesium were so high that the test were actually lying. After a couple of weeks and calcium readings reach a real 500 reading I began to have steady readings... thank you all for the comments and help, I hope this experience helps someone in the future, p.s. I am clueless of why my parameters got so high.... keeping an eye on it....