All Acroporas gone - Suddenly

TCK Corals
Jump to Last
Mattrg02 said:
What's hardest to accept is the obsessing over alkalinity that I've been doing for the past months. I was testing everything single dang day. Test, add some buffer. Test, add some buffer. I kept looking for a consistent pattern before I plunked down $200 on a solid doser. Some of the acros still have some flesh left, maybe they'll pull through? The PC rainbow is just sitting there as if nothing happened, over looking the mayhem down below, silently judging them all.
Click to expand...

Fwiw, I didn't really get things under control in my 100g until I got a doser. The tank is about 6 months old. It cycled nearly instantly and I started adding livestock at a rapid rate, including montis which started growing very quickly. Fortunately I hadn't dared to add acros yet, but keeping the alk level adequate while avoiding abrupt pH swings became pretty much impossible with manual dosing. I dosed into the sump and even used a drop bottle, but still I'd get these big swings, less results than I expected, and I'd be manually dosing several times a day. And of course no manual dosing at night. All of that instability vanished once I got it automated.

I'd guess that most aquarium shops don't recommend that people buy a doser immediately when they purchase a new system, but with some hobbyists, it might not be a bad idea. I wish I had.
 
Ecoscape Reef Rock
Just curious, how much were you dosing each time? You mentioned you dose 2x a day for a 17g tank? how much was the alk consumption?
 
I dose phosphates, daily, via neophos. I also dose nitrates about once a week or so. Don't have the same trouble keeping them up. My Hanna will show the expected phosphates amount an hour after dosing, but 8 hours later, zero phosphates again. My brown film algae has been growing wild lately. I have to clean my glass twice a day.
 
Deltec
rlman41299 said:
Just curious, how much were you dosing each time? You mentioned you dose 2x a day for a 17g tank? how much was the alk consumption?
Click to expand...

It drops about 0.3dkh a day when it's getting used, sometimes it doesn't drop at all. I dose about 0.15dkh morning, before work, then when I get home from work. Sometime I'll give it a dose at night, before bed. This was "working" before I tried to raise it higher, too fast. I didn't intend to go up the 0.7dkh in one day, it just jumped up there when I thought I had raised it 0.5dkh (was going on vacation)
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
Nutramar Foods
Okay. What’s your PH? The reason I ask is with a small water volume and SPS, when your lights go off at night, your ph maybe dropping dangerously low. That’s a stretch, I know.

Now with the kent dkh buffer. From reading about it, it’s designed to adjust PH and alkalinity at the same time. It has borate in it and your corals don’t up take borate. So if you have been using it for a long time, your water may have an excess of it in it. What’s excessive and is it harmful to your tank? Don’t know.

If your chasing alkalinity with this stuff, your ph maybe jumping all over the place.

If your PH drops low each day, a better way to add alkalinity and get a PH boost would be with baked baking soda. (Sodium carbonate)

If your PH stays in the safe zone, above 7.5, then use baking soda ( sodium bicarbonate)

Make into solution with this:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

I use this calculator for calcium, alkalinity and magnesium:

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

I use good old “arm and hammer “ baking soda for my alkalinity dosing. I don’t bake it because my PH is always in th low 8’s.
 
Last edited:
Flippers4pups said:
Okay. What’s your PH? The reason I ask is with a small water volume and SPS, when your lights go off at night, your ph maybe dropping dangerously low. That’s a stretch, I know.

Now with the kent dkh buffer. From reading about it, it’s designed to adjust PH and alkalinity at the same time. It has borate in it and your corals don’t up take borate. So if you have been using it for a long time, your water may have an excess of it in it. What’s excessive and is it harmful to your tank? Don’t know.

If your PH drops low each day, a better way to add alkalinity and get a PH boost would be with baked baking soda. (Sodium carbonate)

If your PH stays in the safe zone, above 7.5, then use baking soda ( sodium bicarbonate)

Make into solution with this:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

I use this calculator for calcium, alkalinity and magnesium:

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

I use good old “arm and hammer “ baking soda for my alkalinity dosing.
Click to expand...

My pH drops to 7.7 and gets up to 8 max, during the day. I don't notice any ph changes after dosing the dkh buffer.
 
You adding too much stuff to your tank.
You think you have undetectable P04 but you don't.
You need to do a second opinion on your test results.
17 gal tank you can keep up the parameters easily with a 5 to 7 gallon water change.
As we say in this hobby "stop chasing the numbers" keep it simple.
 
www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com
Diesel said:
You adding too much stuff to your tank.
You think you have undetectable P04 but you don't.
You need to do a second opinion on your test results.
17 gal tank you can keep up the parameters easily with a 5 to 7 gallon water change.
As we say in this hobby "stop chasing the numbers" keep it simple.
Click to expand...

I usually do a 20% change either weekly or biweekly. Alkalinity drops too much inbetween, hence the buffer. My corals had paled out badly before adding the nitrates and phosphates, which is why I keep that up. They went from bleached to green.
 
Tidal Gardens
IMHO, I would stop using the Kent dkh buffer. It adds and adjusts to many aspects at once. Any future adjustments of dkh I would use the sodium bicarbonate solution and use the dosing calculator and go slow with it.

Though keeping SPS in a small volume tank isn’t unheard of, but it is very difficult to do long term.
 
Flippers4pups said:
IMHO, I would stop using the Kent dkh buffer. It adds and adjusts to many aspects at once. Any future adjustments of dkh I would use the sodium bicarbonate solution and use the dosing calculator and go slow with it.

Though keeping SPS in a small volume tank isn’t unheard of, but it is very difficult to do long term.
Click to expand...

Would that be due to the borate content? Will baking soda lower my already low pH?
 
Tidal Gardens
Don’t know about the borate effects. Sometime ago Randy Holmes Farley chimed in on the use of buffers, kent as well in regarding borate. He didn’t know it’s effects other than corals didn’t take it in and could become excessive over time.

Buffers can elevate salt content with prolonged use, so checking your SG in your DT is a good idea, especially in a small system.

Regarding baking soda use as a alkalinity source and PH, if your ph is low, using baked baking soda will give a temporary boost in ph. Regular baking soda will have a lowering effect on ph short term.

I don’t chase ph in my system. I only adjust alkalinity as needed. I also use calcium hydroxide (kalkwasser, aka “pickling lime”) in my ATO water. In a small system it maybe better to dose than in a ATO. This has to do with how much evaporation is in your tank.
 
Flippers4pups said:
Don’t know about the borate effects. Sometime ago Randy Holmes Farley chimed in on the use of buffers, kent as well in regarding borate. He didn’t know it’s effects other than corals didn’t take it in and could become excessive over time.

Buffers can elevate salt content with prolonged use, so checking your SG in your DT is a good idea, especially in a small system.

Regarding baking soda use as a alkalinity source and PH, if your ph is low, using baked baking soda will give a temporary boost in ph. Regular baking soda will have a lowering effect on ph short term.

I don’t chase ph in my system. I only adjust alkalinity as needed. I also use calcium hydroxide (kalkwasser, aka “pickling lime”) in my ATO water. In a small system it maybe better to dose than in a ATO. This has to do with how much evaporation is in your tank.
Click to expand...

I chose against kalk since my evaporation and my alkalinity uptake are very variable.

It would seem that I'm going to have to get a dosing pump and controller to do this right, no?

I'm guessing that montiporas aren't as sensitive to changes, huh?
 
TCK Corals

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%

  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%

  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%

  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
See comments…

New Posts

Tidal Gardens
Top Shelf Aquatics
World Wide Corals
Deltec
Dinkins Aquatic Gardens
Nutramar Foods
Chewy.com
TCK Corals
New Posts
Back
Top