Can’t get Alkalinity to rise?

[Pete Hammersley]

Hi, I’ve had a fish and LPS / softie coral system for a few years now, so fairly familiar with all the regular nitrate, phosphate, ammonia, salinity tests etc....
I have 6 months ago gone to a Red Sea reefer 750, and 1 month ago put 15 small sps frags in. Now it’s have the additional task now of dosing, for which I have chose the Red Sea foundation range. I cannot get Alkalinity to rise?
I have done lots of research before all this happened, and remember that low magnesium was a likely culprit of this, but if anything it’s a little too high at 1480.
Water parameters are:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 1
Phosphate - 0.1
Calcium - 450
Alkalinity - 7.8
Magnesium - 1480
Salinity 34 /35

I have dosed 70 ml of bottle B 4 times, 3 days apart but the alk will not rise?
Any thoughts?

thanks.

 

[dbowman5]

What alk test are you using?
if you are confident of it can you test a batch of fresh SW with a known addition of B then retest. your alk should rise. if it does then your tank is chewing up hardness/ buffer. What is the pH?

 

[Pete Hammersley]

What alk test are you using?
if you are confident of it can you test a batch of fresh SW with a known addition of B then retest. your alk should rise. if it does then your tank is chewing up hardness/ buffer. What is the pH?

That’s a really good idea, mix a batch out of the bucket and test. I will do that over the weekend when I get some more time.
I use Red Sea for everything, just to avoid confusion. The tests are the Red Sea pro foundation tests. They seem good, I just don’t like the values they give me!
I did put 80 ml of alk in 4 days ago, and i tested it again 3 hours later and it had increased roughly the right amount , but then I tested again today and right dropped all the way back down. Strange as everything else is staying stable.
why would a tank go through suck a disproportionate amount of buffer?

 

[dbowman5]

think of it this way. read the thread pH And The Reef Aquarium by Randy
pH is affected by CO2 Alk tries to hold the pH constant. and is used up in that effort.
your system is a moving target, each add is subject to consumption as soon as it gets made

 

[Cambrian Reef]

I am having the same issue. Dose and gone next day. Hard to keep stable.

 

[Albertan22]

It sounds like your alkalinity is either precipitating out, or being consumed. Some SPS tanks go through hundreds of ml per day of alkalinity buffer. My tank full of frags and a healthy coralline algae population goes through 35ml per day, it may not be unreasonable that your dose is disappearing in a few days.

Have you tried calculating your daily consumption? Test your tank at a specific time of day and record, test again 3 days later at the exact same time of day and record. Use an online reef chemistry calculator to calculate how much of your product you would need to correct alkalinity back to its original reading, divide that number by 3 and you have your daily dose required to maintain alkalinity. Now you know your maintenance dose and what it takes to maintain the current level. You also know that you need more than that number to raisethe alkalinity.

 

[robbyg]

The last time I had this problem I hunted down the main suspect which was precipitation. In prior cases I found clumps of hard sand near my rock work. Don’t break it up just throw out the solid pieces. The last time I found an 8” wide sheet of precipitation under my skimmer just growing on the base glass. In both cases scrapping and removing all of it fixed the Alk problem instantly.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I have dosed 70 ml of bottle B 4 times, 3 days apart but the alk will not rise?
Any thoughts?

thanks.

I cannot tell what exactly that means you dosed over what time period.

Can you please determine how much alkalinity measured in dKH (NOT mL) that you dosed in what period of time?

Lots of folks justy assume dosing doesn't ened much. many times they just need to dose more.

 

[dbowman5]

I cannot tell what exactly that means you dosed over what time period.

Can you please determine how much alkalinity measured in dKH (NOT mL) that you dosed in what period of time?

Lots of folks justy assume dosing doesn't ened much. many times they just need to dose more.

R,
He is using red sea products, specifically Red Sea Reef Foundation B, ALK Liquid Supplement,
Dave

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

R,
He is using red sea products, specifically Red Sea Reef Foundation B, ALK Liquid Supplement,
Dave

I'm trying to get folks to figure important things out for themselves, such as how much alkalinity they are dosing, since mL is not a particularly useful number, but I also cannot be sure what this means:

" I have dosed 70 ml of bottle B 4 times, 3 days apart

That means

70 ml then 3 days then 70 ml then 3 days then 70 ml then 3 days then 70 ml?

Or 280 mL then 3 days then 280 mL?

 

[dbowman5]

Randy,
I find doing the mental gymnastics of being specific about my problem and working to communicate clearly helps me to understand better. your prompting of us in this forum is very helpful to me. sorry to interject. i will observe and learn.

 

[Miller535]

That’s a really good idea, mix a batch out of the bucket and test. I will do that over the weekend when I get some more time.
I use Red Sea for everything, just to avoid confusion. The tests are the Red Sea pro foundation tests. They seem good, I just don’t like the values they give me!
I did put 80 ml of alk in 4 days ago, and i tested it again 3 hours later and it had increased roughly the right amount , but then I tested again today and right dropped all the way back down. Strange as everything else is staying stable.
why would a tank go through suck a disproportionate amount of buffer?

By " disproportionate", do you mean do you mean foundation alk to foundation calcium?

 

[Albertan22]

I'm trying to get folks to figure important things out for themselves, such as how much alkalinity they are dosing, since mL is not a particularly useful number

I completely agree with this, unfortunately it seems that many people don’t understand how to dose properly. This isn’t any fault of their own, as the instructions on these products are terrible. The instructions on the bottle usually say to dose xxx ml per gallon of tank size, not taking into account at all what the actual consumption is in the tank. Then we have threads with people asking what is wrong with their corals, stating that their alk is at 13 and they dose alkalinity buffer x every day per the instructions on the bottle. Honestly, there should be a stickies thread in this forum titled “Thinking of dosing? Start by reading this.” then give basic instructions.

 

[robbyg]

I completely agree with this, unfortunately it seems that many people don’t understand how to dose properly. This isn’t any fault of their own, as the instructions on these products are terrible. The instructions on the bottle usually say to dose xxx ml per gallon of tank size, not taking into account at all what the actual consumption is in the tank. Then we have threads with people asking what is wrong with their corals, stating that their alk is at 13 and they dose alkalinity buffer x every day per the instructions on the bottle. Honestly, there should be a stickies thread in this forum titled “Thinking of dosing? Start by reading this.” then give basic instructions.

Luckily this problem will mostly go away in the next few years as auto testing Alk/Ca/Mg monitors become cheaper and available from multiple sources.

 

[dbowman5]

Luckily this problem will mostly go away in the next few years as auto testing Alk/Ca/Mg monitors become cheaper and available from multiple sources.

bu wont there be a rise in the problems as people come to rely on tech that might be glitchy and because they use tech do not consider that their levels might not be right?

 

[robbyg]

bu wont there be a rise in the problems as people come to rely on tech that might be glitchy and because they use tech do not consider that their levels might not be right?

Yeah well nothing is a substitute for actually knowing what your doing
The problem is that in this hobby people just throw a lot of cash at it and never seem to take the time to learn what they are really doing. I do not think that will ever change, so for the sake of the Animals at least Auto water testing systems will give the animals a much better chance of surviving

 

[Miller535]

Luckily this problem will mostly go away in the next few years as auto testing Alk/Ca/Mg monitors become cheaper and available from multiple sources.

I think to some extent this probably already is for some with lower demands who use auto water change systems.

 

[blasterman]

If people knew what they were doing they would get a 99 cent box of baking soda, a jar of calcium chloride, a plastic teaspoon and use an online reef calculator. Kiss the over priced bottles of water and baking soda goodbye. This is soooooooo much easier than pre made liquid bottles.

Alk is a main component of biological growth in a reef tank and is consumed by everything including bacteria and algae. Young tanks under a year old devour it, often at non linear rates. Biologists know this but reefing forums seem oblivious to this. Calcium on the other hand isnt as widely consumed resulting in calcium being ok but alk being tough to elevate. In a nutshell, stop treating alk and calcium as the same beast. They arent.

7.8 dKH isnt that low, but if there is SPS in the tank my intuition is to raise it to 8.5 or so just to see if alk isnt being depleted stagnating growth.

 

[mrrtheory]

Hi, I’ve had a fish and LPS / softie coral system for a few years now, so fairly familiar with all the regular nitrate, phosphate, ammonia, salinity tests etc....
I have 6 months ago gone to a Red Sea reefer 750, and 1 month ago put 15 small sps frags in. Now it’s have the additional task now of dosing, for which I have chose the Red Sea foundation range. I cannot get Alkalinity to rise?
I have done lots of research before all this happened, and remember that low magnesium was a likely culprit of this, but if anything it’s a little too high at 1480.
Water parameters are:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 1
Phosphate - 0.1
Calcium - 450
Alkalinity - 7.8
Magnesium - 1480
Salinity 34 /35

I have dosed 70 ml of bottle B 4 times, 3 days apart but the alk will not rise?
Any thoughts?

thanks.

It's hard to add anything meaningful to the reef chemistry conversation when you have Randy responding to your thread. BUT I would make sure your test kit has not expired and then I would buy or borrow 3 other test kits and see what those have to say and then I would get a buddy or club member to come over and run testing with out being involved and see what they have to say. If they all agree then I would restart this conversation. Over operating and operating on bad test results is probably the thing I would be most worried about. I had a bad stretch when I first started this hobby do to exactly 3 failed hydrometers, I caused a lot of unwarranted pain and suffering on my reef because I was absolutely sure of something that just wasn't so. If you have already done this or its been mentioned already please disregard.