Coralline algae’s effect on alkalinity

jeff williams · Nov 1, 2018

Randy I’ve been reading a lot of your articles lately trying to figure out how to dose my tank. Tank currently is 60 gal total water volume,fish, live rock and soft coral, I have a lot of coralline algae. I’m currently using seachems fusion a and b
My calcium and alkalinity won’t stay in balance I use your method for correcting imbalances and it works, I then started adding balanced doses. I’ve reached a point we’re calcium measure 435 and magnesium is high at 1404 and my alkalinity will fluctuate from 9 to 7.9daily so I’ll stop calcium dosing and dose just alkalinity and the system does out of balance again. I understand this will happen when you stop one part but how do I correct my dosing? What am I doing wrong ? Or is this a normal with a lot of coralline? I’ve added a pic so you can see the amount of coralline I’m dealing with my rock is probably 75% covered.

NY_Caveman · Nov 1, 2018

Good question I am new to dosing too. Similarly, if I understand your text correctly, my system starts balanced, but then seems to require more Alkalinity (than Calcium) than a balanced two part regimen provides.

In my case, and not to hijack, the Alkalinity stays dead on at 9.1 dKH, but Calcium is slowly rising all along. I also have a ton of coralline algae.

Cory · Nov 1, 2018

jeff williams said:
Randy I’ve been reading a lot of your articles lately trying to figure out how to dose my tank. Tank currently is 60 gal total water volume,fish, live rock and soft coral, I have a lot of coralline algae. I’m currently using seachems fusion a and b
My calcium and alkalinity won’t stay in balance I use your method for correcting imbalances and it works, I then started adding balanced doses. I’ve reached a point we’re calcium measure 435 and magnesium is high at 1404 and my alkalinity will fluctuate from 9 to 7.9daily so I’ll stop calcium dosing and dose just alkalinity and the system does out of balance again. I understand this will happen when you stop one part but how do I correct my dosing? What am I doing wrong ? Or is this a normal with a lot of coralline? I’ve added a pic so you can see the amount of coralline I’m dealing with my rock is probably 75% covered.

Yep corraline can reduce alk that much. Fwiw the main reason i stay away from two part and dose limewater instead is because of that up and down aspect. You might want to try limewater on a doser its more forgiving imo.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 3, 2018

The coralline algae is a substantial sink for calcium and alkalinity (and magnesium) in reef tanks, but generally in a balanced fashion (maybe slightly less calcium use than usual as it incorporates a lot of magnesium.

But the Seachem fusion is also not balanced for 1:1 dosing. It has too much calcium:

Seachem Reef Fusion is not properly alk/calcium balanced for 1:1 dosing
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...y-alk-calcium-balanced-for-1-1-dosing.352635/

jeff williams · Nov 4, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
The coralline algae is a substantial sink for calcium and alkalinity (and magnesium) in reef tanks, but generally in a balanced fashion (maybe slightly less calcium use than usual as it incorporates a lot of magnesium.

But the Seachem fusion is also not balanced for 1:1 dosing. It has too much calcium:

Seachem Reef Fusion is not properly alk/calcium balanced for 1:1 dosing
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...y-alk-calcium-balanced-for-1-1-dosing.352635/

So if one was to dose seachem fusion could part 1 calcium be dosed at an adjusted amount to correct for the imbalance?