Help raising Alkalinity & Calcium

[Pvtgloss]

You guys know I'm good for a newbie question, here's one:

I did my water test today and my levels are slowly dropping even with weekly WCs and dosing kalkwasser. I'm dosing 1tbl/gal kalk at 2ml every 15mins. Like 150ml /day.

Test results
Salt- 33.6
Ph- 8
No3- 10.6
Po4- .02
Dkh-6.1
Ca-345
Ma- 1410

For the first time my numbers seem out of wack. Dkh has always been low, around 7.7 and slowly falling. Same with calcium. But magnesium slowly rising? Maybe you guys have any insight on what's going on and how I can safely raise it. I have Red Sea foundation ABC, pre mixed. Is it time to start dosing? I was under the impression that with only soft corals kalkwasser would be enough. Sorry for the long post. Thanks guys.

Four months old Max e170 w/ trigger sump - I figure 45 gals total water after rock and all.
4 zoa , 1 toadstool and 1 sinularia frags.
2 clowns, YWG, and royal gamma
Cleaner & pistol shrimp and various CuC.

 

[GoVols]

Welp,
If mag is rising, then there is an testing error.
Kalk does not raise mag levels

Preferences: Aquaforest Mag kit / Salifert

Your need to use a good refractor meter and use an .35 soultiuon to keep it calibrated.

Slowly bring up your salinity (with mixed water) to .35 and test your big 3 while raising your while raising it.

Has your nitrates been staple at 10.6?

 

[GoVols]

@Pvtgloss
Trying to help, but your going to need to respond back.

Has your nitrates been holding stable at 10.6?
What salt mix do you use?
How big are your water changes?
How often are your making those water changes?

thank you

 

[Pvtgloss]

Nitrates hover from 11.5-10.6. I'm using Hannah for no3 and po4 and salifert for Mag, ca, and alk. And apex for pH and salinity. I'm waiting to finish my control board for the tridant. I'll redo Mag test in a minute.
I used IO but just switched to TM pro reef. I do a 5 gal with every week.

 

[GoVols]

Yeah,
TM Pro mixes to a lot lower dKH than IO

I’m not sure on max kalk strength:

Do have some room to mix a stronger kalk slurry or is your slurry strength maxed out?

 

[Pvtgloss]

Your absolutely correct about the magnesium error. I just finished redoing the test. Mag is 1305 this time.

I mixed 1tbl of kalk to the gallon. Should I mix another tablespoon. I wouldn't mind just throwing it out and mixing a fresh batch. I think I may have dosed some slurry because my return chamber has a white powdery residue on the sides that I didn't notice until after a water change. I think it may have stuck to the sides when the water rose when the pumps were off.

I really appreciate you taking you time to help me.

 

[GoVols]

Your absolutely correct about the magnesium error. I just finished redoing the test. Mag is 1305 this time.

I mixed 1tbl of kalk to the gallon. Should I mix another tablespoon. I wouldn't mind just throwing it out and mixing a fresh batch. I think I may have dosed some slurry because my return chamber has a white powdery residue on the sides that I didn't notice until after a water change. I think it may have stuck to the sides when the water rose when the pumps were off.

I really appreciate you taking you time to help me.

Do you mean teaspoons per gallon?

I think the max is about 2 teaspoons per gallon.

 

[Pvtgloss]

Yeah, sorry. I was mistaken. I used teaspoons.

 

[GoVols]

Yeah, sorry. I was mistaken. I used teaspoons.

How about dumping your slurry and going with 1.5 per gallon

Forget an ATO option, due to that evaporation rates fluctuates

If you have an open head with a DOS pump, that would be a good option

But, here’s a good video



If you like to hold your dKH at about 7.8 to 8.0 the Red Sea Bucket mix would hold that during water changes.

 

[Pvtgloss]

Awesome. I'll mix up some in a few minutes. What's the best way to mix? Im using a empty vinegar jug and last time I just dumped it in a shook it for a min. I'm using DOS at 150 mL a day. Does that seem a lot? It's like 2ml every 15mins.

 

[Justdrew]

Awesome. I'll mix up some in a few minutes. What's the best way to mix? Im using a empty vinegar jug and last time I just dumped it in a shook it for a min. I'm using DOS at 150 mL a day. Does that seem a lot? It's like 2ml every 15mins.

Seems like very little. I use my DOS for kalkwasser on a 40 breeder. I am currently at 1725ml per day.

 

[Pvtgloss]

Ohhh.... no wonder I haven't seen any results. I'll double it to 300ml/day and check daily.

 

[Justdrew]

I use the reef chemistry calculator.

Reef Chemistry Calculator

It has kalk as one of the entries to give you an idea of how much you may need in a day to raise a specific amount of alkalinity.

 

[GoVols]

Ohhh.... no wonder I haven't seen any results. I'll double it to 300ml/day and check daily.

Before moving forward with dosing kalk.

Slowly raise your cal and alk to your desired levels using pure forms of cal and alk.

Stay within those products recommended daily dose and spread out a lot of time between dosing up cal and alk.

Otherwise they will precipitate (ions bonding together), then you will truly see your alk and cal dive.

Then you won’t keep chasing #s while dialing in your true kalk intake.

 

[Pvtgloss]

If the calculator says I need:

40.5ml of RS part B, And 63.8ml of part A? How does should I dose these? I don't want to dose at the same time, correct? And then after desired levels reached, then use kalk?

Is the powdery substance on my sump walls precipitate from my kalk? Or dosing slurry on accident?

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Awesome. I'll mix up some in a few minutes. What's the best way to mix? Im using a empty vinegar jug and last time I just dumped it in a shook it for a min. I'm using DOS at 150 mL a day. Does that seem a lot? It's like 2ml every 15mins.

That amount is tiny. When I used kalkwasser on my 125g, I filled my barrel to half saturation (1 tsp per gallon) and added 3 gallons a day. If you normalize for system volume, I was adding 100 times what you are adding right now and that was about 2 years into a mixed reef growth so colonies varied between golfball to baseball size.

 

[Pvtgloss]

Yeah, 150ml did sound tiny when you put it into perspective. Haha.