High Alkalinity

[Kawika]

Hey everyone. I am nearly 3 weeks into cycling my tank and I have been following the redsea reef mature system. One of the steps is to dose kh-coraline buffer to get alkalinity to 8.4 but my alkalinity is already much higher than that (14.4 dkh) so i have been skipping that. I am going to do a water change on Monday but I was wondering if having this high of alk is causing any issues with the cycle. There is no livestock so if lowering the alkalinity is important I can do it quickly. Thanks for the help.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Hey everyone. I am nearly 3 weeks into cycling my tank and I have been following the redsea reef mature system. One of the steps is to dose kh-coraline buffer to get alkalinity to 8.4 but my alkalinity is already much higher than that (14.4 dkh) so i have been skipping that. I am going to do a water change on Monday but I was wondering if having this high of alk is causing any issues with the cycle. There is no livestock so if lowering the alkalinity is important I can do it quickly. Thanks for the help.

After the cycle is finish, then WC, get it down, don't add any corals till it's down . You'll be fine

 

[Billdogg]

Why is it that high? You need to figure out the cause and take care of that, then do a few water changes to get it back into a more normal range. The only real issue you may have right now is that your powerheads and return pump will end up with calcium deposits, especially on the impellers causing them to fail.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

My alkalinity at times been 15, Ca. at 530, when adding bake baking soda, to much by accident with corals in tank no issues.

 

[Kawika]

I am guessing that before I got my Hanna alk checker I was overdosing the coraline buffer. If i do a couple 25% changes over the course of the next week will that slow down my cycle? Does that make sense to do during the cycle or should I just hold off until the cycle is complete then get my parameters in line?

 

[Birdbrains?]

The bacteria just isn't using much alk yet. It will begin to use the alk faster as it populate the tank.

Higher alk will keep your pH more stable, so be sure to keep an eye on your pH while the alk drops down.