How low can alkalinity go in reef aquarium?

[Tombones]

The reason I ask this question is that I am out of town longer than I expected and my wife has been trying to help me with my reef tank. I have a doser but it is either not dosing enough or not dosing at all. Three days ago she took a alkalinity reading and got 6 dkh and this morning she said it was 3.8. This is the first time for her to ever do this but she is very competent at reading and preforming instructions. One week ago when I left the alk was 7.5 and now I am wondering is it possible for a reef tank to to go as low as 3.8 and if so will it be terribly harmful to a tank loaded with sps corals or can they ride it out for one more week, when I return?
I am having her dose ESV B-ionic but I am afraid if her readings are off I might have her dose too much and asking her to trouble shoot the doser is a bridge too far. :-(
Randy thanks for any info you can give.

 

[AdamB]

Never heard of alk being that low .
True, Her Readings might be off being that low but do not know how many sps( loaded) in your tank and size ?
I assume you know how much alk your tank was losing a day for your doser to replenish ?
Could your one of your lines be clogged? I would get her to check that as well?
What’s is doser brand?

 

[Tombones]

I have a bubble magus doser that doses alk hourly. I had her look to see if she could see the cloud that alk produces and she could not see it but did hear the doser pump engage. I will have her check the line.
The tank is 4.5 years old and 120 gallons. Almost entirely sps 30-40 corals a few as big as a soccer ball. I am dosing 31 ml of Triton each day with combining 3a and 3b 62 ml of alk each day.
I am assuming alk cant go that low but how low is it really and can it wait until I get home. I am having her dose 15 ml each day to at least maintain somewhat Fingers crossed.

 

[AdamB]

I have bubble magnus on my older tank.
So she tried manual dose on BMD? Okay .
Hopefully it’s just clogged . That happened to me once and got me scrambling as well. but thankful I found clogged line.
I hope that’s the issue! I’ve never heard alk being that low but you never know. I am still learning at this hobby!
Maybe somebody else on heat could give you help. That’s my best thought was clogged line .

Good luck! I hope to see good news about your tank ! It’s a love hate thing with my tank at times!

 

[Tombones]

As regards to my question here is a quote from
Randy Holmes-Farley

In fact, calcification gets so slow as the alkalinity drops below 6 dKH that reef aquaria rarely get much below that point, even with no dosing: natural calcification has nearly stopped at that level.

Thanks to any who helped with this question

 

[BeejReef]

Best of luck.. just watched a brs vid where they tested all of their test kits.

People who had been reefing for years and worked in the shop, around it all the time... they were occasionally getting readings 30-40% divergent from each other. Is she using a Hannah or a titration?

 

[Tombones]

She was using Salifert test kit. titration. The problem was miscommunication. She was reading the wrong set of numbers off the card. It was as much my mistake as I didn't catch it until I looked at the conversion chart on line. Now I have a new problem. I was having her add EVS B-ionic over the last week and now the DKH is 11.8 I told her not to add any more and hopefully the alk will have gone back down without any harm to my corals. I return in a next week.

 

[BeejReef]

Best of luck. Great job catching it quick. If it's been going on for a few days, you're still around that max 1dkh/day swing. Should be ok.... right ;Bored

 

[ArmyReefer]

Might be worth having her go pick up a Hannah ALK checker from your LFS. Super easy, fast, and as reliable as hobby grade test kits come.

 

[Tombones]

Great suggestion. At this point my wife is maxed out helping with the aquarium. She says every time I leave something goes wrong. Cant blame her.

 

[SeaDweller]

There are some guys who have run their reef at 4-5 dkh for a few months without ill effect.

 

[Tombones]

An update on my aquarium: The story goes that a person runs off the road in their car and hits some sort of electrical power box and interrupts power to almost 400 households. Of course one of them was mine. I live in Florida and fortunately the temp was in the mid eighty's but the estimated repair time was 10 hours. I have a battery operated air pump but my now very frustrated wife cant find it so my tank went a total of at least 8 hours or more without power. My wife reports some fish are swimming. That is all I can get from her.
I guess I can never leave town again. Got to laugh. Lol