How to get levels correct before dosing

[duncangweller]

Hi All,

I am starting to dose my tank and I have my magnesium at 1350, my calcium at 420 but my alk is down at 6.5 dkh.

I'm trying to raise my alk by using a baking soda mix as my ph is currently quite high (8.47). I am adding approximately 137ml of the baking soda solution (as in recipe 2) which raises my alk by 1dkh, early in the morning. My tank and sump are approximately 100 gallons.

However, my Corals are using almost this amount daily so the next day when I add my alk supplement again I'm back to square 1.

I have read that I can only add enough alk mixture to raise the dkh by 1 each day. So how do I ever raise my alkalinity of this is the case? Or can I add more throughout the day as my Corals are using it up?

Thank you for your help demystifying this problem.

Duncan

 

[veselym]

maybe try and find a salt mix that has higher alk numbers...doing a WC with Reef Crystals for example should raise your alk but not PH

honestly I would do WC's instead of adding alk supplement

also if your corals look fine with the DKH where it is then just leave it be and dose what they use

 

[asandbox]

What salt do you use?

 

[Adam Baggett]

What I did was to test my tank, then manually dose to get the levels where I wanted them. Then I tested it again the next day about the same time and that gave me a baseline of what my tank was using. I did that for a few days, manually dose then test the next day. Then I setup my doser and tested every day at the same time for the next couple of weeks, tweaking the program and off it went. I test once a week now.

 

[Touring]

maybe try and find a salt mix that has higher alk numbers...doing a WC with Reef Crystals for example should raise your alk but not PH

honestly I would do WC's instead of adding alk supplement

also if your corals look fine with the DKH where it is then just leave it be and dose what they use

Veselym is right.

Find a salt mix that has a target you are trying to achieve at the salinity level,get your tank to those values by doing water changes and then dose to sustain.

I'm going to assume your pottasium levels are also off along with others.

I hope this helps

 

[duncangweller]

I use instant ocean. I would like to use red sea salt but you can't get it anywhere around here.

I have been manually dosing my alk but if I can only raise it 1dkh per day then I can't dose enough to raise it as my Corals are more or less using all that I'm adding.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You can boost it as much as needed to get a rise in addition to the consumption.

 

[duncangweller]

Thanks everybody. I'll work on getting my alk up now

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Sounds good.

Good luck!

 

[duncangweller]

My alk is now up at 9dkh and my calcium at 440ppm. Mag is sitting at 1380.

I did put my alk up a little higher than I would have liked but 9 should work just fine.

Thanks all for your help.

Dunc

 

[veselym]

Is there a salt mix that doesn't have high ALK...I like to keep mine in the low 8's but even IO has 10 DKH at 1.025 salinity

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

IMO, it is not usually necessary, but there are some mixes folks who worry a lot about these things use, or you can lower it yourself in any mix you prefer to use.

Here's a thread with some salt mixes mentioned and some different products to lower alk in othe rmixes:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...lower-alkalinity-like-you-can-with-ph.188293/