Is this alk consumption normal?

Aquajan · Jan 2, 2021

Hi,

After I just calculated the daily raise of alkalinity of my tank I was wondering if this is about right or that it is precipitating (although I don't see any clear signs of it).
My tank is 300 liter with a 35l sump and 20l refugium.
The tank is running 16 months.
Im using zeovit from the start and have a refugium with cheato for fom extra biodiversity and Po4 uptake.
Im using the triton CORE7 other methods reagents.

I dose 12x 1.9ml of each bottle every day.
On 350 liters the triton elements require 17.95ml a day for 1dkh.
So my alkalinity uptake should be around 1.27 dkh a day.

Most corals are growing although not very fast.

I noticed that after the tank had a slight drop in Alk from 7.5 to 7 and I raised the triton dose from 12x1.8ml to 1.9, the dkh was still at 7 after 3 days while normally it would have risen a bit by now.
So it could mean the demand when up that mutch or om over dosing a bit.

My water parameters are:
Kh=7
Ca=420
Mg=1400
No3=5
Po4=0.03
Salinity=1.026
Temp=25.5°c

Corals are
8x acan
2x blasto
1x candycane
2x sertiopora
1x hysterix
2x Monty branch
2x Monty cap
2x Monty encrust
2x chalice
1x duccan
3x euphillya
5x acropora
5x new acro on frag rack

Fish an critters are
2x clown
1x salarias
1x Kole tang
3x chromis
4x wrasse
1x royal gramma
3x peppermint shrimp
20x hermit crab
Endless army of snails.

AZMSGT · Jan 2, 2021

Have you seen corline growth? It’s a large user of Alk and can drop your tank down fast.

I use Redsea Alk to buffer up my Alk when I see bigger drops.

Hokie125 · Jan 2, 2021

Every tank is different but you appear to have some decently sized SPS and LPS colonies in there. Nothing out of the ordinary with your consumption. As @AZMSGT said coraline algae is the largest consumer of Alk in most tanks. Also PH has a pretty large effect on Alk consumption as well. If you have changed anything that would up Ph values that will cause an uptake in Alk.

Hokie125 · Jan 2, 2021

Tank looks great BTW!

Aquajan · Jan 3, 2021

Thanks,

I don't have altot of coraline algae growth in my dt as all the surface except the rock, pumps and a the upper part of the overflow are made of glass witch seems to be a bad place for ca to grow.
The pumps and the plastic upper part of the overflow are always coverd in ca.
I also think that ca prefers a little lower light as the most places it does grow on the glass are a bit shaded.

But as I think about it my refugium is a 25l jerrycan so a plastic container and that's the stuff ca likes to grow on and it has alot of it at the low light spot under the cheato.
Although I do have the refugium running for about 3 months and that ca was there too 1 month ago.

I also have some new acro frags on a rack in the tank since 10 days and they already have encrusted a bit so that could be the reason of the extra Alk uptake too.

I was just wondering if the uptake seems about right for my tank as I have overdosed alot at the beginning when I used red sea instead of Triton.