Issues with elevating KH

[Rigoberto]

Hello all!

I am parenting a Red Sea 170 that I initiated in July. The tank is going great. 4 small fishes (Yashi Gobi, 6-line, a Percula with a acute case of FOMO, and an Orchid Dottyback) along with a healthy copepod population.

In the past I have used Kalkwasser to maintain the "chemistry". Those tanks were fish only with the exception of some softies. This time I am doing a lot of titration with an aim trying to develop intuition for the chemistry underpinning the buffering and PH. With that, I am dosing two part.

This is an SPS dominated tank, but it only has frags a this time. I am afraid I screwed up early on and over saturated the solution causing precipitation. The main tank has a aragonite gravel base. I cleaned up the precipitate from the sump. The tank stays at about 8-8.15 PH and the dKH is about 7.6. That has been pretty easy to maintain. It has been difficult to achieve higher levels of buffering and PH. I have not mastered the two part dosing, and I feed like I am hunting for the correct answers.

Should I try to get to 8.15-8.3 on the PH an and a dKH of 9? Some recommend that but this seems unattainable with my current techniques (super saturation and precipitation). If this is recommended, how would I go about developing a method to maintain this objective. Otherwise, should I just accept and seek consistency at 8.1 and dKH of ~7.6?

Currently, I am dosing on a 24 hour cycle 50ml CaCl and Soda Ash. I have a CO2 scrubber on the skimmer input with re circulation. The scrubber maintains the pH great, but it also strips the phytoplankton which I hope will reach my little friends to supplement their food supply.

Any suggestions?

Cheers!
Rigoberto.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello all!

I am parenting a Red Sea 170 that I initiated in July. The tank is going great. 4 small fishes (Yashi Gobi, 6-line, a Percula with a acute case of FOMO, and an Orchid Dottyback) along with a healthy copepod population.

In the past I have used Kalkwasser to maintain the "chemistry". Those tanks were fish only with the exception of some softies. This time I am doing a lot of titration with an aim trying to develop intuition for the chemistry underpinning the buffering and PH. With that, I am dosing two part.

This is an SPS dominated tank, but it only has frags a this time. I am afraid I screwed up early on and over saturated the solution causing precipitation. The main tank has a aragonite gravel base. I cleaned up the precipitate from the sump. The tank stays at about 8-8.15 PH and the dKH is about 7.6. That has been pretty easy to maintain. It has been difficult to achieve higher levels of buffering and PH. I have not mastered the two part dosing, and I feed like I am hunting for the correct answers.

Should I try to get to 8.15-8.3 on the PH an and a dKH of 9? Some recommend that but this seems unattainable with my current techniques (super saturation and precipitation). If this is recommended, how would I go about developing a method to maintain this objective. Otherwise, should I just accept and seek consistency at 8.1 and dKH of ~7.6?

Currently, I am dosing on a 24 hour cycle 50ml CaCl and Soda Ash. I have a CO2 scrubber on the skimmer input with re circulation. The scrubber maintains the pH great, but it also strips the phytoplankton which I hope will reach my little friends to supplement their food supply.

Any suggestions?

Cheers!
Rigoberto.

I would look at the salt mix you’re using. It may be high in slk, calcium or both .
Assure salinity not elevated as well as ph of system

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hello all!

I am parenting a Red Sea 170 that I initiated in July. The tank is going great. 4 small fishes (Yashi Gobi, 6-line, a Percula with a acute case of FOMO, and an Orchid Dottyback) along with a healthy copepod population.

In the past I have used Kalkwasser to maintain the "chemistry". Those tanks were fish only with the exception of some softies. This time I am doing a lot of titration with an aim trying to develop intuition for the chemistry underpinning the buffering and PH. With that, I am dosing two part.

This is an SPS dominated tank, but it only has frags a this time. I am afraid I screwed up early on and over saturated the solution causing precipitation. The main tank has a aragonite gravel base. I cleaned up the precipitate from the sump. The tank stays at about 8-8.15 PH and the dKH is about 7.6. That has been pretty easy to maintain. It has been difficult to achieve higher levels of buffering and PH. I have not mastered the two part dosing, and I feed like I am hunting for the correct answers.

Should I try to get to 8.15-8.3 on the PH an and a dKH of 9? Some recommend that but this seems unattainable with my current techniques (super saturation and precipitation). If this is recommended, how would I go about developing a method to maintain this objective. Otherwise, should I just accept and seek consistency at 8.1 and dKH of ~7.6?

Currently, I am dosing on a 24 hour cycle 50ml CaCl and Soda Ash. I have a CO2 scrubber on the skimmer input with re circulation. The scrubber maintains the pH great, but it also strips the phytoplankton which I hope will reach my little friends to supplement their food supply.

Any suggestions?

Cheers!
Rigoberto.

I'm confused.

DID you try to just add a bit more two part to up the alk?

How long ago was the precipitation event?

 

[Rigoberto]

Hi Randy and Vetteguy,

Salt mix seems ok, as are salinity and pH in tank. Salinity was high at one point due to error in digital meter (estimate ~36-37ppt range). This is corrected to 35ppt and pH fairly is stable in 8.1 to 8.2 range.

Randy, I am afraid the event took a while to resolve as I did not detect and interpret the falling numbers properly - so, I would estimate weeks.

I have done a couple of things now which I will add:

1) Cut way back to ~50% on dosing.
2) Relocated the dosing location in the sump and timed a power head activation around dosing time.
3) Still running the CO2 scrubber on skimmer.

Ph has been stable at ~8.2 and KH is creeping up ever so slightly.

I am sure there was a fair amount of precipitation in main tank too due to clumping of sand.... I did not address that. Not sure if that or other precipitates will be prone to initiating more precip.

Thanks,
Robert

 

[Rigoberto]

I'm confused.

DID you try to just add a bit more two part to up the alk?

How long ago was the precipitation event?

Yes, I went that direction, but it appears to have fed the precipitation problem.

 

[Rigoberto]

I'm confused.

DID you try to just add a bit more two part to up the alk?

How long ago was the precipitation event?

I think the issue may be resolved after cleaning the condensate, adding more circulation to the dosing point and cutting back the dosage substantially... to eliminate precipitation.

KH is now up to 8.4 KH @ 8.25 pH and 35 ptt salinity.

Tonight, I dialed back the dose rate a bit more (to slow the arrival at 9 KH) and will test again tomorrow. Thanks for the responses.