I've gone and done it now, help with dkh please

[SeaJeffer]

Hi All, I'm a new member but since my first post is a chemistry issue I might as well start here (hopefully I will be able to contribute more then a question in the future) Anyway...

My tank is a 40 gal long with about 10 gallons in the sump/refugium from cadlights for those familiar, with an upgraded LED system.

This past weekend I got it in my head that I needed to start dosing vodka to lower my nitrates that were running around 10-20 ppm more towards 10 after water changes. Apparently even with all the reading I apparently missed what it would do to the water chemistry in my tank as in raising CO2 and lowering my PH to about 7.8 from a steady 8.3, so of course I make my second mistake by adding a buffer 3 days in a row to raise my PH, so here is where I am at now. This morning I noticed my elegance who generally is a beautiful specimen seemed really unhappy with me, everybody else more or less happy.

Facts:

.5ml a day of vodka started 5 days ago.
PH 8.1 after calibrating my Hanna tester
Calcium 480
Magnesium 1200
DKH a staggering 16 after usually running at 9

What do I do. Stop dosing vodka? Add an airstone? Water change? All of the above? Nothing?

Thanks in advance

 

[SeaJeffer]

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[SeaJeffer]

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Please ignore. was testing from my ipad in the app and it apparently logged me in automatically somehow and am unsure how to delete or edit.

 

[mike007]

Vodka dosing shouldn't cause you dkh to go up that much. I think it Is the buffer you added. You need to figure out how much alkalinity and calcium are being used up each day so you will know your depletion rate per day. Then you will know how much to dose each day to keep your parameters stable.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Im not aware of it lowering the PH like that either. I've never had it do either to my tank.
Do you have a skimmer running while dosing??
Do you have the water surface ripple form your power heads.
You need to have both of these things going on.

 

[bearjohnson]

Without knowing how many fish you have and the bio-load from waste and feeding I'd say with a tank of that size water changes should be more than enough to keep your parameters stable. It's only been 5 days of dosing so I'd recommend stop the dosing and start changing water.

 

[ritter6788]

I vote all of the above. Anytime I have issues I get back to basics and start over.

I'll add that you never want to add buffer for pH. Keep alk, calcium and mag stable and don't worry about pH.

 

[Fishyj]

I do a 40% water change weekly. I monitor the temp. and salinity. This works on my 29 which is not heavily stocked.

 

[SeaJeffer]

Yes, the buffer will stop immediately (I know that did it) I did a 25% water change in the middle of this mess. I would say the bio load is medium. 7 fish.

I have an MP10 that stirs up the surface pretty good

Has anyone else dosed vodka? Also in regards to water changes is 25% a week too much (all RO)