ph with alk dosing

acidtablockshifty · Oct 8, 2015

been trying to get the alk level in my tank back up to normal, only problem i have is my tests show actually a decrease in alk and a slight increase in calcium. im probably going to retest but i have a few question as i guess my plan was to wait on water changes until my alk was normal again, but its proving to take a lot more time to get there than i thought. plus i had to stop because i wasn't sure what the effects of the power outage we had was going to be, the tank was off for an hour and half.

I only have a handheld ph tester but id like to set up two bottle drips one with recipe 1 and one with recipe 2 and have them alternate drips, checking with the meter every however minutes or so making sure the ph doesn't go crazy.

is this something i could pull off or should i continue to dose slowly once a day, i know what im dosing now probably equates to what my maintenance dose should be, given it has not gone up, but i halved the dose i was going to do per day because one of my fish is extremely sensitive to the ph swings.

are there any calculators for ph when dosing i really dont quite understand all this it raises 1 dqhttmlmnop of one meqllmnop by per mil things

Sabellafella · Oct 8, 2015

Whats ur mag?

acidtablockshifty · Oct 8, 2015

mags steady at 1040, basically been only dosing alk over the last month and calc went up during that from 420 to 473ppm, alk before starting to dose and i know its scary low 5.8 dkh but has dropped to 5.4 the calculator called for 170 mil of recipe 1 ive got about 7o mil in over three weeks, like i said i kinda stopped because of that power outage wanted to make sure the tank was stable. my ph is always fine because i run air stones in the sump with outside air. seems like if i punched in the numbers id be right back having to dose 170mil, i could turn off the air maybe lowering the ph so i can dose more at a time, was doing 5 mils at night but 10 was to high ph swing wise. I knew that it would take some time to correct but seems like im just back at square one. I guess i could do small water changes to bring it up but dosing seems much more controllable, id like to get the alk level up then do water changes. Ill try and bring the mag up a bit, was going to do that after calcium and alkalinity where kinda in ratio with one another

sawdonkey · Oct 8, 2015

Well, Mg of 1040 surely isn't helping anything. Get it to 1350.

sawdonkey · Oct 8, 2015

Also, PH will likely take care of itself if you get your alkalinity in check. However, you'll have a hard time doing that until your Mg is in check.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 9, 2015

While I can tell you the effect on pH, there are not any calculators around and as long as you are dosing the two part slowly, the pH won't get too high.

How much do you need to raise alkalinity?

acidtablockshifty · Oct 20, 2015

The total dose using the calculator was 160 mil of alk recipe 1 on 160 gallons , I don't have my notes right now, alk was my major concern and like i said i got about 60 mils in with no change, just the drop in calcium, and increase in coraline. I stopped dosing the alk and started dosing mag i know its not up there yet still probably needs to come up 100 or so but i did get about a 17 gallon water change with no issues so I'm gonna go for about 20 gallons a week, i havent checked the water yet after the change so ill do that before the next one and after.
The only problem is the tang is showing what i think is just sensitivity to light, which i'm hoping isn't signs of ich or velvet. I did ruin my fallow by putting a peppermint shrimp in the display, but i would think if it was ich or velvet it would be already a severe issue. Then again i could be wrong the sand in the tank seems to be moving more maybe it was bound up and with the changes in water free'd up a bit shifting some disease out of the sand.
I had taken the gfo offline recently because i wanted to see how quickly it would go up, plus i was concerned about fines getting into the system, (going to hook a sediment filter up to the canisters soon) without looking at my water tests id say it went from .000 to .23 in about a month and half two months.

I should have never went fallow and just started it over, even though the rocks looking really good color wise minus the nuisance things that are becoming quit a headache, ill be able to make a sand bed soon out of colonista snails, and frag some aptasia, and the red tubular filter feeders with the single spiderweblike strand coming out of them dont even get me started they try and take down pieces of mysis 13 times there size

Vividgraphx · Nov 3, 2015

pretty sure the mag is keeping the alk and cal from staying stable. have you tested your new water before adding it to the tank? With numbers that low I'd do several large water changes to get it stable.

acidtablockshifty · Nov 6, 2015

I have done a few water changes, have another water change to do on sat then ill see where I'm at, i honestly think the mag is precipitating out of my new water and has been forever, I originally thought the brown deposits left in my barrels was because of iron in the water, now I think it is/was mag. I may have found a new way to get it to stay not sure yet, but I aerate the water for at least 24 hours before mixing, but have just added the step of after aeration back to just keeping it stirred for at least 24 hours no air, then add air back in while adding my salt, then add heater after that.

It is hard to tell whether or not its just less brown deposit on the whole barrel or its just kinda skimming to stick to the upper surface because of the air, I think I'm going to do a mag and phosphate test of my new water. I really want to send some water out for testing and figure out what is wrong with my water, well tap pre softener, post softener, ro, ro/di, and i guess make up salt water, oh and of course tank water

Also contemplating switching from reef crystals to just IO and adding three part myself, or a different salt just to see the difference if any.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 6, 2015

FWIW, there's no mechanism to precipitate any large amount of magnesium from new salt water. Magnesium salts are also not colored.

Jc2424 · Nov 6, 2015

Is there a way to raise the pH without raising the alkalinity

StikHedRon · Nov 6, 2015

I think you can use a CO2 buffer on your skimmer and that may raise PH but I may be mistaken.

Jc2424 · Nov 6, 2015

My alkalinity is high in my PH is low not sure what to do

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 6, 2015

Jc2424 said:
My alkalinity is high in my PH is low not sure what to do

The only option is to reduce the CO2 in the tank, which is usually best done by reducing Co2 in the air around the tank (open windows), an airline from outside to a skimmer inlet, or a CO2 scrubber on a skimmer inlet.

This has more:

pH And The Reef Aquarium
http://www.reefedition.com/ph-and-the-reef-aquarium/

acidtablockshifty · Nov 7, 2015

Randy what can i do to figure out what the residue is, or should i just test the levels of the new salt water and if there okay then don't worry about, is there a good test kit for iron?, I think i read that they are not very accurate plus there is like three ways iron is in the water? Also i know i wont understand it too much, but what do they add to the salt to bind the iron if that is what is, basically just want to know is it effective, seems like it is because the tank does benefit with additions of iron, so i would assume I'm not getting to much from water change water. I tried to look up what gets by the ro/di process to narrow it down.

acidtablockshifty · Nov 7, 2015

also why is kent tech m brown, it could explain what seems to be dyshidrosis on my hands if it has chromium, but then i again cleaning metal shavings off a dustpan in chemical factory with my bare hand is definitely going on the list of the most stupidest things I have ever done.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 7, 2015

You mean the residue on mixing a new batch of seawater? It is typically mostly calcium carbonate and a little magnesium incorporated into it. Then some heayy metals like iron may give it some color. In some mixes, brownish residue forms which may b bacteria degrading organic matter (as in Reef Crystals).

FWIW, this effect on magnesium is small. Even if every bit of the 11 dKH in a salt mix ended up as precipitated magnesium carbonate, you'd only drop magnesium from, say, 1350 to 1300 ppm, and in a more typical calcium to magnesium ratio, the drop is about 1/10 that much.

FWIW, someone recently showed they can eliminate all of the precipitate from Instant Ocean by using muriatic acid to reduce the alkalinity to about 8 dKH. That acid also lowers the pH and redissolves and solid carbonates that form.

There's no easy way to test for iron at levels that should be in the water. Only a massive problem, as might come from well water, will be detectable with a kit and even Triton testing usually detects none.

Iron does not get by an RO/DI.

I do dose iron.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 7, 2015

acidtablockshifty said:
also why is kent tech m brown, it could explain what seems to be dyshidrosis on my hands if it has chromium, but then i again cleaning metal shavings off a dustpan in chemical factory with my bare hand is definitely going on the list of the most stupidest things I have ever done.

I do not know what impurities are in Kent Tech M. All chemicals contain impurities, but I do not think they intentionally put in anything except magnesium chloride and sulfate.