Something is very wrong with my alkalinity...

ocncheffy · Sep 22, 2016

Some quick backstory.. I have a 16 gallon IM Nuvo tank and I've recently started two-part dosing with B-Ionic to help supliment my nano reef with alk and calcium due to my higher SPS load. Last week, I was in a great range of the following parameters:

Alk- 8.0dkh
Mag - 1400
Cal - 400
PH - 8.4

I was dosing 3ml a day of each suppliment to maintain these parameters. Sunday I skipped dosing due to a water change of 2 gallons as I knew it would add to my parameters strictly from the water change. Monday I test and I get the following:

Alk - 5.0
Mag - 1380
Cal - 420
PH - 8.4

Since Monday, i've been trying to raise my alkalinity with b-ionic part 1 or Soda ash, and I can't get it higher than 5.4 for the life of me! What's going on? Everything's been great up until the water change. Adding the recommended dosage using calculators to raise my alk up 1 DKH value seems to have little to no effect. The next day it goes right back down to 5.0 or less according to my red sea alk test.

Any suggestions?

justingraham · Sep 22, 2016

My test kit seems to do the same thing or its me one or the other. I have been consitantly loseing .3 dkh a day. I added 7 corals last week and that went to .8 dkh a day. Then yesterday and today when I tested (twice) the dkh was higher then it was yesterday. The only diffence between u and me is that I did not do a water change.
The only thing I can think of is that in my last top off water I added some salt cause my salinity was low(refactometer lost its calibration long story actually not that's the story) but I have since ran thru that five gallon top off water. So I'm thinking my test kit got contaminated or something?? I have no idea. But I ordered Hannah checkers this morning so hopefully I will figure this out.

As far as not getting past five are the corals looking bad? Is there a lfs that u can bring ur water to to test it to see if ur test kit isn't working properly? I hope u figure it out

Justin

ocncheffy · Sep 22, 2016

That's the thing, the corals look completely fine. I'm going to bring some water to my LFS to test today, and I'm going to do a large water change as well. I'll test my new water to see if it shows the 10dkh like it's supposed to on my test kit. I can't imagine my test kit has gone bad suddenly...

justingraham · Sep 22, 2016

ocncheffy said:
That's the thing, the corals look completely fine. I'm going to bring some water to my LFS to test today, and I'm going to do a large water change as well. I'll test my new water to see if it shows the 10dkh like it's supposed to on my test kit. I can't imagine my test kit has gone bad suddenly...

Yea not saying bad but Maby contaminated

GainesvilleReef · Sep 22, 2016

Your pH is on the high side and what your adding may be precipitating out. Freshly mixed salt often has a high pH. I always aerate my water to bring it down before water changes. My experience is if I do it over night it adds enough CO2 to bring it down to match the tank ph level.

ocncheffy · Sep 22, 2016

GainesvilleReef said:
Your pH is on the high side and what your adding may be precipitating out. Freshly mixed salt often has a high pH. I always aerate my water to bring it down before water changes. My experience is if I do it over night it adds enough CO2 to bring it down to match the tank ph level.

Can I add vinegar to the tank to bring the PH down to the 7.0 range?

aaron23 · Sep 22, 2016

i would not mess with adding vinegar - that pH it is perfectly fine, my runs sometimes on the high side of 8.5, when i have the fan blowing on the water

aaron23 · Sep 22, 2016

what test kits are you using?

GainesvilleReef · Sep 22, 2016

You only need to bring the pH down to 8.2 or 8.3. You can use vinegar but you may get a bacterial bloom. I would just stop dosing and it should come down on it's own. Your over dosing is probably keeping it high.