Unable to get alk stable

Rob Biederman · Mar 23, 2021

Hello all,
I am having issues with my alk. I am trying to get it to 9.0 but no matter what I dose it drops back to 7.5 or lower in less than 12 hours. My tank has been recovering from a Dino outbreak. Don’t know if that is relevant.
I only have a few corals in the tank a 6 head hammer a small candy cane with 3 heads and a stylo. I am at a loss as to why I can’t get to 9
CA is 420
MG 1350

Reef. · Mar 23, 2021

You will find a young tank will have fluctuating alkalinity, if it's causing issues you can add a KH buffer, I used baking soda, works very well, just keep testing daily to see how much you need to add.

Rob Biederman · Mar 23, 2021

Reef. said:
You will find a young tank will have fluctuating alkalinity, if it's causing issues you can add a KH buffer, I used baking soda, works very well, just keep testing daily to see how much you need to add.

Not a new tank though. I was trying to get to 9 to give myself a buffer lol

Reef. · Mar 23, 2021

Rob Biederman said:
Not a new tank though. I was trying to get to 9 to give myself a buffer lol

what salt do you use?

arking_mark · Mar 23, 2021

Rob Biederman said:
Hello all,
I am having issues with my alk. I am trying to get it to 9.0 but no matter what I dose it drops back to 7.5 or lower in less than 12 hours. My tank has been recovering from a Dino outbreak. Don’t know if that is relevant.
I only have a few corals in the tank a 6 head hammer a small candy cane with 3 heads and a stylo. I am at a loss as to why I can’t get to 9
CA is 420
MG 1350

What are you measuring dKH with?

Rob Biederman · Mar 23, 2021

Reef. said:
what salt do you use?

Red Sea blue bucket

Rob Biederman · Mar 23, 2021

arking_mark said:
What are you measuring dKH with?

Hanna checker

arking_mark · Mar 23, 2021

What type of dosing are you doing?

A tank can consume 0.5 to 4.5dKH a day. High pH will increase consumption and abiotic precipitation.

CarltonCay · Mar 23, 2021

Stop running your skimmer 24/7

arking_mark · Mar 23, 2021

CarltonCay said:
Stop running your skimmer 24/7

Curious. Why do you think the skimmer is impacting alkalinity?

Reef. · Mar 23, 2021

I think you see it as a bigger issue than it is, if your salt is 8kh and you want it at 9, you will be always dosing KH, add in the amount your corals are using and the dinos, 1.5kh is very reasonable, just correct the alk daily no big deal.

Why 9kh? maybe aim for 8, then your water changes won't affect the alk too much when you do them and you will only need to dose .5 KH daily if your tank generally sits at 7.5kh.

arking_mark · Mar 23, 2021

Reef. said:
I think you see it as a bigger issue than it is, if your salt is 8kh and you want it at 9, you will be always dosing KH, add in the amount your corals are using and the dinos, 1.5kh is very reasonable, just correct the alk daily no big deal.

Why 9kh? maybe aim for 8, then your water changes won't affect the alk too much when you do them and you will only need to dose .5 KH daily if your tank generally sits at 7.5kh.

Mathematically speaking water changes do not have a big impact on parameters unless you are doing very large water changer...

Rob Biederman · Mar 23, 2021

arking_mark said:
What type of dosing are you doing?

A tank can consume 0.5 to 4.5dKH a day. High pH will increase consumption and abiotic precipitation.

Ok I think this what I was looking for. Just seemed like 1.5 dkh was a lot for my tank. I am using BRS two part for my dosing

Rob Biederman · Mar 23, 2021

CarltonCay said:
Stop running your skimmer 24/7

I am curious of this too. I mean are you saying that the ph being raised is in creasing precipitation?

arking_mark · Mar 23, 2021

Rob Biederman said:
I am curious of this too. I mean are you saying that the ph being raised is in creasing precipitation?

Yes. Per @Randy Holmes-Farley.

In seeking stability for my new tank, I was having trouble getting alk stability.

Long story short, pH helped me unlock my alk consumption and stabilize my pH.

As my pH went up, alk consumption went up. As pH went down alk consumption went down.

Chicken/egg problem for Alk/Ca/PH?

I transitioned off a 7+ year old tank and I'm 3 months into my new tank and have been struggling with getting my dosing regiment in. I started with 7ish Alk and a PH between 7.8 and 7.9. I use Brightwell Neomarine salt and have higher CO2 in the house. I decided to go Kalkwasser to get the PH...

www.reef2reef.com

blasterman · Mar 23, 2021

Unless the OP is running a C02 scrubber or dosing a lot of kalk we shouldn't be discussing pH. Why confuse the issue with a variable he has no control of?

With the small amount of corals he has in his tank even if he was raising pH it won't affect alk consumption much.

Dino blooms tell me there's a lot of nutrient and biological instability. As the dinos die off other beneficial competing microbiology grows back and this sucks a lot of carbon/alk out of the water. It will eventually stabilize. Ive had smaller tanks eat 2 dKH per day going through phases like this. Young tanks are nutty with alk consumption surges. If it keeps driving you nuts cut your alk dosing to every couple of days and set your target alk at 10. Corals won't care. Baking soda is cheap.

My main concern is two part dosing eventually causing high calcium.

arking_mark · Mar 23, 2021

blasterman said:
Unless the OP is running a C02 scrubber or dosing a lot of kalk we shouldn't be discussing pH. Why confuse the issue with a variable he has no control of?

With the small amount of corals he has in his tank even if he was raising pH it won't affect alk consumption much.

Dino blooms tell me there's a lot of nutrient and biological instability. As the dinos die off other beneficial competing microbiology grows back and this sucks a lot of carbon/alk out of the water. It will eventually stabilize. Ive had smaller tanks eat 2 dKH per day going through phases like this. Young tanks are nutty with alk consumption surges. If it keeps driving you nuts cut your alk dosing to every couple of days and set your target alk at 10. Corals won't care. Baking soda is cheap.

My main concern is two part dosing eventually causing high calcium.

I'm not aware of anything that consumes Alk in a tank and not Ca almost equally. I can point you to the science. Almost any dosing advice is to get your target numbers in place and then balanced dosing.

arking_mark · Mar 23, 2021

arking_mark said:
I'm not aware of anything that consumes Alk in a tank and not Ca almost equally. I can point you to the science. Almost any dosing advice is to get your target numbers in place and then balanced dosing.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-12/rhf/index.php