What am I doing wrong?

[Jakepen]

I have 9 teaspoons of kalk dissolved into my ATO, a five gallon bucket. My tank is 26 gallons, I have 20 small lps in my tank, and growing coraline steadily. Even with the nine teaspoons of dissolved kalk, I still dropped from 9.2 dkh to 7.1 in 24 hours. My calcium is 430, and magnesium 1400. How am I dropping so much alk, using kalk?

 

[dakoop]

If it is in your top off you only dose when you are topping off. If you don't have a lot of evaporation it wont dose.

 

[Jakepen]

If it is in your top off you only dose when you are topping off. If you don't have a lot of evaporation it wont dose.

Yeah I know. I would still think that 9 teaspoons would be enough to keep it stable, even if it doesn't dose that often. I'll go through about a half gallon a day maybe a little less in a day.

 

[BoneXriffic]

Supplement alk, my 29 used to di the same but opposite. I was dosing calcium 4 times as fast as alk to maintain

 

[Diesel]

You can manual dose the kalkwasser by dissolving some in a one gallon jug let it sit 24 hrs and move some of it into a 1 liter bottle, just be careful that you only use the clear water from the jug and not the kalkwasser settlement in the bottom.
You can dose about 2ml per gallon to start off everyday, prefer in two dosings per day.
Mean while test for ALK everyday at the same time.

 

[Reefhabit]

Yeah I don't think using your ATO is a reliable way to to keep your alk levels stable. How many gallons is the tank and are you getting any ph swings?From my experience I found that alk levels can drop considerably overnight in small systems. Maybe try a dosing pump instead.

 

[Jakepen]

Yeah, a bit of a bummer. I wanted to dose kalk through my ATO for the simple fact of convenience. You guys think my tank isn't evaporating enough water to maintain then?

 

[BoneXriffic]

Yeah, a bit of a bummer. I wanted to dose kalk through my ATO for the simple fact of convenience. You guys think my tank isn't evaporating enough water to maintain then?

If you were running halides it might evaporate enough, l.e.d.s wont burn water as quick

 

[BoneXriffic]

Btw awesome looking tank

 

[brandon429]

How has the test we are reacting to been validated accurate, what if alk is ok and reading is wrong?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yeah I know. I would still think that 9 teaspoons would be enough to keep it stable, even if it doesn't dose that often. I'll go through about a half gallon a day maybe a little less in a day.

Adding 1.25% of the total tank water volume will boost alk by about 1.4 dKH when using saturated limewater (about 2 tsp per gallon)

So if you are dosing much less than that, the daily dose is low.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Something is not right. I've dosed Kalkwasser via a gravity fed ATO in a 12g for nearly 8 yrs now and the little tank has quite a few stony corals.

Try creating a saturated solution of Kalkwasser, let sit for a day or two, then siphon off the clear liquid only and mix it in with RO/DI water in the ATO (the percentage mixed will depend on the tank's Alk/Ca usage).

 

[Jakepen]

Adding 1.25% of the total tank water volume will boost alk by about 1.4 dKH when using saturated limewater (about 2 tsp per gallon)

So if you are dosing much less than that, the daily dose is low.

Well that is less than a half gallon, which I thought I was going through in a day. Maybe not I guess?

 

[Diesel]

How has the test we are reacting to been validated accurate, what if alk is ok and reading is wrong?

^^^^^ Try a second opinion on your test kits ^^^^^^
What kind of test kits you using?

 

[Jakepen]

^^^^^ Try a second opinion on your test kits ^^^^^^
What kind of test kits you using?

Oh sorry guys. Hanna alk. Tested twice today actually, both read the same result.

 

[Jakepen]

Btw awesome looking tank

Thank you!

 

[Jakepen]

Adding 1.25% of the total tank water volume will boost alk by about 1.4 dKH when using saturated limewater (about 2 tsp per gallon)

So if you are dosing much less than that, the daily dose is low.

So I guess if my tank consumes 2 dkh per 24 hours, I would have to be dosing more than 1.25% to maintain.

 

[brandon429]

Was meaning two different test kits, compared on the action sample before action

about 80% of one off tests aren't right, even though they indicate an ability to show range among samples. We have probe misreading threads as well...

Most will absolutely not compare and will take the stand alone test as correct in each case, just pointing out a small confound when making full tank reactions with all other params in line and all life behaving normally

Online threads show any two hobby tests to read different readings for each param, so that makes pinpoint measures tough.

 

[Jakepen]

We mean not two tests with yours but two different test kits, about 80% of one off tests aren't right, even though they indicate an ability to show range among samples

Most will absolutely not compare and will take the stand alone test as correct in each case, just pointing out a small confound when making full tank reactions with all other params in line and all life behaving normally which does appear to be case so far. We're finding lots of single param barely off full tank reactions with no test verification.

I understand. Like you said, they have the ability to show range. In this case I think that's what matters most? I mean, it shows my tank dropping 2dkh in 24 hours.

 

[brandon429]

But what if it was high, and now drops into acceptable levels... with the money we spend on kits it's self defeating to consider them fallible, only going off recent thread trends. The hallmark clues are all other params acting normally, pH in this case too, no tank bio reflection of problem, and a single point unverified reading spurning the keeper into reaction by adding something usually.

That doesn't mean your test is wrong, just that those variables repeat on each param help thread, worth considering our own kit details. went through about a hundred single param threads online trend spotting vs test kit comparison threads (all read different levels) and emerged with that takeaway.