What is considered high alkinity?

Arawk408 · Nov 10, 2021

Hello,

Today while cleaning my tanks glass I discovered my Blue Hippo Tang has died.. So i've decided to run some water test.. I started with Alkinity first and its reading at 13.2. I'm trying to follow my LSF water parms and they have it from 9-11DKH. Is 13 too high? I recently started dosing AK/CA/MG using Redseas water calculator for my tank.

The calculator has 75G + 20G Sump (95G)
CA 10.8ML Daily
KH 32.4ML Daily
MG 3.8ML

I'm still going to do some other water test atm but I just thought I'd ask about this first.

Thanks

dedragon · Nov 10, 2021

you need to stop dosing until the levels are corrected, they are recommended dosing for tank sizes but arent gonna be perfect, i doubt the alkalinity killed the hippo tang though

dedragon · Nov 10, 2021

post all levels though as that would help; salinity, temp, calcium, mag, nitrate, ammonia, phosphate, etc

mdb_talon · Nov 10, 2021

It sounds like you used a redsea dosing calculator based off tank size....then today started testing? If i got that correct i would switch that up a lot. Need to be testing to measure consumption first...then calculate how much to dose. Tanks can and do vary dramatically in how much to dose.

As to the question of if 13 is too high i would say yes. 8-12 is commonly used range. Even then i think being at the high end of that range increases risk quite a bit. Especially if you are just starting to dose i would not aim for anything higher than 9. Once you get the hang of it and have a good handle on keeping it steady then if you really want you can start gradually increasing it.

shakacuz · Nov 10, 2021

personally, anything above 9, to me, is high!

on paper, and based off thousands of reefers, and research. anything above 12.

vetteguy53081 · Nov 10, 2021

Above 12dkh

Safe range 8-11

Arawk408 · Nov 10, 2021

mdb_talon said:
It sounds like you used a redsea dosing calculator based off tank size....then today started testing? If i got that correct i would switch that up a lot. Need to be testing to measure consumption first...then calculate how much to dose. Tanks can and do vary dramatically in how much to dose.

As to the question of if 13 is too high i would say yes. 8-12 is commonly used range. Even then i think being at the high end of that range increases risk quite a bit. Especially if you are just starting to dose i would not aim for anything higher than 9. Once you get the hang of it and have a good handle on keeping it steady then if you really want you can start gradually increasing it.

Should I test weekly w/out dosing to see what I am at versus the end of week what it drops too and calculate off that? I'm doing a water change right now and I turned my doser off for the mean time.

mdb_talon · Nov 10, 2021

Arawk408 said:
Should I test weekly w/out dosing to see what I am at versus the end of week what it drops too and calculate off that? I'm doing a water change right now and I turned my doser off for the mean time.

I would test after the WC and use that as your starting point. Then do no dosing or WC and test daily or at least every other day for at least a week to see the drop per day. Then the dosing needs to be based off that. Even then need to be testing frequently at first to get dosage dialed in. Once you keeping it stable you can test much less frequently(though still needed as usually consumption increases over time in a healthy/growing tank)

Twoddler · Nov 10, 2021

I would target your Alk to match the salt you use, this way if you have to do a large water change the swing would nt be too much.

Arawk408 · Nov 11, 2021

Did a 15G water change last night and it was still high this morning so I cyphoned out another 10G and its still at 13.4 how can I get it lower?

Miami Reef · Nov 11, 2021

I believe 9dkh is a good number to hover around because it will reduce likelihood of perception on pumps. I think the higher the PH the more likely of precipitation.

mdb_talon · Nov 11, 2021

What is the dkh of the salt of your water changes? . Are you using rodi or tapwater?

You stated it was 13.2 originally. Now you did a WC and it is 13.4? If for example you did a 20% WC with an 8dkh mix then it would drop to 12.1. A few changes like that every couple days and you are at 10 in less than a week.

If you are using a high dkh salt(or using tapwater) then it is going to take a lot of WC