uwharrie Posted May 24, 2016 Author Share Posted May 24, 2016 If you want to save some money muriatic acid can be used to lower the dkh of water before you add if to the tank.http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1530419 Randy Holmes explains how to calculate in this post. Thanks. Link to comment
thomas8man Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Using Red Sea black bucket. The alk had been the same since I started. Never thought to test my RO/ DI water Salt makes a difference and I see what they are saying but the Reef pro salt is better for SPS and the regular blue reef salt is better for LPS. Elements make a huge difference of how certain corals can grow. To be honest I cannot keep torch at all and gave up but i can have acans, brain, lobo. I feed my corals every two days with poylp lab reef roids LPS tend to like a dirty tank compared to a super duper clean SPS tank. That is why it can be tricky to do a combo tank. I highly doubt that it is your RO/DI water is destroying tank mostly elements and nutrients. Link to comment
uwharrie Posted May 24, 2016 Author Share Posted May 24, 2016 Haha I could not keep SPS either. Will feed more often ( with only two fish tank is pretty "clean") Since everything was doing so well for several months I suspect clean tank and high Alk is the culprit. Getting some muratic acid today and start lowering the alk. Link to comment
uwharrie Posted May 25, 2016 Author Share Posted May 25, 2016 I was able to get some Muriatic Acid but now a bit afraid to dose the tank after reading through the referred thread.. Cant get blue bucket RS for a few weeks, would IO work for the mean time? How drastic is dosing with Muriatic Acid to lower dKh? Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 I was able to get some Muriatic Acid but now a bit afraid to dose the tank after reading through the referred thread.. Cant get blue bucket RS for a few weeks, would IO work for the mean time? How drastic is dosing with Muriatic Acid to lower dKh? Yep... Use IO to lower it. Link to comment
Got Corals Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 are you on a doser? IMO your ALK is way to high.. I wish i could ship you some NSW for a water change- I am firm believer.. Link to comment
uwharrie Posted May 25, 2016 Author Share Posted May 25, 2016 Not dosing. The ALK has to be from the salt mix as my tap water is 2. Just trying to decide if I should bite the bullet and add the Muriatic Acid. from what I read I should try 5 ml mixed with at least 50 ml of non salt water and add to high flow area of the tank. Just a little afraid :-) Link to comment
CronicReefer Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 I was able to get some Muriatic Acid but now a bit afraid to dose the tank after reading through the referred thread.. Cant get blue bucket RS for a few weeks, would IO work for the mean time? How drastic is dosing with Muriatic Acid to lower dKh? You do not dose the tank at all with muriatic acid. I was saying to do this ONLY for NEW saltwater that is being mixed. If your new saltwater mixes at 12dkh you can reduce it to let's say 8dkh with muriatic acid. Link to comment
ReefWeeds Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 Why not just get a salt that has lower alk and do a series of 25% water changes over a few days? You don't want to drop all drastically anyway.. Link to comment
Pjanssen Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 are you on a doser? IMO your ALK is way to high.. I wish i could ship you some NSW for a water change- I am firm believer.. Some of us are so fortunate to live where we can easily get NSW. Link to comment
rjl45 Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 Get yourself the Red Sea Reef foundation test kit (magnesium, calcium, alkalinity) and test all three. If you don't understand the chemical relationship of the 3, search BRS dosing on youtube, they do a great job of explaining it. If you want all the details Randy Holmes-Farley has written a couple very detailed papers on the topic. Ideally you want to keep the 3 parameters balanced. Link to comment
Polarcollision Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 Hey there, didn't mean to sound like the blue bucket was the only option. Any salt that mixes closer to natural sea levels will work for you, not only the redsea blue bucket. Instant ocean has 2 formulations: they regular salt and high Alk salt.There are probably others too. TBH, the main reason I use redsea blue bucket is because they list the potassium levels at 1,026 salinity, which means I don't have to test for it... :-) The high alk salts were made for those who do not try to keep their levels stable, but want to replenish alk and ca used up by stony corals when they do a water change. From my experience with the redSea test kits, I personally hated using them because the reagents crystalized and the colrimetric color changes were too obscure to be meaningful in regards to the level of accuracy suggested in the advertising. I am back to ELOS. Simple to use, easy to read. Link to comment
uwharrie Posted May 25, 2016 Author Share Posted May 25, 2016 Thanks everyone. This is what I really love about this forum. Folk are always willing to help us newbies! Link to comment
Clown79 Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 I had issues with my params. Everyone advised water changes would be enough in a small system...it wasn't. My params dropped big time. I changed to reef crystals and that didn't work. I tested my newly mixed water before a water change- that was my problem. The reef crystals great for ca and alk but very low on mag. My mag dropped so much that my ca and alk were dropping too. I now dose mag because with every water change- it drops back to 1140. Check your newly mixed salt water for ca, alk, and mag. Link to comment
uwharrie Posted June 5, 2016 Author Share Posted June 5, 2016 25 % water change with IO and lowered the dkh only by 1 ( 11 now) added muratic acid per the randy holmes post on reef central. was able to lower to between 10 and 11 but that lowered my pH to 7.4) Lost the last head on my Duncan so down to just the mushrooms, GSP and Zoa. Need to run more RO and see if I can do several water changes in a week to get the dkh down. Have not been able to test for Mag yet as I have been working 6 days a week and the closest LFS is over a hour away. Link to comment
Clown79 Posted June 5, 2016 Share Posted June 5, 2016 What is your calcium at? My alk was creeping up the last 2 weeks when my ca dropped, I've increased my ca to 410-420, kept my mag 1200-1300 and now my alk is back to normal...i was finding increased water changes was doing nothing. Very frustrating! When you get a chance check the ca and mag and let us know Link to comment
Clown79 Posted June 5, 2016 Share Posted June 5, 2016 Jeez and alk is still high? Have you tried getting the lfs to test alk to see if there is a discrepancy? Link to comment
uwharrie Posted June 5, 2016 Author Share Posted June 5, 2016 Jeez and alk is still high? Have you tried getting the lfs to test alk to see if there is a discrepancy? I will if I can ever get by there. Working 6 days a week and it being over a hour away makes it hard to pay them a visit But giving what is going on with the corals I don't doubt my alk is up. Link to comment
North Borders Posted June 8, 2016 Share Posted June 8, 2016 If your alk is that high and your pH is staying in the mid 7's then you have a CO2 issue with relation to the pH. Try increasing the flow and open a window for a bit near the tank. Just off the top of my head, a dkH around 10 should give you around 8.35 for a pH if the water is properly aerated. Water with that high of an alk reading and that low of a pH is almost always a CO2 issue from what I've read. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/ ^Randy's wonderful write up on the subject. I was having my own issues with pH as it relates to alk when I was first starting out and didn't realize at the time it was mostly lack of flow and fresh air that was causing my low pH probs. Link to comment
uwharrie Posted June 10, 2016 Author Share Posted June 10, 2016 Lots of flow. The pH was 8-8.4 until I started trying to lower the dKh. did another water chance today with a few ccs of muriatic added. DkH now 9, pH 7.6 will let thing settle and see what shakes out. I am seeing happier softies, My zoa's are open more and GSP look really happy. Now if I can keep it stable Link to comment
uwharrie Posted June 10, 2016 Author Share Posted June 10, 2016 Dkh 9 ph 8. Now let's see if it stays that way Link to comment
Clown79 Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 Are you testing the ph at the same time of day every time? Ph changes throughout the day and is altered by light. If you test in the am when lights are off, the ph will be lower than at 6pm after lights have been on all day. If you are testing at different times of day-you may be chasing ph. Try testing it later in the day. My ph in the am is 8 in the later afternoon 8.2 Link to comment
CronicReefer Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 Are you testing the ph at the same time of day every time? Ph changes throughout the day and is altered by light. If you test in the am when lights are off, the ph will be lower than at 6pm after lights have been on all day. If you are testing at different times of day-you may be chasing ph. Try testing it later in the day. My ph in the am is 8 in the later afternoon 8.2 Her PH was affected because of the muriatic acid, nothing to do with time of day. Muriatic acid basically removes all the oxygen from the water causing pH to drop significantly if you don't give it time to oxygenate again. Link to comment
uwharrie Posted June 13, 2016 Author Share Posted June 13, 2016 pH is still 8 dKh 9 The remaining corals seem so much happier, Hopefully I have figured this out. will be using IO for monthly water changes ( weekly did not seem to be needed) I did notice what looks to be Cyno on the sand when I got home yesterday ( gone for the weekend) It also must like the better parameters If I can stay stable for a month may start adding LPS again. Link to comment
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