why does my ALK stay low?

[JohnOTS]

quick history:

I have had my tank for 1 year and started testing alk, ca and mag 8 months ago. Everything seems to do ok, SPS grows and has good color, zoas are just ok and LPS does good.

 

My ca stays between 380 and 440, my mg stays between 1200 and 1350 and my ALK stays between 6 and 7. I dose regulary with an AB every other day and with a MG additive twice a week.

 

I test the three with elos and salifert test kits.

 

Issue:

My ALK only beeing between 6 and 7, I think it should be higher. I think my zoas and other corals would do better if I could get it/keep it higher.

 

Question:

What approach should I use to get my ALK up? What different additives does everyone suggest?

[ajmckay]

Hmmm... You're right that your ALK should be a little bit higher.

 

Maybe re-read your dosing instructions for your 2-part...

 

Good luck.

[JohnOTS]

I have been following the instructions on my 2 part to the T. Does anyone else have any experience in raising low ALK. What have you used and what worked?

 

Shouldn't my two part do the trick?

[marinekeeper]

I have the same problem and all other parameters are in check. I never could figure it out, tanks been up and running for two years with no problems, so I said screw it

[JohnOTS]

it’s so weird... Maybe we just don’t know how to test the ALK properly....

 

There has to be something particular to our systems that keeps the ALK low.

[mmelnick]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong. But Alkalinity and PH are closely related. And they have to do with your buffering capacity. If you have a lot of calcium based live rock and sand then your system will be able to maintain the proper PH and Alk a lot more easily. That being said, I'm now having the same issues. I moved a few months back and will be moving again next month. I had some nasty detritus filled sand, so i decided to go without sand until after this next move in the end of Feb to avoid adding all that crap back into my tank. But my Alk is staying at about 6 Dkh.

 

I'm assuming that a nice deep sand bed will bring everything back to where it should be. But in the mean time you can use a store bought buffering additave. I also used baking soda when i was first seting up my tank and it worked great. My LFS recommended it, but I would research it first. It did work perfectly for me, but I have no idea if there could be anything other than sodium bicarbonate in the mixture (heavy metals or other elements since it is mined from the earth).

[lakshwadeep]

Are you adding the calcium and alkalinity equally? How does your alkalinity change between individual water changes and after your dosing? You may want to try a different dosing method. Use this to determine how much to dose:

http://reef.diesyst.com/flashcalc/flashcalc.html

 

Read this to understand calcium/alkalinity problems:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

[JohnOTS]

Thanks for the feedback. I currently have about a 4 ~ 5 inch sand bed and about 30 lbs of live rock in a 34 gallon tank. I am about to add more rock, hopefully this will help.

 

Does anyone have any particular experience on what store bought products work well? I was hoping to avoid powder alk suppliments.

[JohnOTS]

anyone?

[amnestia]

Not sure if this helps but here are some tips on what I do. Before I did this regimen my Alk could drop from 9 to 7 in the period of 2-3 days due to my high alk consumption.

 

Find what your daily "intake" of alk is whether in powder form (grams) or liquid form (ml) by doing daily testing and dosing till you find out what your consumption rate is. Literally just dose till it gets to 9dkh (same day testing will usually give you a skewed result). After that, dose HOWEVER much you need to, to keep the dkh at 9. IE you dose 20g of buffer to get a skewed result of 9dkh, test the next day if it drops to 8 then increase to lets say 24g, test the next day if it's back up to 9 then continue with that 24g, if it gets too high then drop it down to 22g etc etc until you find out your daily intake. Once you have it down you can test weekly and make adjustments as needed.

 

For my 120 i'm dosing roughly 20g of baking soda (old school) everyday and it stays around 9.5 dkh +/- .5 and I adjust as needed.

 

I like to dose mag on a weekly or bi-weekly bases, whatever will keep it at around 1400ppm. Mag has a canceling effect with alk buffer so you want to dose these half a day apart at least. It also drops very slowly so one large dosage every few weeks usually does the job.

 

The powdered buffers are basically the same as the liquid stuff, just diluted in ro/di water (the ingredient in kents superbuffer and his liquid buffer is the same thing).

 

Hope that helps.

 

ps. I also did the same thing with calcium and dose that as needed (right now it's about 15g per day) I can see how fast my tank is growing by measuring its daily calcium intake.

[JohnOTS]

thanks amnestia,

 

so you don't use a 2 part, you dose separate additives? So if my alk is 6 how much could I dose a day? What is a safe amount to increase in 24 hours? I have 3 relatevly expensive fish I don't want to risk harming them.

[Lawnman]

What salt mix you using Oceanic?

[JohnOTS]

What salt mix you using Oceanic?

 

no I use oceanic d and d. My newly mixed salt reads alk at 10 to 11

 

no I use oceanic d and d. My newly mixed salt reads alk at 10 to 11

 

hahahahaha you put ocianic and for some reason my mind read something completly different.

[Lawnman]

HUH? I am confused LOL What kind of salt do you use for water changes? What is Oceanic d&d?

[JohnOTS]

HUH? I am confused LOL What kind of salt do you use for water changes? What is Oceanic d&d?

 

 

sorry it's called d-d h2ocean magnesium pro

 

http://www.marinedepot.com/D_D_H2Ocean_Mag...11-FISM-vi.html

[steely185]

Low alk will slow your reef's ability to make use of the calcium resulting in less calcium based growth like coralline algae.

 

I was having my alk stay at 7 kH and calcium at 420 for the longest time. I recently corrected this by adding kalkwasser to my top off. I have a tunze osmolator that pulls from a five gallon bucket of fresh ro/di water. I began adding half to 1 teaspoon of kalk per gallon of water in the top off bucket. It slowly has taken my kH to 9-10 while not raising my pH too much (thanks to the slow addition by my osmolator) You may want to take this approach. It's easy and if you have a trustworthy ATO then it should be no problem to use.

[bulldogpet]

I would not read too much into your tanks chemistry. I say this because doing so can have dramatic affects on your corals etc. I personally think your Alk is not that low it could maybe come up a point or so if you take a look around at some of the Tanks of the month on RC you will see that most of their Alk is between 6-9 dkh if your corals are thriving and healthy then leave well enough alone.

 

As far as you zoanthids are concerned I would dose some vitamin C from brightwell it will make a world of difference trust me. I think a lot of people try to micro manage their tanks chemistry and it only causes more harm than good. I have learned over the years to trust your tank inhabitants as a bases on if something is out of wack or not. This is JMO take it with a grain of salt. Good luck!

[coolwaters]

bake some baking soda for a while and mix it with freshwater. add very slowly and very little at a time. btw the teaspoons. dose in the morning and test at night helped get my lvls to 11-12.