Raising alkalinity

[Troy93]

Just did a water change and then tested calcium and Alkalinity.

Calcium= 480-490

Alk=8-9

I think the instant ocean salt causes my alk to drop.....

 

Can i use straight baking soda to raise my alk to about ten?

[Bill Nye]

Just did a water change and then tested calcium and Alkalinity.

Calcium= 480-490

Alk=8-9

I think the instant ocean salt causes my alk to drop.....

 

Can i use straight baking soda to raise my alk to about ten?

 

 

Alk of 8 or 9 is fine. I only use two part but you can probably do a search on the forums to find out the exact thing you need. Also my experience with instant ocean is that it had high alk...like in the 11/12 range while also having very low calc...around 360 to 380 from my tests. Mag is also very low in this salt. Are you dosing calcium or did you just switch to Instant Ocean?

[Troy93]

Ya i switched to io about a week ago because the lfs was out of oceanic and because io has a better value. I was dosing a two part but my caluim started to get to high for my liking. I stoped using the two part and now my calium is where i want it but not my alk. The reason i want my alk around 10 is so that by the end of the week after my tank uses up the alk and calcium, i can just replenish it with a 10% water change. Hope that made sense

[lakshwadeep]

+1 to alkalinity of 8-9 dKH being in the normal range. The easiest way to deal with high calcium is to do nothing, even if the alkalinity drops to ~7 dKH. Besides, if you have a two part, you could just add the alkalinity portion alone. This is a useful article on solving calcium/alkalinity problems:

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

[Troy93]

okay thanks