May have overdosed on Kalk, HELP

[SteveD]

Being a kalk newbie I've been steadlily increasing my dosage to keep up with evaporation. I've been testing all along and things have been fine. Got a little sloppy with my testing and aggressive with the kalk and my ph seems to be sky high. I hate those little color chips(btw are you supposed to have the vial touching the white area or pulled away from it). It does seem my ph is over 8.6 as when I add tap water it continues to stay purple. How bad is this? Should I add a little vinager to correct? My calium is about 520, would it not fall out of suspension at that high of a PH?

[mogurnda]

That's one of the down sides of kalk, it can drive your pH up. This is especially true if it goes in too fast so that the system is not pulling in enough CO2 to stay in balance. How much are you using, in how big a tank?

Adding 50 ml white vinegar per gallon of kalkwasser helped keep my pH down to 8.4 or so (usually). Randy Holmes-Farley gives a few other suggestions in this article (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/rhf/index.htm).

[SteveD]

I have a 125g with a 55g sump. I have been adding about 2.5 gallons mixed with about 6 teaspoons of kalk dripped over about 2 days. The ph looks to be in the 8.5-8.6 range and the alk 240 ppm based on test strips(all I could dig up). How much kalk do you use per gallon?

[Max]

SteveD, It depends on what you ph, and calcium level are. I'd try to keep ph at about 8.3 or so if you have sps . If it gets much higher than that ,"you're probably ok by the way," dose with a little vinegar that will lower your ph . Just don't go fast especially if you have corals and anemones they can't take a sudden lurch or decline.
hth
chris

[mogurnda]

Yeah, your dosing sounds good. When I dosed, I used the same recipe, with added vinegar.

If I am converting correctly (I think in terms of mEq/L), your alkalinity sounds ok. Is it a sw kit?

[corriewf]

Being a kalk newbie I've been steadlily increasing my dosage to keep up with evaporation. I've been testing all along and things have been fine. Got a little sloppy with my testing and aggressive with the kalk and my ph seems to be sky high. I hate those little color chips(btw are you supposed to have the vial touching the white area or pulled away from it). It does seem my ph is over 8.6 as when I add tap water it continues to stay purple. How bad is this? Should I add a little vinager to correct? My calium is about 520, would it not fall out of suspension at that high of a PH?


One obvious problem I see here is the fact that your slowly destroying your tank by using tap water. That would be my first concern over ph problems.

[mogurnda]

I thought Steve was just diluting the water in the test kit vial with tap.

I just re-read your original post. I somehow missed that your Ca is over 500. If this is true, and it's not just a wacky test kit, then the first thing you can do is cut down the amount of kalk in your mix.

How much demand have you got, in terms of stony corals, clams, etc?

[corriewf]

I thought Steve was just diluting the water in the test kit vial with tap.

I just re-read your original post. I somehow missed that your Ca is over 500. If this is true, and it's not just a wacky test kit, then the first thing you can do is cut down the amount of kalk in your mix.

How much demand have you got, in terms of stony corals, clams, etc?

Ok, I thought he was saying that he was adding tap water to the tank to see if that would dilute the ph.Still not clear. Also could cut back on vinegar if utilized here.

[Max]

Wow! I missed it to that's to much ca. I'd do a water change fast but, I'm a big chicken.

[SteveD]

Wow I should of checked in sooner! I use only ro/di water in the tank. I was just using tap water to dilute the result to see what color I really had. I am real bad at matching up colors! I just got my aquacontroller and my PH has been running 8.2-8.3. Eveverything seems to be fine, my calcium is still around 500. My demand consists of 1 3" sps, and 3 clams. I think I was a little over zealous on the kalk! I am going to let it come down on its own and do my regular 10% weekly water changes.

[mogurnda]

Sounds good. Your pH is very nice, and the Ca is high-normal.

Figuring out dosing is one of the hardest things. You have to make little tweaks, and then watch the trends over days or even weeks. It's great once you have it worked out, though.

[SteveD]

I've decided to log everything I put into the tank and the daily readings as well. Maybe not forever but at least until this new tank is up to speed. My doisng system now consists of a 5 gallon bucket with a float valve hooked up to my R/O system. I have a very small powerhead in the bucket to keep things mixed up. My drip rate now remains the constant I just need to figure out how much kalk and vinager to add and when.

[mogurnda]

Basically a low-tech kalk reactor :D

[SteveD]

Basically a low-tech kalk reactor :D


High tech for me, lol. BTW I saw in another post you have a foxface. Are they a peaceful reefsafe fish? I have a yellow tang and a flame angel now, I am not sure if the yellow will like another yellow fish.

[mogurnda]

The foxface gets along pretty well with my kole tang, but I got them at the same time from a guy who was shutting down, and they had been together about a year. It may be harder with a yellow tang, and introducing the foxface as the new guy. I think the foxface is pretty tough though. Just points his poison spines at anyone who gives him trouble.

Some foxfaces will nip at corals, I hear. Mine never seems to, though.

[kbmdale]

Maybe I am wrong but I read 2 things your doing wrong in this post....


A. You should be dripping kalkwasser from a sealed container. The air will kill the mixture and make its potency go way down.

B. the mix shouldn't be constantly stired. The stuff that settles to the bottom isn't good for your tank anyway you want it to settle and you throw out the unused.